Sure, office and apartment buildings are nice to buy, but what if you're not into that? There's a world of alternative investments out there,and institutional players are noticing. (We're hoping alt musicians notice, too. Meet your new landlord: Michael Stipe.)

This morning, Federal Capital Partners' Tom Carr (right, whom we snapped with colleagues Steve Walsh, Jason Bonderenko, and E.J. Corwin) told us his firm continues to seek premium returns through alternative means like structured debt,manufactured housing and self-storage facilities. The reason behind the investments? The FCP strategy of finding value opportunities in asset classes and geographies competitors might be overlooking. In Tom's words, "Hit it where they ain't."

It's why FCP has formed a partnership with Self Storage Zone on the $12.8M development of a new facility at 645 Taylor St NE near Catholic U, which the the partners bought in November (that's Self Storage Zone's Capitol Heights location, above). E.J. adds that these aren't impulse decisions, noting that entering into alternative assets or new markets is the "product of years of work," to ensure fundamentals of each market segment are understood: "It's a selective and methodical process." (The same method you should use when opening an old storage unit. Those Cabbage Patch dolls may have come alive.)

And while Tom says that FCP "couldn't be a more bullish group of individuals" on the DC market, they're also investing actively in outside geographies like Philadelphia, Virginia Beach, and Raleigh (above), where the firm has opened a small office. He adds that the experience of the firm's execs helps when entering new markets, as most of them have helped other firms penetrate new geographies before (he helped enter more than a dozennew markets while at CarrAmerica).