DC's Development Update
WDCEP’s mission seems daunting to even the savviest sales person: Position DC as the No. 1 place to do business in the country. There’s no ranking that helps make the argument; in fact, DC was ranked 43rd on Forbes’ recent list of the best cities for business and careers. Yet the organization’s recent development report is chock full of stats showing a thriving city, despite a tough market for new projects and vacancy. The District saw 10.2M SF of new development per year between 2010 and 2013. But the city has only had 43 projects completed so far this year, far less than the 79 completed last year.
President/CEO Keith Sellars says the bright spot is how retail growth has been a positive result of residential growth. At the end of 2014, the city will have seen the most delivered residential units ever (6,908), along with the opening of its 28th new grocery store. DC’s population grew 2.1% to 647,000 between 2012 and 2013. And he expects residential and retail to keep growing with nearly 12k residential units and 1.8M SF of retail under construction, including six grocery stores.
Keith and his team, including some of the board seen here, help the commercial real estate community market projects on a national and international level to attract more companies to the District. Office vacancy is at 11.3%, an increase from the previous year, but lower than many of its surrounding submarkets. Improving vacancy will be a top initiative for the organization in 2015. Another big focus areas for WDCEP has been tech and Keith expects that to continue in the next administration with mayor-elect Muriel Bowser already throwing her support behind the Digital DC initiative.
The WDCEP team will attend SXSW, one of the biggest tech events in the US, for the third time in 2015. (This is part of the crew at this year's event.) Keith says it’s the city’s second biggest branding initiative behind retail. The focus at SXSW will be to bring both DC-based tech companies and creative groups to showcase at the two week festival. For the first time, WDCEP will partner with SXSW to produce its first SXSW DC music showcase, featuring DC artists and bands during the Austin, Texas, event. The organization will announce several new initiatives early next year.
