ArentFox Schiff To Relocate Downtown HQ To Space Fannie Mae Is Giving Up
ArentFox Schiff is moving its headquarters to Midtown Center, filling a large chunk of the footprint Fannie Mae is planning to vacate.
The D.C.-based law firm signed a lease for 120K SF across three full floors at the property's east tower, owner Carr Properties announced Thursday. The firm plans to move to the 8-year-old property on the former site of The Washington Post in early 2028.
Fannie Mae is headquartered at the 869K SF, two-tower Midtown Center project, but it plans to vacate more than half of its 720K SF along that same time frame, it announced earlier this year.
“Midtown Center offers an environment that fosters excellence,” Carr Properties Senior Vice President of Leasing Kaitlyn Rausse said in a statement. “Major businesses like ArentFox Schiff value this and validate the flight-to-quality trend we continue to see throughout the city.”
ArentFox’s deal is a new lease between the firm and Carr, a Carr spokesperson confirmed to Bisnow. The firm will relocate just two blocks away from its headquarters at 1717 K St. NW.
The lease represents a significant reduction of its footprint — the firm signed a lease for two-thirds of the 383K SF property that the Gewirz family’s Potomac Investment Properties and partners developed in 2012. ArentFox Schiff currently occupies 208K SF at the building, according to the CoStar database.
The property, which sits at the corner of K Street and Connecticut Avenue, also lost consulting firm Bain & Co. in 2019 when it signed a lease to move to Akridge’s 1101 16th St. NW. Potomac Investment Partners didn't respond to a request for comment.
“Going into our new office search, we had two main priorities: location and energy,” ArentFox Schiff Chairman Anthony Lupo said. “Midtown Center checks all the boxes, showcasing the first-rate working space, world-class amenities, and a vibrant environment that we are looking for in our Washington, DC office.”
Savills’ Arthur Greenberg, Tom Fulcher and Adam Brecher represented ArentFox Schiff, and Carr was represented in-house by Rausse.
The deal provides momentum for Carr, which leased nearly all of the office space in Midtown Center to Fannie Mae and WeWork before the pandemic, both of which have slashed their footprints after appearing as if they could leave the building altogether.
The mortgage lending giant occupies more than 80% of the building and put the entirety of its space on the sublease market in January, indicating it was exercising its early termination option, allowing it to move out in May 2029, Bisnow first reported. Fannie and Carr negotiated a new 340K SF lease earlier this year that begins in June 2029 and runs through 2040.
WeWork signed a 110K SF lease in 2019 and struck a deal to keep its space in the building amid its bankruptcy restructuring earlier this year, but it reduced its footprint by an undisclosed amount. Midtown Center, which also has more than 40K SF of retail, is tied to $525M in mortgage debt.
