Will Fundrise Buy the Georgetown Heating Plant?

• February 7, 2013

by Shilpi Paul

The Georgetown Heating Plant. Courtesy of GSA.

As has been widely reported, Georgetown’s West Heating Plant, a massive building at 29th and K Street NW, hit the online auction block recently. And, either due to lack of interest or because potential buyers don’t want to show their cards too early, there have been no bids so far.

Now, the team behind Fundrise is assessing the viability of buying up the site via their increasingly well-known community, crowdfunded investment model. In a recent blog post, the firm wrote that it forsees “a large, institutional developer from another city (or country) backed by a big investment fund” claiming the project. But, they wondered:

What if the larger community had the opportunity to buy the property? What if for the first time, you could invest in and own a piece of the profits created from this type of project; be able to weigh the trade-offs between community benefits and profits first hand?

In addition to the zoning and historic oversight issues that make the project unattractive to many a developer, it is larger, by many magnitudes, than the previous Fundrise projects. And, the team acknowledges that if the final selling price is something close to $15 million, the Fundrise model will not work. However, they are interested in assessing the interest, and posed the possibility to the public.

Similar Posts:

• The People’s Choice: Developer Chosen For H Street Library Site
• Fundrise ‘Tests the Waters’ Before Moving Forward With Shaw Project
• Fundrise Launches, Allows DC and Virginia Residents to Buy Into Local Businesses

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/fundrise_wants_to_crowdfund_the_georgetown_heating_plant/6625