Ted Lerner

Theodore Nathan Lerner (October 15, 1925 – February 12, 2023) was an American real estate developer and managing principal owner of the Washington Nationals in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was the founder of Lerner Enterprises, the largest private landowner in the Washington metropolitan area, which owns commercial, retail, residential, and hotel properties, as well as Chelsea Piers in New York City. In 2022, with a net worth of $6.4 billion, he was tied for the richest resident of Maryland.

Early life and education Lerner was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Northwest Washington D.C., the eldest of three children born to Mayer, a 1921 emigrant from British Mandatory Palestine (modern day Israel), and Ethel, who immigrated from Lithuania.

Lerner served with the U.S. Army as a typist during the latter part of World War II, where he was stationed at Fort Hood in Waco, Texas. While in law school, he sold homes on the weekends, which piqued his interest in real estate.

In the late 1950s, he developed Wheaton Plaza in partnership with Isadore Gudelsky. In 1968, he developed Tysons Corner Center on land that had in the recent past featured apple orchards and cow pastures.

He developed 22,000 homes and 6,000 apartments, along with numerous office buildings as well as Chelsea Piers, Tysons II, and Dulles Town Center.

Washington Nationals The Washington Nationals franchise (then known as the Montreal Expos) was owned and operated by Major League Baseball from February 15, 2002. In 2006, Bud Selig chose Lerner and his family as the buyer of the team, for which he paid $450 million; the official transfer of ownership to Lerner occurred on July 24, 2006.

The Lerner family is the majority owner of the franchise, controlling over 90% of the shares. Lerner retired as managing principal owner in 2018, ceding the role to his son, Mark Lerner. Lerner won a World Series ring when the Nationals defeated the Houston Astros in the 2019 World Series.

He was also a partner in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League, the Washington Mystics of the Women's National Basketball Association, the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association, and Capital One Arena.

The campus of the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Rockville is named in his and his wife's honor after a multimillion-dollar donation to the school. The lunch room in the Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy was donated by the Lerner Family. The family has also donated the Lerner Family Health and Wellness Center and Theodore Lerner Hall at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. along with the Lerner Center at Hebrew University in Israel. The family donated the theater at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, Maryland. Elected to the Washington Business Hall of Fame by Junior Achievement of the National Capital Area in 2003

Personal life and death Lerner accepted few of the awards he was offered and made few public appearances, preferring to remain relatively anonymous.

On June 17, 1951, he married Annette M. Lerner. They had three children: Mark D. Lerner (married to Judy Lenkin Lerner), Debra Lerner Cohen (married to Edward L. Cohen) and Marla Lerner Tanenbaum (married to Robert K. Tanenbaum). Ted Lerner had nine grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.

Lerner died from pneumonia at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on February 12, 2023, at age 97.