EastBanc's New CEO On 'The Opportunity Of Our Generation'

As a new leader takes over the helm of 40-year-old development firm EastBanc, the company is embarking on what it sees as a generational buying opportunity.

The D.C.-based company, which owns large swaths of Georgetown retail, as well as office and multifamily in the city, has stayed on the sidelines of the buying market for the last half a decade. While it has developed multifamily buildings in recent years, its last acquisition was in 2018.

But amid D.C.'s office reset, with properties trading for steep discounts, EastBanc sees an opportunity to pounce.

“This is a new start for us,” EastBanc CEO Philippe Lanier told Bisnow in an interview.

He took over the role this month from his father, founder Anthony Lanier.

Over decades of acquiring and developing properties in D.C., EastBanc has been through cycle after cycle — but never anything like this. 

“When I say this is the opportunity of our generation, my father's gone through three major purchase cycles in the history of EastBanc, one in the mid ’90s, one in early 2000, and one in 2008. And in none of those was he able to lock down buildings at a basis that you can get today,” Lanier told Bisnow. 

EastBanc is far from the only investor that sees this opportunity in D.C. Many investors are swarming to buy at the discounts the market is offering — both legacy players and new firms that launched to take advantage of the moment. 

These investors include players like the Jemals, the family behind Douglas Development Corp., which has been buying up portions of D.C. real estate since the early 1980s. It also includes newer firms like Taicoon Property Partners, founded in 2023 by Sentinel Real Estate veteran Hai Chien Wang.

And they're all moving quickly.

In the past year, the Jemals have purchased four area office buildings, at least three of which have been through a new venture spearheaded by the younger of the Jemal sons, Matthew. In its first two years, Taicoon purchased its first four D.C.-area office buildings, three in D.C. proper that it is repositioning to higher-quality office.

Lanier said EastBanc is working to have its first deal done by the end of the summer, and he sees the potential for six deals under its control by the end of 2027.

There is a caveat, though: The company needs the capital to come along for the ride. The new CEO said EastBanc is capitalized to put in its share of equity for that volume of deals, but like nearly all firms, it would need partners to take on the bulk of the investment.  

“I could only do that if the environment turns and more capital chooses D.C. as an investment opportunity. That has not been the case to date,” Lanier said. “I do think that the chances are better that that happens this year than it was in the past.”

In the years since the pandemic, institutional investors have been wary of the nation’s capital. First, a slow return to the office driven by the federal government's practices caused activity in downtown to plummet and commercial property owners to struggle.

Then, the Trump administration disrupted the region's economy with its funding and workforce cuts. The region lost 62,100 government jobs between January 2025 and 2026 and 103,900 jobs overall, exceeding any other U.S. metro region by far. 

Even with the federal government’s return-to-office policy enacted at the beginning of last year, which helped boost the rest of the workforce's in-office activity, older office buildings continue to struggle. Owners of buildings in the commodity Class-A, Class-B and Class-C segments are underwater on loans and often unable to refinance or do new deals. 

As Lanier plans Eastbanc's new acquisition strategy, he is most interested in what he calls “truly broken office,” the type that is trading at $100 per SF. But he is specifically interested in the buildings that have good bones, buildings that don't need to be torn down but just require repositioning and could use a firm like EastBanc to turn them around.

“When you have a 10-, 20-year horizon and you can buy something for cents on the dollar, it's really exciting what you can do, particularly if you're a developer, and not just an investor, because we're not limited by the macro,” he said. “We can influence the macro by actually going in and changing something.”

Because these buildings are trading at such a low basis, Lanier said he’s able to offer investors extremely attractive returns given the company’s plan to reposition these properties. 

He said he is “confidently” able to advertise returns to the tune of 20% to 30%.

“When you buy something at this low of a basis, it's just a matter of time and effort,” Lanier said. “You can get the money back, because there's a gap between the replacement costs of building a brand-new building and what you're doing right now. Inevitably, over time, they come closer to each other.”

The company has had previous cycles where it has taken advantage of the market to find good deals and acquire at low bases. 

Lanier said the company’s last real buying spree was between 2001 and 2004. It had a “mini-spree” in the two-year period after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, during which it made several acquisitions of development sites. 

The company views the moment right now as the most attractive of those cycles, even if it isn’t for the faint of heart. 

“This is the best entrance point that we’ve ever seen in the history of our company,” Lanier said. “Doesn’t mean it’s the easiest. There's a reason why [values are] that low, but that's what makes it exciting.”