The Meridian Group closes second real estate fund of $231 million

Published February 14, 2017 by Paula C. Squires

The Meridian Group, which invests exclusively in the Washington, D.C., market, has closed its second fund, Meridian Realty Partners II LP, with $231.6 million raised from institutional investors.

Meridian said it also raised and invested an additional $80 million of co-investment capital in Fund II transactions to date.

The Bethesda, Md.-based real estate and development firm said it expects to acquire properties totaling more than $1.5 billion for its new fund over the next several years.

“These deals fit our value-add investment strategy very well, and we continue to be bullish on the D.C. real estate market,”  David Cheek, Meridian’s president, said in a statement.

The company said its investment strategy is focused on well-located, institutional-quality assets near Metro stations, highways, and walkable amenities in submarkets such as D.C., Tysons, Arlington, Alexandria and Reston, and Bethesda and Rockville, Md.. “These are places where we can create value through repositioning, renovations, leasing, redevelopment, development and land entitlements,” said Bruce Lane, executive vice president and managing director of Meridian.

Meridian already has completed five Fund II transactions totaling more than $400 million. They include:

International Place, a 12-story office building at 1735 Lynn Street in the center of Rosslyn. The company is renovating and repositioning the 293,539-square-foot building. 

1400 L Street, a 12-story Class A office building at the corner of L and 14th streets in Washington, D.C. Meridian is doing on a major renovation to the 172,453-square-foot building, located less than two blocks from the McPherson Square Metro station.

11111 Sunset Hills Road, a Class A office building in Reston. The 216,000-square-foot building is located near the Dulles Toll Road and the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station.

Meridian’s first fund, Meridian Realty Partners I LP, raised more than $600 million for acquisitions and development projects. That fund is developing The Boro, a 3.5-million-square-foot, mixed-use development at Tysons near the Greensboro Metro station on the new Silver line.

In September, Meridian broke ground on The Boro’s first phase, an $850 million project that will feature 1.7 million square feet of space. When complete, The Boro will consist of more than 1,500 residential units, 1.3 million square feet of office space, 400,000 square feet of retail space, and a new hotel.