A new investment firm focused on discounted office buildings has made a splash with its first acquisition: shelling out nine figures for a historic property just a few blocks from the White House.

Montclif, founded this year by a pair of D.C. real estate veterans, and joint venture partner FCP paid $126M for Hamilton Square, they announced in a press release Monday. The 278K SF property at 600 14th St. NW in downtown D.C. was built in 1929 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“Hamilton Square is precisely the asset we started Montclif to own,” Montclif co-founder Erik Weinberg said in a statement. 

“Acquiring the asset at a reset basis with a fresh capital stack will allow us to continue to maintain the building's status as a top-tier asset,” he added. 

The seller was CommonWealth Partners, which purchased the property for $198M in 2012, according to deed records.

CommonWealth didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Deed records show the partnership secured an $84.6M loan from Athene Annuity and Life Co., a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management.

Hamilton Square is fully leased, according to its new owners, and is home to tenants including IBM and GE. Coworking company Convene Hospitality Group expanded its footprint in the building to 80K SF in the first quarter.

An eponymous restaurant and music venue is located on the ground floor, and D.C.'s first location of Chicago deep-dish pizza staple Giordano’s opened this summer.

The new owners said they plan to make “select operational and capital enhancements” to build on a $17M renovation completed in 2020.

Montclif was founded in April by Weinberg, a former FCP partner, and Jackson Prentice, who spent most of his career at Carr Properties and MRP Realty. 

Based in Chevy Chase, the firm is targeting $1B in investment along the East Coast and Sun Belt — largely office buildings with distressed or underperforming capital stacks in the price range of $30M to $150M. 

Rather than raising large funds, the founders envisioned creating joint ventures for each deal and, at the time of its launch, expected FCP would be an equity partner. Pittsburgh-based Federated Hermes Inc. acquired a majority share of FCP last year.

The sale of Hamilton Square is part of a wave of investment in downtown D.C. office properties by private companies looking to take advantage of discounts.

The sale comes in at $453 per SF, a relatively high price for recent downtown D.C. office sales but still a large discount from the $712 per SF CommonWealth paid in 2012.