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A trio of local businessmen has paid $1.5 million for a Congress Heights condo building that they plan to rent out, for now, until the neighborhood takes another turn for the better.
Ernie Marcus and Robert Aramony of Building Partnerships LLC and Steven Sumberg of Rapid Funding LLC partnered to buy 1110-1112 Savannah St. SE, a 23-unit building located a five-minute walk away from the Congress Heights Metro Station and the St. Elizabeths east campus.
“We were aware of the many changes that are happening around this area and we bought it at a good enough price that we thought we’d be in a good holding position to wait until the area improves further,” Marcus told me.
Marty Zupancic of Marcus & Millichap arranged the sale, which amounts to $66,304 per unit. The building was constructed in 1940 and was converted to condos around 2007 or 2008.
Only two of the 25 units sold before the property nosedived in the poor economy. So what the partnership purchased from a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee was the remaining 23 units, which they plan to rent first, and “then sell once we believe the area has made another turn,” Marcus said.
Congress Heights is home to several recent development proposals, but little development activity, yet. It includes WC Smith’s Archer Park, Washington Business Group’s Wheeler Renaissance (see the newest renderings, above), the Congress Heights Metro project from CityPartners and Sanford Capital, and Stanton Square from Horning Brothers Inc. and Community of Hope.
Building Partnerships renovated a nearby garden apartment building into the Savoy Courts Condominium in 2008 and 2009, and the group felt it was comfortable enough with, and knowledgeable enough of, Congress Heights to return.
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.