Since the recession, the District’s building boom has seen a wealth of new office buildings spring up all over the city.
That same building boom has opened up the options for office tenants across the city, which by extension has led to jobs moving away from the traditional areas of Downtown and Georgetown. It’s uncertain if the regular rental increases that were once the norm in those areas will return any time soon, the Washington Post reports.
Emerging neighborhoods, such as U Street and Dupont Circle, and former industrial or residential areas, like Southeast around Nationals Park, have been some of the beneficiaries of the office boom. Increasingly, office tenants have set their sights on more efficient, glass-skinned buildings—the closer to a Metro station, the better. For downtown landlords, that leaves them with the question of how to re-lease the older space that has been vacated, with some taking the step of transforming the buildings into apartments.
Over in Georgetown, the BID has commissioned a $200k study on the feasibility of a gondola service to connect to Arlington over the Potomac River, with an eye towards increasing the built-in transportation advantage that the District has over other areas in the region. However, it’ll probably be awhile before “gondola-accessible” replaces walkable and metro-accessible on the wish lists of tenants. [WaPo]
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