After a DHS Warehouse Deal, a Fundrise Investor Asked Why

The company’s response — shared with Project Salt Box — describes how an unsolicited offer turned a vacant Maryland building into a $102.4 million federal purchase.

When a Fundrise investor learned this year that the company had sold a warehouse to the federal government, they redeemed their shares and wrote to the company asking why.

The investor, a small retail shareholder who asked not to be identified, had been with Fundrise for nearly a decade — drawn in by the company's promise of giving ordinary Americans access to the kind of institutional-grade real estate investments that had long been the exclusive province of pension funds and endowments. They had already decided to leave over an unrelated business shift. But after Project Salt Box reported on the sale of a vacant Maryland warehouse to the Department of Homeland Security, they contacted the company directly. The response was more forthright than they expected.

Fundrise confirmed that its East Coast eREIT had sold an 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Williamsport, Md., to the Department of Homeland Security for $102.4 million — roughly a third above its most recently appraised value. A company representative acknowledged that the circumstances of the sale might conflict with the values of some investors.

Fundrise completed it anyway.

An email sent by the company, shared with Project Salt Box, offers the most detailed account yet of how the building — which had never been occupied by a commercial tenant — ended up in federal hands. It also raises new questions about the brokers and contractors who facilitated the transaction, and their connections to the Trump administration’s broader effort to convert warehouses into immigration detention facilities.

A Fiduciary Duty, Fulfilled

In the email, Fundrise told the former investor that the company had not been actively marketing the property for sale when it received an unsolicited offer from an anonymous buyer. Records show, however, that the property was listed for lease on commercial real estate portals — visible to any prospective tenant or buyer searching the market.

The sales process was managed by what the company described as the largest real estate brokerage firm in the country. Due diligence was handled by a separate third-party contractor with whom Fundrise said it had no direct contact. The company said it assumed the buyer was a technology company interested in converting the building into a data center.

Fundrise did not learn the buyer was the Department of Homeland Security until closing. The agency never disclosed its intended use for the property.

By the time Fundrise knew who was buying the warehouse, the deal was almost done.

Fundrise framed its decision to proceed as a matter of legal obligation. As fund manager, the company told the investor, it has a fiduciary duty to act in the best financial interest of all shareholders. Walking away from a profitable sale to a creditworthy buyer, it argued, would have put the company in direct conflict with that duty. Completing the transaction, the email said, was necessary regardless of any personal views about it.

It is a coherent legal argument. It is also one that turned Fundrise’s retail investor base — people who had entrusted their savings to a real estate platform — into passive financiers of a federal detention facility without advance notice.

Largest Brokerage in the Country

Fundrise’s description of the broker points to CBRE Group, the Dallas-based commercial real estate services firm that has led the world in property investment sales for more than two decades, according to rankings by MSCI Real Assets.

CBRE’s apparent role is notable because of the company’s recent ties to figures now involved in the expansion of immigration detention.

In early 2024, CBRE completed its acquisition of J&J Worldwide Services, a government facilities contractor, for up to $1 billion. The deal was led by J&J’s chief executive, Steven Kelley.

Shortly after, Kelley proposed that CBRE and J&J pursue contracts supporting the Trump administration’s immigration detention expansion, according to reporting by Bloomberg. CBRE’s leadership rejected the plans. Kelley departed the company in August 2024.

He did not abandon the idea.

$5.9 Million to Find Warehouses

On January 7, 2026 — the same month the Williamsport warehouse closed to DHS — the federal government awarded a contract to SK2 LLC, a Clarksville, Tenn. company co-founded by Kelley after his departure from CBRE.

Federal records describe the $5.9 million contract as supporting property acquisition on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including the purchase of existing structures to meet the agency’s operational needs.

SK2 has received only one other federal award. That contract involves planning and due-diligence work tied to a separate ICE agreement with KPB Services LLC, a Kansas-based joint venture between SK2 LLC and a Kansas firm hired to conduct feasibility studies and concept designs for immigration processing and detention facilities across the United States, according to Bloomberg.

Fundrise told the investor that due diligence for the Williamsport sale was conducted by a third-party contractor working directly for the buyer rather than the seller. SK2’s federal contract — which runs through April 6, 2026 — covers real estate acquisition services for ICE.

Fundrise did not respond to a request for comment. SK2 LLC did not respond either; an inquiry sent to the company’s only publicly listed email address was returned as undeliverable.