A Maryland surgeon who lost more than $7.4 million on a 14-story NoMa apartment building is suing commercial real estate giant JLL for $12.4 million, alleging the firm repeatedly inflated financial projections to make the project appear financeable.
Rishi Bhatnagar, a Laurel-based orthopedic surgeon who founded Precision Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, filed the lawsuit in Cook County, Illinois, during the week of Aug. 18, according to Bisnow. The suit targets JLL's Chicago headquarters and involves the 115-unit Pinnacle apartment building at 7 New York Ave. NE, which Bhatnagar delivered in 2024.
Bhatnagar invested more than $13.3 million of his own money in the project. He sold the Pinnacle in April 2026 to July Residential for $30.5 million, more than $20 million below JLL's projected stabilized value of $51 million, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says he "engaged and relied upon JLL precisely because he did not possess JLL's claimed expertise in that field."
Projections climbed without explanation, suit says
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Jordan Shea and Alexander Loftus of Chicago-based Loftus & Eisenberg Ltd., lays out a timeline of escalating income projections that the complaint says were engineered to clear a financing threshold.
JLL's first projection in March 2021 put the building's stabilized net operating income at $1.65 million. That same document noted construction lenders would require a minimum debt yield of 8.5%, a bar the initial figure could not clear.
By December 2021, JLL revised its projection to $1.94 million despite "no material change in the property," the suit alleges. Still short. In January 2022, JLL bumped the figure to $2.04 million, then to $2.07 million in the underwriting model it supplied to the lender's appraiser. That final number cleared the threshold.
The complaint alleges JLL inflated rents, understated vacancy, assumed below-market payroll and omitted rent concessions to reach the target.
"It is the signature of a model built backward from the required result," the complaint states.
Before hiring JLL, Bhatnagar had received a December 2020 appraisal from Riley & Associates projecting stabilized NOI at $1.4 million. The project lender, Hingham Institution for Savings, later commissioned its own appraisal from Cushman & Wakefield, which came in at $1.85 million, well below JLL's final figure.
Hingham provided Bhatnagar a $23.7 million construction loan in May 2022, according to D.C. Recorder of Deeds records.
Broader NoMa struggles
The Pinnacle came online amid a wave of new multifamily buildings in the NoMa-Union Market corridor. Several struggled to hit projected rents, and at least two developers lost buildings to foreclosure in 2024: UIP's 99-unit building on New York Avenue and Ranger Properties' Lanes at Union Market, which sold at auction for $38.3 million.
As of Tuesday, Aug. 25, the Pinnacle's website advertised up to two months of free rent.
What's next
The lawsuit asserts claims of breach of contract, fraud, fraudulent inducement, negligent misrepresentation and breach of fiduciary duty. Bhatnagar's $12.4 million demand includes his losses plus fees, interest and $4.3 million in lost opportunity damages.
The complaint says Bhatnagar tried in June to resolve the dispute through arbitration, as outlined in the pair's April 2021 project management agreement. JLL declined, arguing the claims did not fall under that agreement.
JLL did not respond to Bisnow's requests for comment. No hearing date has been set.
