WASHINGTON, DC-While the rest of the nation’s commercial realestate markets relax as fundamentals improve, the mood in thenation’s capital is getting more glum. The Washington, DC area justrecorded a net absorption of negative 1.6 million square feet inQ1, Cassidy Turley reports. That is the lowestlevel since Q4 of 2002. The metro-wide vacancy rate increased 0.6percentage points, quarter over quarter, to reach 13.7%. In theDistrict itself, first-quarter absorption was negative 248,000feet, with the vacancy rate remaining flat at 10.4%.

The largest non-renewal deal inked this quarter was for a paltry(relatively speaking, if one is to harken back to the salad days of2007) 61,000 square feet at 1050 Connecticut Ave.,NW, by the American Bar Association. The next fourlargest leases were of equally dismaying size—dismaying, at least,to industry onlookers and local landlords.

The Nuclear Energy Institute inked a lease to occupy 50,900square feet at 1201 F St., NW. GMMB is taking 43,300 square feet at3050 K St., NW. That lease is followed by the 37,500 feet that IREXis occupying at 1275 K St., NW, and the 36,800 square feet thatCovington & Burling LLP took at 1275 Pennsylvania Ave., NW. Themain reason for the pause in activity is, of course, due to aslowdown in activity among federal contractors, to say nothing ofthe federal government.