Merit Board Renews 46,429 SF at 1615 M

WASHINGTON, DC-The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board has inked a 10-year renewal for 46,429 square feet at 1615 M Street, a CBD building owned by an affiliate of Boston Properties. The agency will continue to occupy the fifth and sixth floors of the building, called SummerSquare.  

The GSA was repped by Jones Lang LaSalle’s Kevin Terry, Michael Sims, Whitney Aaronson and Bill Craig.  Greg Storrs represented Boston Properties. The agency is occupying more than 22% of the property.

The renewal is a pleasant reminder of the space that the federal government occupies in the District and surrounding area. There are signs, however, that the government may be scaling back on its presence for various reasons, perhaps most notably because the government itself is likely to undergo significant cuts. 

While the impact of the pullback might not become immediately apparent, there has been a general whiff of a retrenchment in general in the DC area’s preliminary numbers for Q1. 

The vacancy rate for the District has risen in the past 90 days, CBRE’s Bruce Pascal told GlobeSt.com in an earlier interview. The District itself remains relatively solid but as consulting firms put together their final figures it is likely that both Maryland and Northern Virginia will show negative absorption.