Blue Ocean

Location: Baltimore, MD
Founded: 2004
Industry: Real estate

Blue Ocean

Jonathan Ehrenfeld
President

Ethan Frey
COO

SEEING THE POTENTIAL

Since its founding, Blue Ocean has grown its portfolio to nearly 3,500 apartment homes and approximately 2 million square feet of commercial space. In 2009, president Jonathan Ehrenfeld became the company’s sole principal and led a shift in focus to distressed multi-family projects of 30 to 50 apartments. He spent a significant amount of time at each property Blue Ocean invested in, making sure everything was well maintained, while also identifying areas of opportunity. “I try to instill in my team members to take ownership and create an environment that residents are proud to call home, and demonstrate high standards and a desire to maintain the properties at the highest level possible,” says Ehrenfeld.

Quick Tip: “A great leader is someone who possesses great compassion and understanding, can lead by example, and causes everyone around them to want to be better each and every day.”

A common theme among the properties Blue Ocean has acquired is that they showed great potential to be more than what they were. “Given the right resources and strategy implementation, they would provide significantly greater value not only to the property owners, but also to the residents of Baltimore,” says Ehrenfeld. “The properties have not disappointed. … The team at Blue Ocean is excited to have the opportunity to be able to improve people’s lives on a daily basis by giving them a nice, clean and affordable place to live.”