A rise in office development around Mount Vernon Triangle has Boston Properties exploring a mixed-use alternative to its original plan for a 500K SF trophy office building at K and Sixth streets. While the real estate investment trust has not given up on finding an anchor for the building, the potential development shift is due to changing market conditions in the surrounding neighborhood, the Washington Business Journal reports.

"We're still marketing, and would love to have the opportunity to build that project, if the chance arose, but we're a little concerned about the depth of the market over there on the East End," Boston Properties Senior Vice President of Development Pete Otteni told the WBJ.

The East End submarket has been rife with office development. The D.C. Bar Association broke ground in June 2016 on a $70M, 100K SF headquarters at 901 Fourth St. NW. Boston Properties delivered the 478K SF 601 Massachusetts Ave. NW in 2016, while Gould Property Cos. and Oxford opened the 400K SF 600 Massachusetts Ave. NW across the street the same year.

Residential projects have been on the rise in the neighborhood, and there could be demand for more from those working at the area’s numerous lobbying firms. Mount Vernon Triangle’s eastern development expansion has brought such projects as the Lydian, Quadrangle Development and The Wilkes Co.’s 324-unit luxury apartment building at 400 K St. NW. A block east of the D.C. Bar Association construction site, a group of affordable housing developers is building a 12-story complex with a mix of traditional affordable housing and units set aside for households where grandparents are raising children.

The Boston Properties site at K and Sixth is zoned for residential as well as office, and construction could start on a mixed-use or residential substitute as early as 2018, Otteni said.