The Lerners Aren’t Selling The Nats, But What Are They Doing With Their Real Estate? Nearly two years after hiring a firm to explore a sale of the MLB's Washington Nationals, Mark Lerner told The Washington Post Monday his family has decided not to sell the team. Over that span, two other professional sports franchises in the DMV have sold, the NFL's Washington Commanders and the Baltimore Orioles, while the owner of the region's pro basketball and hockey teams launched plans to move from D.C. to Virginia. Those two years have also seen a dramatic disruption to commercial real estate, the industry in which the Lerners made their billions. But while the family broke its silence on the Nationals, the status of its massive portfolio of D.C.-area real estate remains opaque. The Lerner family owns millions of square feet of older office buildings, which have come under intense pressure since the onset of the pandemic, requiring big investments to stay competitive. Lerner Enterprises hasn’t announced any acquisitions, sales, renovations or new office leases since 2022. The 72-year-old firm also hasn’t provided updates on the millions of square feet of planned development it has in its pipeline, including the fate of two demolished shopping malls where communities have been waiting years to see activity. 
The company’s founder, Ted Lerner, died one year ago last week at 97. Since then, the company hasn’t publicly named its top executives or said who leads its real estate decision-making. Its website features a tribute to the founder on the homepage but doesn’t list a single executive.A Lerner spokesperson… Read the full story here. | 
