The eight-story office building at 300 M Street SE, just a block from the Washington Navy Yard, has quietly reinvented itself as a hub for defense contractors after a distressed sale last year. Once roughly half empty, the property is now filling with military-tech and naval-services firms as its new owners work to capture demand tied to the Navy’s footprint in Southeast D.C.
Distressed Sale Becomes a Strategic Play
A joint venture led by Garfield Investments and Broad Creek Capital paid roughly $28 million for the 285,000-square-foot building in late June 2025, striking a deal at a steep discount to its assessed value, according to Commercial Observer. The property changed hands after falling to about 53% occupied, and the buyers quickly signaled they would reposition the asset toward tenants that service the Navy. The new ownership also brought in Avison Young to handle leasing at the site.
Defense Leases Start Stacking Up
Within about six months of the acquisition, the owners had signed more than 60,000 square feet of leases with defense-industry tenants, pushing the building’s occupancy past the halfway mark, as reported by CoStar News. That wave of leasing includes both established contractors and smaller naval-services firms relocating to be closer to command centers and shipyards across Southeast D.C.
Big Naval Tenant Helps Push Numbers Up
In August 2025, Garfield landed a nearly 22,000-square-foot lease with Reliability & Performance Technologies, a naval-services contractor, which owners say helped push occupancy to about 60%. John Mason, Garfield’s founder and CEO, told Bisnow that the team is targeting roughly 75% occupancy in the next 24 months and is in talks with additional defense contractors. Owners say several of those conversations are with firms that specifically need to be near Navy facilities.
Why the Navy Yard Is the Play
Landlords and investors are betting that federal shipbuilding and fleet modernization budgets will keep demand steady for office space near the Navy Yard, and Broad Creek frames the 300 M acquisition as a lender-facilitated chance to capture that demand. The firm’s portfolio notes the deal was a short sale that allowed the partnership to buy at a deep discount and reposition the asset toward mission-proximate tenants. That thinking explains why the buyers prioritized courting defense-oriented tenants over broad-based office users.
Who Is Leasing the Space and Who Is Already In
Avison Young brokers Greg Tomasso, William Stern and Macy Parana are listed as the building’s leasing team on the property listing at LoopNet. Coverage of the sale and repositioning also cites defense contractors such as Amentum among the building’s tenants, reflecting the Navy-focused tenant mix, according to Commercial Observer. Public contractor records list Amentum at a 300 M Street SE address, reinforcing that picture.
For investors and neighbors, the turnaround at 300 M will be a test of whether niche, mission-proximate leasing can stabilize slices of D.C.’s fragile office market. Owners say the Navy-adjacent strategy is already paying off, but the real test will be turning today’s demand into multi-year, investment-grade leases.
