As announced on Business Wire and Yahoo Finance - First Washington Realty bought the retail portion of Riverdale Park Station on March 25th 2025 from Cafritz Enterprises.
Yahoo Finance story here
Financial details and more later announced in Biz Journals here
The entire thing sold for only 69 million which was a lower value than I would have expected considering the quality tenants but I guess the fact that 10+ locations still remain vacant and not even built out after 8+ years impacted the sale price.
A major casualty of this sale is LeFantome.
When this location was still not rented Cafritz Enterprises decided to build out LeFantome itself so this location was not actually being rented, just "self-rented" and managed by Cafritz.
Seems First Washington is in the business of renting locations to tenants and not self renting/managing locations like Cafritz was doing... so they are closing LeFantome and they are looking for a tenant to rent the location.
Their new rental site is here and LeFantome is available to rebrand/rent.
I do think the fact that this is already built and and has been very successful especially the last year means it will rent quickly, but they have informed all the kitchens/ghost kitchens that they have to be out by the end of the month.
Chunky and Bops was already planning to leave at the end of the month (before the sale) as they have a new location in Landover which opens next month and they were the most popular at LeFantome.
Horu Sushi which was my personal favorite and the only restaurant which had been there since LeFantome opened back in August of 2022 will be gone. This place had some of the best sushi I have had.
Munchin Burger which just opened in October 2024 in what was the original food pickup area is also out because that location is also part of LeFantome.
Other vendors which are out of a home at the end of the month with LeFantome closing are:
Holy Croque (Chez Georgette)
The Exotic Chef
I wish they could have kept these vendors here but I understand First Washington not wanting to rent one of the largest properties in their development to themselves since they are in the business of collecting rent, not the business of running a food hall.
This was a large portion of my dinners over the past 2 years but the positive is all the other food locations here will probably see a pickup in business and also I do expect a new renter/operator will take over this space at some point.
