A century-old former department store turned Class A office building in downtown Washington, D.C. has sold for $126 million, marking the debut acquisition of a brand-new real estate investment firm. Hamilton Square, the 278,000-square-foot property at 600 14th St. NW, traded hands in a joint venture between Montclif and FCP, working out to roughly $453 per square foot for a building that is currently 100% leased.
The sale, first reported by Bisnow, represents a steep discount from what seller CommonWealth Partners paid for the building back in 2012: $198 million, or about $712 per square foot. Bisnow reports that CommonWealth Partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the sale. To finance the deal, the Hamilton Square Partnership secured an $84.6 million loan from Athene Annuity and Life Co., a subsidiary of Apollo Global Management, according to the outlet.
The building traces back to 1929, when it was designed by New York architecture firm Starrett & Van Vleck in the Stripped Classical style as the flagship home of Garfinckel's Department Store, according to DC Historic Sites. The property was added to the D.C. Inventory of Historic Sites in 1988 and landed on the National Register of Historic Places in April 1995, and Bisnow notes it remains listed on that federal register today. After Garfinckel's closed, the building was converted into mixed-use commercial office space, and it underwent a $17 million renovation in 2020, per Bisnow's reporting.
Who Is Montclif, and Why Hamilton Square?
Montclif, founded this year and based in Chevy Chase, Maryland, was launched by Erik Weinberg and Jackson Prentice, according to Bisnow's report. Prentice spent most of his career at Carr Properties and MRP Realty, the outlet notes. The firm is targeting roughly $1 billion in investment along the East Coast and Sun Belt, with acquisitions generally falling in the $30 million to $150 million range, and its founders envisioned structuring each deal as a joint venture, per the same account.
Weinberg described Hamilton Square as exactly the type of asset Montclif set out to acquire, saying the building is precisely the asset the firm started to own, according to Bisnow. He added that acquiring Hamilton Square at a reset basis with a fresh capital stack will support its top-tier status, the outlet reports. FCP served as the equity partner in the transaction and was expected to play that role in future Montclif deals as well, per Bisnow's account. Notably, Montclif's broader strategy also targets distressed or underperforming office buildings, even though Hamilton Square itself is fully leased.
FCP's own ownership structure recently shifted: Pittsburgh-based Federated Hermes acquired a majority interest in FCP in 2025, converting the Chevy Chase firm into Federated Hermes FCP Manager, LLC, according to a PR Newswire release detailing the deal.
A Tenant Roster Built for Stability
Hamilton Square's full occupancy owes much to a tenant mix that blends institutional gravity with foot-traffic-driving retail. The building includes tenants such as IBM and GE, according to Bisnow, alongside the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which maintains its national headquarters in Suite 610, a congressionally chartered organization founded in 1949 focused on protecting historic places nationwide, per its own website.
Nonprofit Partnership for Public Service signed a 12-year lease for 26,615 square feet at the property in 2021, relocating from 1100 New York Ave. NW to space with rare 13-foot ceilings, as reported by Commercial Observer, which noted Cushman & Wakefield represented the tenant while CBRE represented CommonWealth Partners. Flexible workplace provider Convene Hospitality Group has also grown its footprint at the building, expanding to roughly 80,000 square feet across three floors as of January, a build-out Hoodline previously reported.
On the ground floor, Hamilton Square includes a restaurant and music venue, and Chicago pizza chain Giordano's opened its first D.C. location at the property this year, a debut Hoodline covered in its earlier story on the Giordano's lease signing. Montclif has said it plans to make select operational and capital enhancements to the building going forward, per Bisnow.
A Split Market for D.C. Office Buildings
The Hamilton Square deal lands amid a Washington office market that's showing early signs of stabilization but remains deeply divided. Absorption improved to negative 341,000 square feet during the first half of 2026, compared to negative 655,000 square feet over the same period a year earlier, according to Cushman & Wakefield, though the firm notes demand remains split between top-tier trophy assets and struggling Class B and C properties.
That split shows up clearly across recent deals Hoodline has tracked. In April, Eagle Cliff Real Estate Partners paid $101 million for the largely leased, 301,263-square-foot tower at 2445 M Street NW in the West End, a deal detailed in Hoodline's report on the West End tower sale. By contrast, an MRP Realty affiliate picked up the 256,503-square-foot building at 10 G St. NE near Union Station in February for roughly 30% or less of its assessed value, underscoring how far discounted some older, less-leased assets have fallen.
Hamilton Square's premium price tag, even at a steep discount to its 2012 sale, fits the pattern of fully leased, highly amenitized buildings commanding strength while obsolete or vacant towers get repositioned at fire-sale prices. Corporate leasing activity near the White House has also continued elsewhere in the neighborhood: global law firm White & Case signed a lease in May for 196,000 square feet across 12 floors at 1701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, kicking off a two-year modernization Hoodline outlined in its coverage of the White & Case lease deal.
