WASHINGTON, DC-Jones Lang LaSalle has tallied up office leasing activity in the Washington, DC area for the third quarter and--to no one’s surprise--found that the negative net absorption trend continues. For the metro area it will be reporting this week 1.35 million square feet of negative net absorption. Year to date, that number is 2.89 million.

For the District, Q3 saw a negative net absorption of 434,970 square feet; YTD that figure is 790,558. For Northern Virginia, those numbers are, respectively, 701,062 square feet and 1.86 million square feet. In Suburban Maryland, they are 214,105 square feet and 241,188 square feet, respectively.

“We've seen that, aside from a variety of large letters of intent, very dormant activity," JLL Research Director Scott Homa tells GlobeSt.com. “The federal expansion we witnessed in 2010 is a thing of the past, and we haven’t seen any private sector growth to mitigate that.”

Another trend JLL identified is that tenants are favoring new construction over existing buildings, as seen by Convington & Burling’s letter of intent at CityCenter. In its report, JLL says Arnold & Porter is rumored to have inked a LOI for 601 Massachusetts Ave., NW, owned by Boston Properties. Yet another rumor has Pillsbury taking 105,000 square feet at Akridge’s proposed development at 1200 17th St., NW. The law firm is reportedly downsizing from 240,000 square feet and shifting some back-office functions to Nashville, Tenn.

The DC area will be a tenant’s market for at least another 18 months, Creighton J Armstrong, JLL managing director, tells GlobeSt.com. “Tenants are taking the opportunity, especially now before the election, to examine their options.” Concessions are on the rise, especially free rent. That, in particular, is an attractive inducement because at the same time tenants have learned to be more efficient in their space use, Armstrong says.