DULLES, VA—For observers in the tech community, it was almost inevitable that AOL would sell itself to a company, the only question being which one. Yesterday that answer was revealed when Verizon Communications announced it was acquiring AOL for $4.4 billion. The deal is of interest to almost every quarter in the economy, from the unusual way in which Verizon is financing the deal (it is tapping the commercial paper market, which is rare for an M&A) to the drivers behind the deal (mobile revenues).

The DC area is also watching the transaction with interest -- AOL is based here and at one time was one of Loudoun County's largest employers. That was then though, specifically during the dot.com era. The company's tech profile and presence has greatly diminished over the years.

From a real estate perspective, the acquisition could wind up releasing office and R&D space into the market, although clearly AOL has been retrenching for years. For example, AOL is among the top tech companies in the DC area with a lobbying presence, according to JLL. Also, as the Washington Business Journal pointed out, AOL reached a deal to sell 65 acres of its Dulles Technology Center campus for $24.2 million, according to its most recent annual report. So the real estate unwinding has been long underway before Verizon ever came on the scene.

Indeed, it is fair to speculate that Verizon's acquisition may wind up preserving AOL's local office footprint. It is also fair to speculate that as all things mobile continues to sweep the economy, Verizon could help boost AOL's headcount.

The bigger impact the deal will have on the local community, it can be argued, is whether its absence will be perceived as a plus or minus by the tech community. The DC area, as many other cities and markets, has been eager to portray itself as a tech and biotech and life science hub. Certainly submarkets in Maryland and Virginia have attracted specialized companies in these fields and even DC has landed its share of brand-name companies.

It could be argued that these firms, usually start-ups, are small-sized and barely make a dent in absorption. This is true but consider recent leasing patterns in the District: it has seen growth in leasing due to businesses and associations relocating from the suburbs to downtown despite the overall region seeing negative adsorption. Specially, over the past 24 months, there has been over 300,000 square feet of new leasing activity in the District as a result of tenants from Maryland and Virginia migrating into the city, according to JLL. And who are these companies that are filling in the gap in an otherwise tepid demand environment? Largely high-tech companies.

"Creative industries such as digital media, software engineering, advertising and consumer technology represent a relatively small portion of the Metro DC tenant base, but incremental growth – primarily concentrated downtown – helped offset contractions within the region's core industries of legal services and government contracting," according to JLL's Scott Homa.

Separately, a recent report from CBRE found that DC ranked second out of 50 US markets for its ability to attract and grow tech talent -- which is integral, needless to say, to tech companies that are considering DC as a home.

The report, "Scoring Tech Talent", found that a high concentration of college-educated labor and an upswing in millennials nudged the DC market into a slot that is outranked only by Silicon Valley, California.

Rent and wage obligations rank lower than other top-tier tech locales, such as Silicon Valley or New York City, David Ritchey, senior vice president and tech practice leader at CBRE, said at the time the report was released. "As a result, Washington can be viewed as a relative bargain for office-user overhead."

Given all this, Verizon's acquisition of AOL should be viewed as a plus to the region. AOL footprint and tech presence has been dwindling for years. Dangling its name before prospective tech workers and start ups would almost be akin to offering to provide its dial-up Internet service as a perk (there are still people who access the Internet via AOL dial-up, by the way). Verizon, though, has more cache in the tech community and certainly deep pockets. It can invest and nurture the mobile advertising work that AOL is doing, and hopefully along the way entice new talent to the area.