The location, to open in the ground floor of a downtown office building, is only one of a handful from the company in the U.S.
Cosentino, a Spanish manufacturer and distributor of stone building materials, plans to open a new location in downtown D.C., where it’s targeting the region’s commercial real estate industry as one of its few markets nationwide.
The company signed a lease for about 3,500 square feet of ground-floor retail space at 2100 L St. NW, a 10-story office building developed in 2020 by Akridge and Corporate Office Properties Trust (NYSE: OFC), joining such tenants as law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP and venture capital firm Updata Partners. In addition to showcasing building materials brands that include Silestone, Dekton and Sensa, the location will also include a chef’s kitchen where it will host special events and demonstrations.
The space is the fifth U.S. location for Cosentino after Miami, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In all, it counts a little more than two-dozen major locations around the world, including Dubai, London, Madrid, Barcelona and Singapore.
The global company said it had the design of 2100 L St. in mind when it selected it as its D.C. site — it includes a stainless steel veil and two-story lobby with oxidized zinc panels, for instance — according to Antonio Aguilar Centeno, expansion director for Cosentino. The D.C. building, designed by OTJ Architects with WDG Architecture as its architect of record, was part of a larger redevelopment of the historic Stevens School that was recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of the best real estate deals of 2020.
“The building seemed a natural fit,” Centeno said as part of his statement on the new showroom. “And its location is proximate to many of the city’s architectural and interior design firms that constitute our target clientele.”
Cosentino, whose Americas headquarters is based in South Florida, was not among the prospective tenants Akridge and COPT had originally sought out to fill the building’s roughly 8,000 square feet of retail space prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. The outbreak caused many of its initial prospects to hit the pause button early on, and the manufacturer emerged as an attractive prospect shortly after.
Akridge and COPT still hope to land a fast-casual eatery, a white-tablecloth restaurant or both to finish off the 190,000-square-foot building’s retail space, said David Toney, senior vice president of development at Akridge. The team is in talks with other prospects, including food and beverage operators, and is nearing the finish line with one of them, he said.
“It’s nice for Washington, D.C., that a company like that wants to open a unit in our market, and on top of that, be a tenant in one of our buildings,” Toney said of Cosentino. “I think it just fits well with the building. It’s not an amenity, necessarily, for an office group upstairs. But it works well with the neighborhood and fits well with the building.”
Matthew Alexander and Laura Bellantoni of Dochter and Alexander Retail Advisors represented COPT and Akridge in the lease, while Crystal Jutte of Mohr Partners and Jed Prossner of Lincoln Property Co. represented Cosentino.