JBG has just traded another vacant multifamily complex in DC, selling The Woodley apartments in Woodley Park to TIAA-CREF. The deal has shattered the area's price-per-unit record. (Records, like ground, were made to be broken.)
Sources tell us Teachers bought the 212-unit vacant property for $195M, or a staggering $920k per unit. (The math Teachers made us figure that out.) That's 70% larger than the previous highest price-per-unit figure—the sale of the Palatine apartments in Arlington in 2011 (another Teachers buy, coincidentally). It's also the second big vacant apartment sale between the two parties this month; JBG weeks ago sold Teachers the Louis at 14th apartments near U Street for $170M-plus. (Developers in DC often sell new vacant apartment buildings to avoid the city's lengthy TOPA law allowing tenants the right to purchase.) CIM Group was JBG's JV partner in The Woodley.
HFF's Dave Nachison and Alan Davis (pictured) and team repped JBG in the sale, which closed Friday. So why would Teachers pony up so much dough? For one, the expected rent at The Woodley is off-the-charts, according to sources, as rates could eclipse $4 per SF. There also may have been a premium on the location, we're told, as Woodley Park caters to an upper-echelon renter mix of embassy folk and other wealthy demographics. As Teachers has demonstrated with its purchase of the Louis and other iconic properties like the Evening Star office building (bought in 2011), the fund clearly chooses to invest in best-in-class assets in DC—and pays big numbers for them.
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