WeWork and Meridian partner to buy Dupont Circle building

WeWork Property Advisor’s has stretched its investing branch in Washington D.C. with a Meridian Group partnership. The $136.5 million acquisition from Boston Properties of the Dupont Circle building at 1333 New Hampshire Avenue was announced Monday.

WeWork will take over 100,000 square feet of the office space once Meridian renovates the building. The 12-story, 315,000 square foot space was built in 1978 and was acquired by Boston Properties in 2003.

The coworking giant now has 11 D.C. locations with its latest being in Chinatown and two more in the works. Up until now, all of these spaces were leased. This Dupont Circle location will mark the company’s first excursion into buying in the area.

“Along with the acquisition, the JV secured a $151M loan from Parlex 3 Finance LLC, a subsidiary of Blackstone Mortgage Trust, documents show,” according to bisnow.com “Roughly $84 million of the loan is going toward the acquisition, according to the documents, with about $67 million remaining for renovations.”

The renovations include skinning the interior, updating the lobby, and adding an indoor-outdoor rooftop penthouse that is expected to be completed in the summer of 2020.

This is the third office space Meridian has successfully releasing, including two other aging D.C. locations this year.

The deal gives Boston Properties and REIT more capital to put toward the five more D.C. developments it is working on, including a building at Reston Gateway where it signed Fannie Mae for 850,000 square feet.

“Given the number of other development projects that we have underway in the D.C. region and in our other markets, it is certainly true that we saw value in recycling this capital for use in those developments,” Boston Properties Senior Vice President Pete Otteni said in a statement provided to Bisnow.