President’s Award
Councilmember Kenyan R. McDuffie
An experienced attorney, civil rights advocate, and community leader dedicated to improving the lives of Ward 5 residents.
Emerging Leader Award
Ashley Atwater is a principal and heads up operations for MBB Affiliates, LLC. Ashley manages the day-to-day operations overseeing the property management staff, maintaining client relationships and working closely with engineering and accounting. Ashley also leads MBB’s business development activities and corporate marketing campaigns.
Entrepreneurial Spirit Award
Natasha Mosley joined The Menkiti Group development team as the Development Acquisitions Manager in July 2016 to assist in growing the single-family home development portfolio. Her primary responsibilities include sourcing, analyzing and acquiring real estate opportunities. Natasha manages all new acquisitions from inception through contract stage, due diligence, and closing. Natasha manages and coaches the development team associates, coordinates on design, construction schedule, budgets and executive reporting.
DC Legacy Award
Smoot Construction provides designing, building, general contracting, and construction management services to transportation, education, and commercial industries.
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Community Impact / Economic Development Award
Providence Place
In partnership with the District of Columbia’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, Atlantic | Pacific Communities and PNBC CDC, Providence Place is a planned unit development comprised of 93 mixed income apartment homes located on the historic campus of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC) in the Lincoln Heights/Deanwood neighborhood. The redevelopment plan involves the new construction of a 4/5 story building featuring one, two, three and four-bedroom apartment homes, resident programming space, a computer lab and several courtyards and plaza seating areas.
Deal of the Year Award
Overlooking historic Meridian Hill Park, the 644-room Meridian Hill Hotel was finished in 1942 as the first government owned hotel built exclusively to house young women who moved to the District to fill government jobs during World War II. Jair Lynch acquired the development rights in September 2015 from Howard University through a highly competitive process and closed the transaction in December 2015. Renovation of the 8-story 182,000 sf hotel into a modern boutique residential building will provide 206 new apartments with panoramic views of downtown Washington and a full suite of modern amenities.
Meet Simone A. Goring Devaney
Simone has over thirty years of commercial real estate and finance experience. She is a principal and co-founder of CSG Urban Partners (CSG), a real estate advisory and development firm that specializes in public-private and non-profit real estate development and advisory services. Simone’s work focuses on the revitalization of urban communities, development finance, and non-profit strategic real estate planning. CSG’s current real estate projects include the 430,000 s.f. Shops at Dakota Crossing retail shopping center anchored by Costco and Lowes and Valo/St. Matthews, a mixed-use project that includes 221 residential units and the new St. Matthews Lutheran Church and Thurgood Marshall Community Center. CSG was also selected by the District of Columbia, in partnership with MRP Realty and Taylor Adams Associates, to transform the former Temple Courts apartment complex into a vibrant, mixed-use development known as Northwest One that will include 750 units of mixed-income housing plus ground-level neighborhood serving retail uses.
Prior to creating CSG, Simone served as Vice President of Real Estate Development for the National Capital Revitalization Corporation where she managed many of the District’s largest public-private real estate projects including over 1.5 million square feet of commercial space and 1,200 housing units. Before joining NCRC, she was Director of Operations at the Fannie Mae American Communities Fund, a real estate investment fund created to invest capital in emerging communities across the Nation. Simone began her career in finance as a Vice President with the Bank of America Community Development Lending Group, where she was responsible for underwriting and managing a real estate loan portfolio of projects in the Washington, DC metro area.
Simone has been honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of the District of Columbia’s Minority Business Leaders. She is a member of the Lab School of Washington’s Board of Trustees and serves on the Finance Committee of the Washington School for Girls. She is an active member of the Links, Inc. and Jack and Jill of America. Simone received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland. She lives in the District of Columbia with her husband and two children.
