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The vast Greenbelt apartment complex formerly known as Springhill Lake got its third name in three years because of a new managing partner, who plans to pump $15 million into upgrading the troubled property.

Fieldstone Properties of Parsippany, N.J., plans a makeover of the renamed Franklin Park at Greenbelt Station, with help in part from a preferred equity investment of $23 million by Wrightwood Capital High Yield Partners Fund II of Chicago.
The 2,877-unit complex — the largest garden style apartment community in the mid-Atlantic states, according to Fieldstone information — also was refinanced with a $241.5 million, seven-year first mortgage provided by Freddie Mac, according to Wrightwood.
With the new financing, Fieldstone takes over as managing partner from Empire American Holdings, which bought the property for $275 million in June 2008 from Apartment Investment and Management Co. That deal was financed largely with a $229 million mortgage, according to an Empire filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Empire announced its own $30 million renovation plan but didn't get much beyond renaming the complex Empirian Village. Empire racked up as much as $250,000 per year in code violations for failing to make required repairs, Greenbelt City Councilman Edward Putens said.
If properly maintained, the 155-acre property, built in phases from 1968 to 1973, can fill a crucial need for affordable housing in the Washington area, Frank Sullivan, Wrightwood's senior regional director for investments, said in a statement.
"There is a meaningful shortage of good quality workforce housing in Washington, D.C., and properties such as Empirian Village are an important part of filling the gap," Sullivan said. "Fieldstone's plan to update and improve this asset will go a long way towards addressing the markets need for housing."
Wrightwood noted a 2009 Urban Land Institute report showing there is a 40,000-unit shortage of housing for Washington-area households earning 60 percent to 100 percent of the area's median income.
Wrightwood said it had the "highest level of confidence in the future of this property," given its successful track record with Fieldstone.
City officials are hopeful the Fieldstone/Wrightwood partnership can turn around the apartment complex, which lately has suffered from a history of crime, arson and neglect.
"This new managing partner wants to take personal interest in making it something that's very viable," Putens said.

Although the planned $15 million investment could make a significant difference to living conditions at the complex and its marketability, the new managing partners do not plan a major development. AIMCO had spent years winning zoning approval for a $600 million plan to tear down most of the complex and replace with a high-density mixed-use project with a concentration on condominiums.
"That is not any part of the plan," said Gunnar Branson, a Wrightwood spokesman. "This is not a redevelopment."
Baltimore takes another stab at filling empty properties
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) has announced the city's latest plan to wipe away decades of blight with new incentives for homebuyers and developers to fill more than 1,000 vacant buildings.

She and Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano laid out a six-point program to woo people back to the roughly 16,000 empty properties, about 25 percent of which are owned by the city. The effort includes a $500,000 Good Neighbors Program, which provides a $5,000, five-year forgivable loan for 100 city police officers, firefighters and teachers who buy a vacant property in Baltimore.
In addition, Baltimore Housing has a $1 million fund to help 300 homebuyers buy vacant or newly renovated homes and a $1 million revolving loan fund to provide short-term liquidity for small developers and contractors who rehabilitate vacant properties in emerging markets and transitional blocks.
Baltimore Housing estimates that more than 5,700 of the vacant structures are in areas with existing or emerging development demand.
Rawlings-Blake said reductions in crime and improved public schools have made the city more attractive in recent years for families to relocate to and remain in Baltimore.
"The simple truth is that urban blight in Baltimore is a problem of too much supply and not enough demand," she said.
The program also calls for the following:
-Streamlining the sale of vacant city property with a new uniform appraisal policy, a new sale by live auction process, consolidation of property inventory into one agency, and an expedited lien abatement process.
-Strengthening code enforcement efforts with an automated $900 fine in transitional blocks and emerging markets to promote rehabilitation and avoid long court battles.
-Supporting large-scale redevelopment efforts in distressed areas without current market demand.
-Maintaining, clearing and banking land for interim and future use in the most blighted areas. The strategy includes targeted demolition, boarding and cleaning, and creative interim uses including creating new community green space where demand for housing doesn't yet exist.
Rawlings-Blake said Baltimore Housing will host a "Vacants to Value" housing event with development experts to solicit feedback and engage the community and private sector partners interested in working with the city to reduce blight.
"This is the beginning of a new effort, not the end. I welcome new ideas and tactics that will support this overall strategy going forward," she said.
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