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Twenty brand-new condos are coming soon to Rhode Island Avenue, solidifying the Northeast corridor as a new hot spot for developers and residents.
PERS Development LLC paid $1.5 million for 329 Rhode Island Ave. NE and plans to convert the 32-unit apartment building into boutique condos. The project, which will also include five commercial units for sale, is expected to cost $3 million.
The property, geared towards first-time buyers, will feature a rooftop deck with a European shower to cool down sunbathers and a glass-enclosed gym. Other perks include scattered docking stations for iPads and iPods (also a popular feature in Donatelli Development’s Park Place Apartments at Petworth Metro).
The 1,000-square-foot, two-bedroom units could cost somewhere in the high $200,000s to low $300,000s.
Monument Bank of Bethesda is financing the acquisition and construction. Urban Pace will be selling the condominiums once they wrap up next spring.
The longtime owner of the 1920s-era building, a family called BSS Partnership, had been under pressure from the community to fix its empty state. But selling the property was not easy because it became blighted under D.C. law and was moving through the condemnation process.
“We had to stop that and reverse the blighted status to close our financing,” said Ramin Bassam, PERS president and CEO. “We like buildings with issues.”
Clearly: After the building went vacant in 2003, it withstood two major fires in 2004 and 2009. PERS is wasting no time and had 15 workers inside the building on Tuesday, hoping to complete the interior demolition process by the end of the week.
“It’s a dilapidated, run-down shell,” said Marty Zupancic of Marcus & Millichap Real Estate Investment Services of D.C., who brokered the deal.
PERS was attracted to the project’s proximity to the Red Line Metro and its visible corner location. The promise of new infrastructure coming to the corridor also helped push the deal forward.
In May, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty broke ground on the 8.5-acre, $107 million Rhode Island Station development planned for a pair of existing parking lots at the Brentwood Metro station.
Marcus & Millichap is the nation’s largest brokerage firm focused exclusively on investment sales. It is based on a simple premise: matching each property with the largest pool of pre-qualified investors. With over 2,000 investment sales and financing professionals located throughout the United States and Canada, Marcus & Millichap is a leading specialist in commercial real estate investment sales, financing, research, and advisory services. Founded in 1971, the firm closed 8,954 transactions in 2020 with a value of approximately $43 billion. Marcus & Millichap has perfected a powerful system for marketing properties that combines investment specialization, local market expertise, the industry’s most comprehensive research, state-of-the-art technology, and relationships with the largest pool of qualified investors. To learn more about the company, please visit www.MarcusMillichap.com.