Federal Government Sells Property Overlooking Tidal Basin For Just $17M
The federal government offloaded a prime property steps from the Tidal Basin in its second major sale in D.C.’s southwest corridor in two months.
The L-shaped Liberty Loan building, a World War I-era structure on D.C.’s southwest waterfront, sold for $17M to Satvik Raj, who is associated with a single-family home at 2612 Amanda Court in Vienna, Virginia, records filed with the D.C. recorder of deeds show.
The sale includes a portion of the National Mall, records show, which has been transferred from the National Park Service to Raj.
It's the latest sale as the Trump administration seeks to offload a number of massive, underutilized buildings in D.C.'s federal-heavy southwest corridor, an effort that's positioning the area between the National Mall and Wharf for redevelopment.
CBRE's Tommy Cleaver, John Sheridan and Ken Pearson represented GSA in the sale, according to a spokesperson for the brokerage.
Raj received a $17.5M loan from U.K.-based OakNorth Bank, according to deed records, $14.9M of which was used to purchase the building. It’s unclear how the borrower plans to use the remaining amount.
OakNorth Bank and GSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Information for the buyer was not immediately available.
Flavio Peres, GSA's assistant commissioner for real property disposition, signed the sale documents on behalf of the agency's Public Buildings Service.
The 174K SF Liberty Loan building was developed in 1918 as a temporary wartime structure and has since gone through five renovations.
It was earmarked for sale by the Biden administration in April 2024, after having “outlived its useful life,” GSA said at the time.
CBRE was selected to sell the property in September and marketed it as a potential conversion to residential, trophy office or hospitality. The marketing materials said GSA would “only consider all-cash offers with no contingencies.”
The sale of Liberty Loan comes after GSA sold the nearly 1M SF Regional Office Building at Seventh and D streets SW at the end of March for $24.3M. The buyer, D.C.-based Dalian Development, is weighing a potential conversion of the property to a mix of uses, likely including residential and possibly with a museum.
The federal government has not revealed an overarching plan for how it intends to offload the slate of buildings it has earmarked for sale in Southwest D.C. That lack of a plan has drawn concern from private- and public-sector real estate experts who want to ensure the future of the southwest corridor is set up for a cohesive future.
