The Dumont's Second Tower Goes Rental, Starts Lease-Up This Weekend

• September 30th 2010

by Will Smith

UrbanTurf has learned that the second tower of what was once known as The Dumont will go rental. Located at 401 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Mount Vernon Triangle (map), the tower will complement its next door neighbor, 425 Mass, which started leasing up earlier this spring.

Robert Grealy of Chicago-based Equity Residential announced today that lease-up at 401 Mass will begin this Saturday October 2nd. Potential residents will be able to tour apartment homes beginning on that day, with move-ins expected as early as mid-November.

“425 Mass Apartments is leasing at record pace,” Grealy stated in a press release. “The property, which has a total of 559 units, is currently 50% leased. Because of the tremendous success of the community, we are opening the second tower well ahead of schedule and introducing new floor plans and additional common area amenities to the marketplace.”

Six months ago, one of the DC real estate boom’s biggest casualties, The Dumont, was rechristened and re-released on the market as a rental project called 425 Mass. The two-tower, 559-unit project was originally planned as condos, but when it couldn’t sell enough units, the bank took possession and its fate became the subject of speculation for over a year. In March of this year, Equity Residential acquired the property with immediate plans to turn the larger of the two towers at 425 Massachusetts Avenue (map) into Class A apartments.

With new ownership, new name, and new strategy, 425 Mass began leasing units in April. Despite skepticism that it would be able to charge the rents it was asking (studios from $1,785, one-bedrooms from $2,175), in July word came that in fact the building had been filling up quickly. Specifically, it had signed leases with 182 new tenants within its first 90 days — roughly 60 leases per month.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the_dumonts_second_tower_goes_rental_starts_lease-up_this_weekend/2520.