120-Unit Gleneagle Community Started in Response to Strong Demand in Flagship Community
Federal Capital Partners (FCP) announced today that American Community Properties Trust (ACPT) has broken ground on Gleneagles II, a 120-unit apartment community in the Saint Charles community of Charles County, Maryland.
Lacy I. Rice, a managing partner at FCP, said the project will include a mix of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom units and is projected to open in summer 2011. The project is adjacent to Gleneagles Apartments, a 184-unit property that was completed in March. The Gleneagles II project will bring FCP’s total portfolio of apartments in Saint Charles to more than 2,500 units.
“Gleneagles is now 70 percent occupied and traffic and apartment applications have increased nearly 50 percent throughout Saint Charles as compared to 2009,” Rice said. “Demand is strong because prospective residents in the Washington region are realizing that Saint Charles is a place whose time has come. This new property will enable us to continue to meet that demand.”
Michael Pelphrey would agree. He chose Saint Charles’ Gleneagles apartments over other apartment communities in Northern Virginia. “After looking for quite some time in Alexandria and Southern Fairfax County, we visited Saint Charles and were immediately struck by the affordability and quality of life that Saint Charles offers,” commented Pelphrey, who, along with his fiancée, began searching for a community after living in Old Town Alexandria. “We moved into Gleneagles in August and are so pleased with the commute, the lack of congestion and all of the amenities that we hope to look for a house here next year.”
The Gleneagles II apartment project is the latest in a series of steps that FCP, the Georgetown-based investment company, has taken to revitalize ACPT and Saint Charles since purchasing the company last year. Saint Charles, a 9,100 acre planned community in Charles County, includes more than 12,000 housing units, including the 2,500 apartments owned by ACPT. The community is zoned to include more than 24,000 housing units when fully developed. According to ACPT CEO, Alan Shearer, FCP has initiated a strategic plan that has restructured the company and is raising the profile of Saint Charles in the regional Washington market.
“In March, we hired Williams Whittle, the Alexandria-based marketing firm, to conduct a marketing and branding campaign to reintroduce Saint Charles to the metropolitan market. As a result of those efforts, traffic and sales at Saint Charles’ new home builders are strong. Buyers are discovering that our new single family and townhomes have a price advantage over nearly all other competing homes in the DC market. We are on track to sell over 160 new homes here this year, in the face of a weak economy for new home sales,” Shearer said. “That pace makes Saint Charles one of the best performing communities in Maryland.”
In June, the company announced its selection of Virginia-based Kettler property management to take over the operation of ACPT’s apartments in Saint Charles, as well as a 500-unit property the company owns in Richmond. “Kettler will bring their marketing and management expertise to Saint Charles’ apartment operation and enable ACPT to focus on our land development projects in Saint Charles and other potential projects in the DC region,” Rice said.
Additional accomplishments are helping to create excitement in the Washington Metro market for the planned community,
- A new office building. On November 1, 2010, the company is scheduled to move into its new, LEED certified, 20,000 square foot office building at O’Donnell Lake in Saint Charles.
- Listing commercial land with a new broker. The Company has designated Shasho Consulting as its commercial real estate broker for Saint Charles properties. Shasho will be aggressively marketing ACPT commercial properties that can accommodate over five million square feet of development. http://www.stcharlesmd.com/business.html
- Completed the sale of 392 multifamily apartment units in Baltimore, Maryland in June 2009, returning a net $2.1 million of capital to ACPT. The units within the three projects were considered non-core to ACPT’s operations.
- A new public high school. Saint Charles High School had its official groundbreaking September 8, 2010. The high school, scheduled to open in 2013, will be developed on 100 acres donated by the company adjacent to Saint Charles’ Gleneagles neighborhood and a minor league baseball facility. The $75 million school, the tenth public school in Saint Charles, will be built to accommodate 1,600 students.
- A new Hilton Garden Inn opened at O’Donnell Lake in Saint Charles in April 2010. Operated by Shahmin Hotels, the hotel experienced one of the best opening performances in the Shahmin chain of 36 properties.
- The Charles County Government broke ground on a new 30,000 square foot public library at Saint Charles’ O’Donnell Lake complex in September 2010. The library is expected to open in 2012.
“People are starting to notice Saint Charles—as a perfect location for their new home, or their new business,” Shearer said. “With the purchase by FCP, the company is well capitalized. Through the strategic and restructuring decisions we have undertaken in the last nine months, the company is now sharply focused on its core business objectives.”
“By the start of the new year, we believe we will have completed all of our major objectives for our first year of operation of Saint Charles,” Shearer said. “The company will be focused on making Saint Charles the most dynamic community in the metro area. —truly, a place whose time has come.”
American Community Properties Trust (ACPT), (www.stcharlesmd.com) the Maryland-based land development company purchased by FCP in December 2009, is the developer of Saint Charles, Maryland, a 9,100 acre master planned community in Charles County, Maryland. In addition to its residential and commercial land development, ACPT also owns approximately 3,000 apartment units in Saint Charles and in Richmond, Virginia.
Federal Capital Partners (www.fcpdc.com) is a real estate investment company headquartered in Georgetown in Washington, DC. The Managing Partners include Esko Korhonen, Lacy Rice, Tom Carr and Alex Marshall. Since its inception, FCP has acquired more than $2.0 billion of real estate assets and debt across all property types. FCP manages FCP Fund I, L.P., a $240 million co-mingled real estate private equity fund formed to invest in multiple real estate sectors in the Mid-Atlantic region, with a focus on the metro Washington DC area. The Fund is able to provide both debt and equity capital as needed for real estate investments in the market.