BOSTON—AEW Capital Management, headquarteredhere, said Tuesday it had closed its AEW Partners VII LP fund witha total of $550 million in equity commitments from limitedpartners, hitting the fund's hard cap. Fund VII will invest intop-tier markets in North America.

“Almost half of the fund is already invested or committed and wecontinue to have a very robust pipeline of opportunities,” saysMarc Davidson, portfolio manager of the AEWPartners series of funds. This past September, for example,GlobeSt.com reported that AEW had agreed to pay $134.1 million to acquire 1310 N.Courthouse Rd., a 380,752-square-foot office property inArlington, VA that MRP Realty andRockpoint Group put up for sale in February. It'samong the acquisitions that have been made through Fund VII, aspokeswoman tells GlobeSt.com.

Fund VII seeks to take advantage of dislocations in the realestate and capital markets by acquiring and recapitalizing assetsthat are undermanaged but well-located, with distressed capitalstructures. “We continue to focus on assets and markets thatbenefit from evolving trends, such as urbanization, changingdemographics and the dynamic energy landscape,” says Davidson.“We're excited about the investments we have closed to date, themajority of which were acquired from owners under pressure to sellor recapitalize.”