The Power Players of Washington D.C.

Dan Irvin
Director of Investments for the Mid-Atlantic Region at Cortland

Cortland, an Atlanta-based multifamily investor and developer, apparently made a late push to be included on our D.C. Power List, announcing a $1 billion investment into Northern Virginia in May to acquire four Arlington multifamily properties totaling 1,500 units.

Dan Irvin, the man who facilitated the deals, noted that the company was looking to establish a strong foothold in the region based on Cortland’s proprietary analysis of market trends.

“We believe that demand is returning to a lot of the gateway markets, such as Washington, D.C., and believe this summer will be a very strong summer,” he said. “The cherry on this is HQ2 and the recently announced Boeing headquarters relocation, which will both offer very strong long-term benefits for their particular locations.”

The initial acquisitions include Aubrey, a 331-unit complex, now to be known as Cortland Rosslyn, and Aura Pentagon City, a 534-unit community, to be renamed Cortland Pentagon City. The acquisition of two more Arlington multifamily communities are expected to close this summer.

“For these properties, we settled on the Rosslyn pocket of the North Arlington submarket, as well as the Pentagon City subpocket, as two locations we really like from an overall connectivity perspective, as well as in-place demographic and near-term and future growth prospects,” Irvin said. “We believe the technological sector growth of this area is important to the future of the region’s economy and offers diversity to Cortland’s Sun Belt portfolio. These are generational assets, and we intend to be stewards of the community.”

Cortland had one previous property in Northern Virginia, which it sold before the pandemic, but was always considering coming back into the market.

Cortland plans to double its multifamily investment in the D.C. area with the goal of becoming a top player in the market, Irvin said.

“Like any market we’re committed to, we’d like it to become a core or critical market for us,” he said. “We intend to try and grow in D.C. by as much as possibly 10,000 units over the near term.” —K.L.