Portman Holdings is looking at 111.55 acres in Duluth for a mixed-use project. The Atlanta Business Chronicle reports the plan is to build about 1,400 new residential units – including apartments, townhomes and single-family homes – along with approximately 80,000 square feet of commercial space and approximately 100,000 square feet of medical office space.

The site is nearly vacant, except for a historic house built in 1895. The Hudgens Company owns the parcel.

Construction on the large Duluth project could wrap up by 2031. The site last traded hands for $20.25 million in 2006, and its total appraised value across two parcels is $7.08 million.

Portman is also planning a mixed-use redevelopment of an Alpharetta office campus and a 332-unit apartment complex in Fairburn, among other projects.

A North Carolina-based real estate investment firm is raising capital to try to cash in on properties that benefit from a key change in the tax code passed by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Madison Capital Group launched Car Wash & Convenience Opportunity Fund LLC, seeking to raise $200M to buy up convenience stores and car washes, it announced Tuesday.

The fund’s strategy is to target properties that are eligible for 100% bonus depreciation that was made permanent through the OBBBA. Eligible properties must be purchased and placed into service after Jan. 19, 2025.

The accelerated Schedule F bonus depreciation allows owners to apply for bonus depreciation on assets such as store fuel pumps and canopies and car wash tunnels, conveyors, blowers and vacuum systems. It also applies to land improvements like driveways, signage and drainage systems. 

“Convenience stores and express car washes represent compelling essential service businesses with consistent consumer demand, multiple revenue streams and potential tax efficiency,” Madison Capital Group CEO Ryan Hanks said. “We believe this strategy aligns with our broader philosophy of identifying real assets in growth markets and structuring opportunities designed to optimize income and after-tax performance for investors.”

The Charlotte-based firm, which has about $4B in assets under management, will focus on states with no income taxes and growing populations. States with no income tax include Florida, Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota, New Hampshire and Washington.

The new fund is the second that Madison is raising in this space. In June, just a month before the OBBBA was signed into law, an affiliate of the firm, Madison Capital Markets, launched Madison Convenience Fund I LLC, which sought to raise $125M in investments toward convenience and gas station facilities. Properties acquired by that fund would be managed by FreshStop. That fund is now closed, according to PitchBook.

Madison Capital is one of a growing number of investors looking to leverage the bonus depreciation rule. Since it became law, there has been a boost in gas station, convenience store and car wash investment sales.

By October 2025, investment sale activity in convenience stores jumped 27% over the previous year, compared to a 17% increase in overall retail investment sales, according to data from net lease-focused real estate firm The Boulder Group.

Two months after launching a $1B venture targeting office-to-residential conversions, TF Cornerstone and Dune Real Estate Partners have already identified three buildings to turn into apartments. 

The fund, Alta Residential, is pushing to foreclose on a historic property in Philadelphia after buying a piece of the building’s distressed debt. It is also getting started on converting an office TF Cornerstone owns in D.C.’s central business district and is in final negotiations to take over a New York City property, TF Cornerstone principal Jeremy Shell told Bisnow in an interview.

The Fairfax, TF Cornerstone’s residential conversion of the former FBI headquarters in NYC.

Many of Alta’s projects will arise from distress in the office market and taking over problem loans, Shell said.

“A lot of these office buildings that are good conversion candidates, the values have eroded to the point where really the controlling position is in the debt,” he said. “So we’re looking at a lot of debt positions.”

The first target is the 1.4M SF Wanamaker office building in Center City, Philadelphia, where TF Cornerstone purchased the majority of the property’s CMBS loan. The foreclosure isn’t finalized — the building’s owner, Rubenstein Partners, placed it in bankruptcy proceedings last year — but Shell is optimistic.

“When we’re ultimately successful with that, we’re planning a conversion and repositioning of that historic building, which is very exciting,” he said.

TF Cornerstone, founded by brothers Fred and Thomas Elghanayan, owns and operates almost 12,000 residential units in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Long Island City as well as more than 4M SF of commercial, office and retail space between NYC; Washington, D.C.; Virginia and Pennsylvania.

The Alta fund, a partnership with New York-based Dune, is aiming to take on between 20 and 25 projects in total, Shell said, putting around half the equity toward deals in NYC and deploying the rest in target markets, including Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte, Raleigh, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

The venture’s next projects could come from purchases out of foreclosure, buying debt and pursuing joint ventures with “people or banks who are in a situation where they need to ultimately reposition the office building that they’re currently sitting on,” Shell said.

The Elghanayans are no stranger to conversions. In 1997, Thomas Elghanayan — then president at Rockrose Development, a firm run by his two other brothers — converted 45 Wall St. from office to luxury residential as part of the Lower Manhattan Revitalization Plan. 

“Conversions are where Tom and Fred originally cut their teeth and had a lot of success over the years,” said Shell, who is Tom Elghanayan’s son-in-law. “We’re really excited to be going back into that space, now that the opportunity has presented itself.”

Including 45 Wall St., TF Cornerstone has completed 15 office-to-resi conversions spanning almost 5M SF, according to a company spokesperson. It also pulled off residential conversions at 95 Horatio St., which was previously a refrigeration facility in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, and the Upper East Side building that used to house the FBI’s NYC headquarters. 

In the five boroughs, Alta is looking specifically at properties in the Financial District, Midtown, and parts of Brooklyn. 

The joint venture has a long history. Elghanayan worked with Dune CEO Daniel Neidich when the latter was at Whitehall Real Estate Funds, a hedge fund and private equity firm. Shell worked with Neidich after business school, Commercial Observer reported. 

Policy measures passed last year, including the 467-m tax break at the state level and the City of Yes rezoning that opens up more property conversions, have made conversions an appetizing pursuit for the first time in more than a decade, Shell said.

“Values of office buildings have come down, the incentives from the state are there in terms of tax abatements, and we think there’s a lot of opportunity that we’re going to be able to take advantage of in that space in New York,” Shell said. “I’m really excited about that because we haven’t seen that over the last 15 years, as much.”

Converting office buildings into housing has been pitched as a potential solution to two problems that cities across the U.S. are facing — what to do with older, underutilized office properties and how to create much-needed housing amid shortages across the country.

But ultimately, while conversions present an opportunity to take a chunk out of the housing crisis, Shell believes more policy action is needed.

“Conversions are not going to be the panacea or cure-all for New York City’s housing supply issues. Far from it,” he said. “It’s one tool that’s needed, and will generate thousands of new apartments and thousands of affordable apartments, but we need a lot more than that in order to address the housing shortage.”