Familiar Faces, Distant Owners

CarrAmerica grew rapidly in the District and its suburbs and eventually expanded into markets including Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, San Diego and San Francisco. It now has 285 office properties, totaling 26.3 million square feet. The company owns or controls 26 properties in the Washington area, including the Willard Office Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, Terrell Place near the Verizon Center, and large office parks in Maryland and Northern Virginia.

While CarrAmerica's new owners will be based in New York, executives inside CarrAmerica and brokers and partners who work with the company say they expect little to change in day-to-day operations.

That has been the case for Charles E. Smith Commercial Realty, a locally run real estate company acquired in 2002 by Vornado Realty Trust, a publicly traded real estate trust based in New Jersey. Smith, which built much of Crystal City, still has a large office there and is given considerable leeway by its owners making local deals, brokers and developers said.

Longtime Washingtonians also run area operations for other out-of-town companies that are major players in the area, such as Boston Properties, a publicly traded real estate investment trust, and Hines, a private company based in Houston that is in charge of redeveloping the District's old convention center site near New York Avenue and Ninth Street NW.

At CarrAmerica, the two best-known public faces of the company's D.C. operations -- chairman and chief executive Thomas A. Carr, who is one of the sons of the retired Oliver T. Carr Jr., and president and chief operating officer Philip L. Hawkins -- oversee about 400 employees in the region. Once the deal closes, Carr would receive $11.7 million from the exercise of his stock options, restricted shares and personal holdings, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hawkins would receive $6.8 million.

"There are no changes right now, but clearly we have a new owner and we have a lot of work to do with them," said Karen Widmayer, a spokesman for CarrAmerica. "For the time being, we're the same. They're buying us for our platform and for the people."

John A. Ford, a spokesman for Blackstone, would not discuss his company's plans for CarrAmerica because "the deal has not finalized." The sale, which needs shareholder approval, is expected to close in the second quarter.

But some local brokers expect that Blackstone, which has real estate assets valued at almost $30 billion and is one of the most active private owners of real estate in the country, will sell some of the buildings in CarrAmerica's local portfolio.

"Blackstone feels like there's hidden value here," said Paul Collins, an investment sales broker at Cassidy & Pinkard. "These assets could be worth significantly more than the share price. . . . Blackstone is likely looking for high yields. To get that you have to sell."

Douglas Jemal, a D.C. developer who redeveloped rundown streets near the Verizon Center, said his deals with CarrAmerica on two office buildings will remain unchanged. CarrAmerica is providing mezzanine financing, developing and providing the leasing and management of the Atlantic Building at 950 F St. NW, which is almost completed, and another building at 1199 F St. NW, where construction is expected to start near year, according to CarrAmerica executives. Jemal is owner of the buildings.

"If the same people are there at CarrAmerica, I'll do more deals with them," Jemal said. "I enjoy a good relationship with the Carr people."

Other private companies such as Akridge said they have no interest in selling to a bigger company but expect to feel some competition from a Blackstone-owned CarrAmerica, with its vast resources.

As a major developer who still controls the company he founded, Chip Akridge said last week that he feels like "the last guy standing" in Washington real estate.

Closings

· Construction will start this summer on an $80 million facility near College Park for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Opus East LLC of Rockville was selected from 75 developers to build the agency a 290,000-square-foot facility near River Road and Kenilworth Avenue in Riverdale Park. The building is in the M Square research park, which is affiliated with the University of Maryland. The building is described as both environmentally friendly and secure, with guarded entrances and walls that will not collapse if there is a blast.

The federal agency said it wants to consolidate some of its offices that are now in Camp Springs and Silver Spring. The new building, which will house about 900 employees, will be completed in 2008.

· Akridge sold seven acres it owns in the area known as NoMa, or north of Massachusetts Avenue, for $122 million to a joint venture of Walton Street Capital LLC, a private equity fund in Chicago, and StonebridgeCarras LLC, a real estate investment firm in Bethesda. The vacant land is next to the New York Avenue Metro stop and south of the new headquarters for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The new owners said they plan to build 2.2 million square feet of offices and apartments over the next five to eight years. Construction will start next year on the $750 million project and it is expected to be completed in 2009.

· Duke Realty Corp. of Indianapolis paid $855 million for most of the portfolio of the Mark Winkler Co. Its purchase includes almost 3 million square feet of office space and 166 acres of undeveloped land, mostly in Alexandria and Chantilly.

Dana Hedgpeth writes about commercial real estate and economic development. Her e-mail address ishedgpethd@washpost.com.