BETHESDA, MD-Washington Property Co. has leased a total of 80,489 square feet in its suburban Washington, DC office portfolio to date for 2013. The company is very happy with the level of activity, says Derek Hendon, president of WPC Management, LLC—despite the fact that it is on track to secure slightly less than the 238,000 square feet it secured in 2012. "We are very happy with this current level of activity despite the lack of demand for office space by new tenants in the market place," he tells GlobeSt.com.

That is because the sequester has clearly made it mark on the area, hurting in particular lower tier government contractors--tenants, in other words, likely to secure space in WPC's buildings.

"The large ones, the Lockheeds of the world, are tapering off their space while the next tier down is giving back space and not signing leases at all," Hendon says. "There is a real lack of activity across the board and so we are happy with our leasing activity."

So far the company has inked eight leases in Maryland and three in northern Virginia. The bulk of its activity was at 8757 Georgia Ave., in Silver Spring, MD, where some 47,000 square feet was secured.

The company also has one million square feet of residential development underway. For multifamily, to state the obvious, the fundamentals are far different, Hendon says. "Now is a great time for multifamily however we do expect headwinds to probably come in 2014 and 2015 with the delivery of thousand of units in the DC metro area." Once those are absorbed, he predicted, the market will be strong again.

In May, for example, Washington Property Co. acquired three contiguous developable land parcels in Silver Spring primed for development. The parcels total some 28,000 square feet, sold by Bethel World Outreach Ministries International.

WPC also was selected by Montgomery County to redevelop the Shepherd's Table/Progress Place parcel, also in Silver Spring. The expanded facility will offer services to Silver Spring's low-income and homeless population. It would also include a second Solaire-Metro residential tower with approximately 380 luxury apartments. This parcel is just south of WPC's Solaire-Metro apartment complex

Also, last year, WPC began construction of Solaire-Wheaton, a 232-unit luxury apartment two blocks from the Wheaton Metro station on the site of the former First Baptist Church of Wheaton.