Another D.C.-area church has partnered with a developer to build housing on its land, with the latest such project coming in Southwest D.C.

Foulger-Pratt has leased land from the Bethel Pentecostal Tabernacle Assembly of God church at 60 Eye St. SW to build 197 apartments with a 17K SF sanctuary for the church on the ground floor, Bisnow has learned.

The Potomac, Maryland-based developer plans to break ground in October and deliver the project in September 2023, a spokesperson said.

The team's $72M financing package for the project includes $15.8M in equity from crowdfunding platform CrowdStreet. The company pooled the money from 456 individual investors with a minimum contribution of $25K. EagleBank is providing a $43.2M construction loan for the project.

The church property sits at the intersection of Half and Eye streets SW, five blocks from Nationals Park and about six blocks from The Wharf. It is adjacent to a public park and directly across the street from the Randall School property, where Lowe and Mitsui Fudosan broke ground in April on a 492-unit redevelopment.

The fast-developing submarket that includes Southwest D.C., Capitol Riverfront and Capitol Hill led the D.C. Metro area with 3,105 apartment units absorbed during the 12 months ending June 30, a period when the region hit record levels of leasing demand, according to Delta Associates.

“The D.C. metro area is experiencing record absorption of Class-A apartments," Foulger-Pratt CEO Cameron Pratt said in a release. "We are seeing the demand first-hand at a nearby project in Southwest Washington. We are extremely bullish on the D.C. multifamily market in the short and long term.”

The seven-story project is planned to have an average unit size of 672 SF. Torti Gallas Urban is serving as the base building architect, and FormDesign is designing the church sanctuary.

The project will have affordable inclusionary zoning units, and the developer said that not having to acquire the land gave it a lower cost basis that will allow its market-rate units to be more affordable than others in the surrounding area.

The church retaining ownership of the land also allows it to stay in place and benefit financially from the neighborhood's future growth. This partnership structure has become common between churches and developers in the D.C.-area, with at least nine multifamily projects moving forward on church properties.