"We are negotiating with two more buyers right now, so that is a potential of nine floors sold out of 11," J Street president Bruce Baschuk tells GlobeSt.com. The asking price for the condos is between $550 to $650 per sf, he says, including a tenant work letter. All of the contracts that have been signed fall within that range, Baschuk reports.

111 K St. is an 11-story, 90,000-sf office condo with ground-level retail space. It is still under construction, with a delivery date scheduled for late 2009. The owners will move in by 2010. J Street broke ground on this project with six commitments on hand. It will begin construction on a sister building, 100 K St., which at roughly 200,000 sf is double the size of 111 K St.

Baschuk is confident that the demand for office condos in the District is there. Buyers tend to be non profits who are reeling from sticker shock at rental rates in the District--but still need to be close to the Capitol. "Buying an office condo allows them to stabilize their cost for the long run."

The NoMa area is particularly attractive to this constituency because most of the buildings--including 111 K St.--are either LEED certified or built to those standards, Liz Price, president of the NoMa BID tells GlobeSt.com. That was one of the reasons why the Sierra Club opted for its new address. The grassroots environmental organization recently signed a purchase agreement for a new three-floor, 28,000 sf office there, citing NoMa as an emerging green neighborhood as a big factor in its decision.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Erika Morphy

Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.