Carr Properties has closed on a two-acre parcel at 300 Montgomery St. in Alexandria's Old Town North, taking over a site long occupied by Montgomery Center, a low-rise block of midcentury retail. The company plans to tear it down and put up a 373-unit apartment building in its place, with construction targeted to begin in spring 2028 and delivery expected in 2030.
The sale closed Wednesday, according to Bisnow, which reported that Carr Properties paid $30 million for the property. The seller, CarrAmerica, declined to comment on the deal, per the same report. There's a family thread running through this transaction: CarrAmerica was founded and is chaired by Oliver Carr Jr., while Carr Properties — the buyer — is led by his son, Oliver Carr III.
The unit count and building size for the site have shifted over time. An earlier redevelopment proposal, detailed by ALXnow in 2023, described an eight-story, 350,000-square-foot apartment building with 327 units, while CarrAmerica's own property page for Montgomery Center describes it as a planned nine-story, concrete-construction mixed-use multifamily asset. Neither of those figures matches the 373-unit plan Carr Properties now says it intends to build, and the dossier of available records doesn't resolve which version reflects the current approved design.
What the Old Plans Included
Those earlier proposals carried more than just a taller building. According to ALXnow's 2023 reporting, the redevelopment included more than 25,000 square feet of retail and a 13,300-square-foot performance venue with room for up to 600 patrons, along with below-grade parking. The plans also carried an affordable-housing contribution of $878,000 and 22 committed affordable units, per the same report. Whether any of that retail, arts, parking or affordable-housing framework survives into Carr Properties' current plan for the parcel is not addressed in the available records.
The site itself has already changed hands once this decade. Carr Companies bought Montgomery Center for $35 million from MRW Properties Inc. in 2021, according to ALXnow's reporting at the time.
Part of a Broader Regional Push
Oliver Carr III framed the purchase as a statement of intent for the company's presence in the city, saying Carr Properties values the Old Town Alexandria market and intends to grow its presence in the community. He added that the company wants to build on its work and play a larger role in Old Town's next chapter, per Bisnow's report.
That ambition is already visible just across the street, where Carr Properties owns the 237-unit Margot residential conversion, set to deliver this year. The company's own property listing for 425 Montgomery Street describes the 250,000-square-foot project, and in a separate release the company said construction is currently underway there with delivery expected in late 2026.
The Montgomery Street purchase lands amid a wider wave of office-to-residential conversions for Carr Properties, whose core business has historically centered on office development even as it expands into housing. The company closed on a Ballston office property the week prior, on Oct. 15, with plans to convert that site into 392 residential units; Multi-Housing News reports Carr acquired the 10-story Arlington property from Ascentris for approximately $12.3 million. Construction timing for that Ballston project is itself inconsistent across accounts — Multi-Housing News and Connect CRE both place the start in summer 2028, while Bisnow's reporting on the Alexandria deal notes the Ballston project is expected to start construction in 2028 without specifying the season.
A Growing Residential Portfolio
Carr Properties is also developing a 315-unit project in Arlington's Clarendon neighborhood, expected in early 2028, and a 299-unit apartment building in downtown Washington, D.C., for which the company secured $92 million in construction financing from PNC Bank and United Bank, according to Multi-Housing News. The moves follow a 2025 restructuring in which Carr Properties transferred three Washington, D.C. office buildings to a J.P. Morgan Asset Management fund as part of an equity buyout, and subsequently sold other area office holdings, including 4500 East-West Highway in Bethesda and 901 K St. NW in Washington, D.C.
Together, the deals signal a company reshaping its portfolio around apartments in close-in Washington suburbs, even as key details of the Alexandria project — including which elements of the earlier retail, arts-venue and affordable-housing plans might carry forward, and when the Alexandria City Council might weigh in on a current design — remain unsettled in the public record.
