Carr Properties just delivered 1700 New York Ave, a glittering new office property next to the Corcoran Gallery. But the firm didn't actually own the land underneath the building—until last Friday.

Oliver Carr (whom we snapped with Newmark's Brett Diamond and Cassidy Turley's Mark Sullivan last fall) confirmed to us that his firm purchased 1700 New York's land last week for $20.5M from the Corcoran Gallery. Carr had been under a ground lease with the Gallery while the building was under construction, but had an agreement to purchase the land once the 120k SF building delivered. (You can't have dessert until you finish the meal. You can't get your building 'til you finish your leasing.)

Carr had big pre-leasing success at 1700 New York, as law firm Sullivan & Cromwell moved into a big chunk of space recently, as did SmithGroup, who designed the building. (You know there's got to be secret passageways all over their space.) No word on how the deal affects the Corcoran's situation; in years past it had explored possibly selling its building, and a few weeks ago announced the National Gallery of Art would take over its collection and GWU would take over Corcoran College. The new structure isn't final yet, but GW would assume ownership of the gallery building if approved.