Investor steps up to plate in SE

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

The real estate investment firm MacFarlane Partners this week joined the $700 million mixed-use redevelopment project in Southeast near the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium.

Although work has already begun on the 1.9-million-square-foot project, San Francisco-based MacFarlane Partners said it had agreed to make a large investment in the development. The amount was not disclosed.

"It adds some deep pockets," said Russell Hines, vice president of Monument Realty, a developer of the project along with Lehman Brothers.

The deal is a major step in a pledge by Victor MacFarlane, managing principal of MacFarlane Partners, to invest from $6 billion to $10 billion in D.C.-area real estate.

Last week, just days before he announced the investment, a deal to build the Solea project in Columbia Heights was finalized.

Solea is a $23.4 million mixed-use retail and residential development going up at 14th and Belmont streets Northwest. The National Capital Revitalization Corp. arranged the deal, and Jair Lynch Companies/AHD Inc. is the developer, but MacFarlane Partners is a major investor.

Like so many of the investment company's ventures, Solea represents an effort to turn an overlooked neighborhood into a commercial success.

About half the company's portfolio is built on the idea that investment in low and moderate-income neighborhoods can be as good for business as it is for "social welfare."

"The notion of urban real estate has evolved," Mr. MacFarlane said.

Until recent years, redeveloping low-income neighborhoods was considered an act of charity.