by Tierney Plumb, Reporter
UDR Inc., a Denver-based publicly traded apartment owner with 16 properties in the area, closed on the sale of View 14 on 14th Street NW in D.C., shattering the record for the highest price per foot ever achieved in the metro region for Class A rental product.
The building sale, which was first reported in the Washington Business Journal in April, traded for $104 million, or about $670 a square foot for the 155,000-square-foot property.
Drew White and Mike Marshall of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. brokered the transaction with Andrew McAllister and Bruce Levin of MAC Realty Advisors.
The 185-unit luxury condo-turned-rental project three blocks from the U Street Metro station is not the first project UDR (NYSE: UDR) has bought from D.C.-based Level 2 Development and Centrum Properties of Chicago, which completed the project in 2010 and leased it up over the last year. UDR also bought the developers' Nehemiah Shopping Center site at 2400 14th St. NW in September 2007 for $30.9 million in a sale that was also brokered by McAllister.
UDR is the third-largest publicly traded U.S. apartment owner, behind Chicago-based Equity Residential at No. 1 and Arlington-based AvalonBay Communities Inc. at No. 2.
The fully leased complex demands some of the highest aggregate rents in D.C., at $2,868, according to Cushman. Its affluent tenants boast an average household income of $130,000 per year, said Cushman.
The sale includes the 31,000-square-foot retail portion of the building, which is currently vacant but there are signed commitments for the majority of it from the YWCA National Capital Area and Beta Academy, which hosts martial arts classes.
“The market for renters who can pay $3 plus per square foot for an apartment in that location is fairly deep. The shine is off home ownership,” said Michael Muldowney, a multihousing specialist at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. in an interview in April.
The 185-unit luxury condo-turned-rental project three blocks from the U Street Metro station is not the first project UDR (NYSE: UDR) has bought from D.C.-based Level 2 Development and Centrum Properties of Chicago, which completed the project in 2010 and leased it up over the last year. UDR also bought the developers' Nehemiah Shopping Center site at 2400 14th St. NW in September 2007 for $30.9 million in a sale that was also brokered by McAllister.
UDR is the third-largest publicly traded U.S. apartment owner, behind Chicago-based Equity Residential at No. 1 and Arlington-based AvalonBay Communities Inc. at No. 2.
The fully leased complex demands some of the highest aggregate rents in D.C., at $2,868, according to Cushman. Its affluent tenants boast an average household income of $130,000 per year, said Cushman.
The sale includes the 31,000-square-foot retail portion of the building, which is currently vacant but there are signed commitments for the majority of it from the YWCA National Capital Area and Beta Academy, which hosts martial arts classes.
“The market for renters who can pay $3 plus per square foot for an apartment in that location is fairly deep. The shine is off home ownership,” said Michael Muldowney, a multihousing specialist at CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. in an interview in April.