D.C. Foreclosure

More bad news for the Washington, D.C., commercial real estate market: A planned office-to-residential conversion has been served a foreclosure notice. The developer, too, is well-versed in the conversion space, which makes the news all the more jarring. Also for today: Manhattan office leasing continues to gather steam.

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— Tom Acitelli, Deputy Editor

One of Post Brothers’ D.C. Resi Conversions Headed to Foreclosure Auction

The developer behind a cadre of office-to-residential conversion projects in Washington, D.C., may wind up losing one of them to foreclosure. Post Brothers, the Philadelphia firm which specializes in residential conversion projects, was served a foreclosure notice for 2100 M Street NW, a roughly 301,000-square-foot property in D.C.’s West End, not far from George Washington University. A foreclosure auction is now set for April 10. “We are looking forward to resolving this matter and pursuing development of the property,” Matt Pestronk, Post Brothers’ co-founder and president, told Commercial Observer. “Washington, D.C., is the best multifamily rental market in the country, and we are long-term bulls on the market.” The firm paid former owners Network Realty Partners and Meadow Partners $66.8 million in 2023 for the building, a notable discount from the $92.5 million that the JV paid for it in 2019.

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Manhattan Office Leasing Activity Has Strongest Yearly Start in Over a Decade: CBRE

Last year was a banner year for office leasing in Manhattan, and 2025 looks to be starting off on a particularly good foot. Year-to-date office leasing activity in Manhattan reached 5.13 million square feet in February, the strongest start to a year since 2014, according to recent data from CBRE. In February alone, office leasing totaled 2.52 million square feet in the borough, well above the five-year monthly average of 1.65 million square feet. “We had two very strong months here in 2025 and we've been on a pretty good run over the past several months,” Michael Slattery, Tri-state research director at CBRE, said. “It seems like the market overall has been really inching upwards and took some pretty big leaps in January and February.” And, even better, the activity isn’t driven solely by tenants staying put but “new folks’ relocation, new tenants coming into the market,” which “is a real indicator for health,” Slattery added.

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