WASHINGTON, DC-Condo activity is heating up in Adams Morgan with the latest example provided by locally-based Urban Investment Partners, which is now launching sales of the WY18 Condos at 1801 and 1811 Wyoming Ave., NW. This, after completing a gut renovation of the two historic structures it acquired in 2010. The numbers, which principal Steve Schwat shared with GlobeSt.com, pencil in for the developer: it paid $6.9 million in acquisition costs, $4.7 million in hard costs, an additional $300,000 in soft costs, with a total sell out in the neighborhood of $16 million in change. Still, Schwat says, “if I could have done a rental there I would have, but the tenants that lived there wanted a condo. So that is what we gave them.”

Eighteen of the condos have been reserved for former tenants of the two buildings. Meanwhile sales contracts are being inked for the remainder of the 43 homes. Schwat is relatively sanguine about the project, but mainly because it is located in an established and very popular market like Adams Morgan. “I think the multifamily market right now is far less risky and more profitable for a developer than the condo space,” he says, adding that UIP has traditionally focused on rental properties. But even condo developers that went all out for the product type in the early 2000s are still shy about developing. “I can’t think of anyone who is developing east of 14th Street,” he says. “Georgetown, along Connecticut--that is where people are taking the risks.”