Amazon Helps Finance Conversion Of Long-Vacant Alexandria Office Building
The plan to turn an office building in Alexandria's West End that has been vacant for more than 20 years into apartments is moving forward after it received financing, including a loan from Amazon.
Stonebridge has closed a $130M financing deal to turn the 607K SF building at 5001 Eisenhower Ave., known as the Victory Building, into 377 units of fully affordable housing, principal Doug Firstenberg told Bisnow.
Amazon is providing a long-term, low-rate subordinate loan from its Housing Equity Fund. Kennedy Wilson is providing debt financing, Criterion Real Estate Capital is providing equity, and the city of Alexandria is contributing a 25-year tax abatement, its inaugural such abatement for housing, which it approved in 2024.
Firstenberg declined to detail the amount of funding coming from each source, but the Washington Business Journal cited public records showing Amazon's portion is $33.9M.
Stonebridge has been planning to convert the Victory Building since 2023, but the plan to make it 100% affordable was a change Amazon needed in order to invest. It was previously envisioned as mixed-income.
In the new plan, half the units are reserved for those making between 50% and 60% of the area median income and half for those making 80% AMI. There will also be 99-year affordability covenant.
The project is scheduled to welcome its first residents in summer 2027.
“For 20 years, this vacant building at 5001 Eisenhower Avenue has been a missed opportunity for Alexandria's West End,” Amazon Housing Equity Fund Managing Principal Senthil Sankaran said in a press release.
“Through our investment structure and long-term affordability commitment, we’re helping convert this dormant property into a vibrant residential community of 377 affordable homes that will anchor neighborhood revitalization,” he added.
Firstenberg told Bisnow that setting the affordable capital stack was complex and took around five to six months to get done. On top of that, the team had the burden of convincing investors that D.C. is still a safe place to put money.
“There was very limited good real estate news in Washington in 2025,” Firstenberg said. “So while this project itself — we know there's a huge shortage of affordable housing, the demand is going to be exceptionally strong — you're still convincing all these investors that it's OK to be in Washington right now, and that was just an added challenge to getting this deal done.”
Kennedy Wilson, which has done several office conversion financing deals in the D.C. area, was at the top of Stonebridge’s wishlist from the start, Firstenberg said.
Alexandria Mayor Alyia Gaskins said in a release that although the city has been “a leader” in office-to-residential conversions,” this project in particular — given its scale, affordability, unit size and metro accessibility — is a “major accomplishment” for the city and for the West End development efforts.
The conversion of 5001 Eisenhower solves the problem of an office building that has been vacant since the Army Materiel Command moved out in 2003. In the years that followed, it lost out on multiple federal agency tenant opportunities.
Stonebridge purchased the building in 2019 for $43M and was initially planning to lease the office up while developing residential on the surrounding parking lots. A year later, however, the developer sold the parking lot land to Winchester Homes for townhouse development.
Across the river, in D.C., Stonebridge is in the middle of a few different office repositioning projects. It has nearly completed its redevelopment of the former WMATA headquarters at 600 Fifth St. NW for anchor tenant Crowell & Moring.
It is also demolishing a 300K SF office building on K Street and building in its place a 435-unit apartment building.
