WASHINGTON, DC—Locally-based Urban Investment Partners and Infinity Real Estate of New York City have partnered to acquire a 114-unit apartment building in DC’s popular Adams Morgan neighborhood. The companies closed on 1841 Columbia Rd., NW, for $26 million. The seller of the property, formerly known as The Alcazar, was Fairfield Residential Co. New York City-based Arbor Commercial Mortgage provided the acquisition and debt funding for the sale.

The building, familiar to residents for its pre-war architecture, also has a sizable retail component of some 20,000 square feet. Retailers are a mix of what Adams Morgan is famous for in DC—that is, restaurant and drinking establishments, in this case the Napoleon Bistro and Bedrock Billiards—as well as service retail for the neighborhood’s inhabitants. Retailers in this category include Gary Taylor Framing, Bank of America, World Cleaners, and Fleet Feet, which specializes in sports gear.

The new owners plan to invest more than $7 million on the building’s renovation and modernization, including a rooftop terrace that is expected to be one of the largest in the District. Other upgrades are a window and retail storefront replacement, an environmentally friendly water-sourced heating and cooling system and redesigned common areas. UIP General Contracting, a subsidiary of UIP, is performing the renovation and another subsidiary, UIP Property Management, will assume the property management of the building when it delivers, in December 2012. UIP said it will not raise rents except for the standard annual CPI-based increase.

Multifamily in Adams Morgan is a particularly attractive opportunity, given the submarket’s 20- and 30-something demographic. Last September UIP acquired the Meridian Hill apartment building in Adams Morgan for $4.2 million. The submarket is also favorable to condos, which is fortunate given the propensity of tenant associations to push for this type of development.

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Erika Morphy

Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.