This Week's D.C. Deal Sheet

The city of Manassas moved to acquire a key property in its historic downtown on Wednesday, with hopes that it will fuel broader goals for mixed-use, walkable development.

The Manassas Economic Development Authority voted in favor of acquiring the Olde Towne Inn in the city's historic downtown for $5.75M, following a period of due diligence. Built in the 1960s, the inn is located in the “geographic center” of downtown, the authority noted in a press release.

“One of our key functions as an Authority is to support the City through real estate acquisition and disposition,” EDA Chairman Gary Jones said in a statement. “I can’t think of a bigger impact we could have on the continued revitalization of Downtown than this.”

The city now has the option to redevelop the parcel, located at 9403 Main St. The sellers and city have yet to come to a decision over whether the hotel will continue to operate on a temporary basis, though the sellers expressed an interest in seeing the property continue to be used as a hotel.

The site’s next use will be determined through a public process.

FINANCING

Triangle Development Associates secured a $44M refinancing for the Park Triangle development in Columbia Heights, lender EagleBank announced Wednesday. The 140K SF mixed-use property at 1375 Kenyon St. NW contains 117 market-rate apartments and 19K SF of retail.

Delivered in 2006, the property was built through a 99-year ground lease with WMATA. Triangle subsequently acquired the land in 2022, per a press release. Triangle is a joint venture of Peak Gersten, Marcus Asset Group and The Maven Group, the latter of which manages the retail at Park Triangle. Paradigm manages the building's apartments. Maven’s Aaron Schooler negotiated the refinancing on behalf of the borrower, and EagleBank’s Ryan Segars and Richard Koller negotiated on behalf of the lender.

LEASES

Princeton University signed a lease with TMG to open a center for its School of Public and International Affairs in Dupont Circle, broker MacKenzie Commercial Real Estate Services announced Thursday.

Princeton will take up a more than 6K SF spec suite portion of the 360K SF office property at 1333 New Hampshire Ave. NW. Occupying a spec space will allow Princeton to move into its first permanent D.C. office “immediately,” and a grand opening is scheduled for May, Commercial Observer reported. MacKenzie’s Scott Wimbrow, Adam Nachlas and Allison Perry represented the tenant. JLL’s Thomas Myers and Evan Behr represented TMG, formerly known as The Meridian Group.

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Quality Biological signed a 24K SF lease at Shady Grove Development Park, brokerage firm Transwestern announced Tuesday. The nearly 40-year-old life sciences manufacturing firm is moving into a property owned by Minkoff Development Corp. that includes 10 buildings and 745K SF of mixed-use development in Gaithersburg. Transwestern’s Guy Copperthite and Jim Darby represented the tenant in the lease. Quality Biological is expecting to move into its new space, located on Gaither Road near the I-270 corridor, in July.

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Taqueria Habanero is slated to open two concepts anchoring MRP’s Bryant Street Market food hall, beginning with a soft opening in March, the landlord announced Wednesday. The husband-and-wife team of Mirna and Dionicio “Dio” Montero, who operate locations in Columbia Heights and College Park, Maryland, are opening a taco stall and the 26-seat Bar Alegria in the center of the roughly 9K SF food hall. Bryant Street Market, formerly branded as The Bevy, is in the ground floor of The Chase, a two-building apartment complex that began leasing in 2021 at MRP's Bryant Street development in Northeast D.C.  

MILESTONES

Industrious has opened its 40K SF City Ridge location, the flex workplace provider announced on Tuesday. The office is located at 14 Ridge Square and is part of Roadside Development and North America Sekisui House’s 10-acre mixed-use development on the site of the former Fannie Mae headquarters in Northwest D.C. Industrious takes up a quarter of the total office space at City Ridge, where CAVA Group’s corporate headquarters and International Baccalaureate’s Global Centre for the Americas fill the remainder of the space. This is Industrious’ seventh location in D.C.

PERSONNEL

President Joe Biden has selected a lifelong Iowan to lead the National Capital Planning Commission, an influential body that weighs in on Pennsylvania Avenue, Buzzard Point and other key development sites in the Washington, D.C., region. Teri Hawks Goodmann is the director of strategic partnerships for the city of Dubuque and formerly the assistant city manager for Dubuque for eight years. Goodman’s first meeting with NCPC was Thursday.

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Donohoe has selected David Happ to lead its newly formed commercial management arm. Happ, who joined Donohoe as a managing director in November, was named president of Donohoe Commercial Real Estate, the Washington Business Journal reported Thursday. Donohoe Commercial was formed after the longtime D.C. firm acquired Borger Management in January. The deal created a portfolio of 8.5M SF of commercial properties. Before working at Donohoe, Happ was an executive overseeing leasing, operations and development at Property Group Partners, where he worked from 2005 to 2021.