Pembroke Pays $158M for NoVA Apartments in First U.S. Residential Acquisition
By Nick Trombola January 6, 2025 6:47 pm
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The multifamily market in Northern Virginia popped off in 2024 with deals regularly hitting nine figures, a trend continued by international real estate firm Pembroke in mid-December.
The Boston-based company paid $158.3 million for just 267 units at Fitzroy, a new nine-story building at 3275 Washington Boulevard in Arlington, property records show. The sellers, Trammell Crow Residential and Shooshan Company, developed the now 96 percent occupied property in 2023. Berkadia’s Brian Crivella, Yalda Ghamarian and Bill Gribbin brokered the deal.
“Supply is not keeping up with demand for high-quality residential properties in coveted neighborhoods in the world’s most sophisticated cities,” Jack Clark, senior vice president and head of investments at Pembroke, said in a statement. “Targeting investment in multifamily and [build-to-rent] properties in the cities where our mixed-use and office buildings are located allows Pembroke to leverage this opportunity and our team’s local expertise.”
Fitzroy is Pembroke’s first residential purchase in the U.S., according to the firm, and is part of the office-focused firm’s strategy of diversifying its global portfolio amid high office vacancy rates and general office market uncertainty in large cities.
“A differentiator for us is that we’re uniquely positioned to move quickly with acquisitions like Fitzroy, because we’re able to close deals all-cash and finance opportunistically later,” Clark added. “2025 will be a transformative year for Pembroke as we continue to look for the right residential properties in the right places to add to our global portfolio.”
Representatives for Trammell Crow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Surging population and industry growth has tossed rocket fuel onto Northern Virginia’s multifamily market, and Pembroke is far from the only firm to pay over $100 million — or even $200 million — for such properties in the region over the past 12 months.
One of the most notable was Bridge Investment Group’s $250 million October purchase of the 806-unit Dulles Green complex in Herndon from Harbor Group International (HGI). Not one to be left out, HGI paid $133 million to Brookfield for a 352-unit property in Reston in August.
The same month as the Dulles Green sale, Abacus Capital Group paid $207 million to investment and management group Waterton for the 631-unit Residences at Springfield Station in Springfield. Then there’s Bridge Investment Group and Shoreham Capital’s March purchase of 1,180-unit Mason at Van Dorn community in Alexandria, for which the pair secured a $157 Fannie Mae loan.
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
