The Chevy Chase-based developer set to bring big changes to Connecticut Avenue announced it has found a new president and CEO.
The Chevy Chase Land Company Board of Directors has appointed Thomas Regnell, an executive at Washington Real Estate Investment Trust, to take over the company’s top spot from interim president and CEO Kate Carr.
Carr chairs the board that ousted former Land Company president and CEO David Smith in August for reasons the company didn’t make public.
The Land Company, headquartered at 8401 Connecticut Ave., has most of its real estate in Bethesda and Chevy Chase and has been very influential in the development of the area. Smith is the great-great grandson of Sen. Francis Newlands, who founded the Land Company in 1890 upon buying more than 1,700 acres from Dupont Circle to Jones Bridge Road.
Under Smith, the Land Company aggressively pursued a new master plan for the Chevy Chase Lake sector — the area including two Land Company-owned shopping centers next to the company’s headquarters. Development of a new mixed-use community and town center will largely be dependent on the delivery of the Chevy Chase Lake Purple Line station.
Regnell has been with the Washington Real Estate Investment Trust for the last 20 years.
“I am honored to be joining the Chevy Chase Land Company,” Regnell said in a prepared media release. “I have incredible respect for its history, and look forward to partnering with the Board and our shareholders in leading the company in its next chapter of growth, and in particular fulfilling the vision for our Chevy Chase Lake properties with the arrival of the Purple Line in the next several years.”
Rendering via Chevy Chase Land Company, photo via WRIT
