D.C. Office Project Nets $194M in Financing

Even as credit markets remain largely frozen, some financing deals are still getting done, even very large scale loans. Case in point; the $194 million that developer Connecticut & K Associates L.L.C. just landed for the construction of 1000 Connecticut Avenue, a 12-story, 383,000-square-foot office building planned for Washington, D.C. A consortium of lenders headed by Chevy Chase Bank provided the financing, which was arranged on behalf of the borrower by the team of Philip Mudd, Christian Miles and Jon Goldstein of Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers. The term of the loan is 54 months. 1000 Connecticut (pictured) is located in the city’s Central Business District near Farragut Square, and two-thirds of the available space is pre-leased to locally-based law firm Arent Fox L.L.P. The developer is seeking LEED Gold certification for the property. The developer is also responsible for building 1700 K St. NW, another office property located across the street from 1000 Connecticut. The firm initially had trouble securing construction financing, even with the majority of the space pre-leased, according to a report in the Washington Business Journal, but eventually were able to land the deal with Chevy Chase and other lenders. D.C.’s Central Business District had an 8.6 percent office vacancy rate during the third quarter of this year, according to a report by real estate services firm Grubb & Ellis Co. Average CBD asking rents for Class A office space was $55.09 per square foot annually.