The Yards Lands An Anchor Office Tenant For Its Next Phase
D.C.'s Capitol Riverfront neighborhood may have come up short in its bid to land Amazon HQ2, but it appears to be in line for a big win at megaproject The Yards.
Forest City is in talks to lease between 240K SF and 290K SF to Chemonics International for a planned office building in the next phase of The Yards at First and M streets SE, the Washington Business Journal reports.
Chemonics, an international development company, would consolidate its three D.C.-area offices into the building at The Yards. The company's D.C.-area footprint totals about 226K SF between its offices at 1717 H St. NW, 1747 Pennsylvania Ave. NW and 251 18th St. South in Crystal City.
The company plans to move its roughly 1,000 D.C.-area employees to the new Capitol Riverfront office when its existing leases expire in late 2021. CBRE's Rob Copito and Rob Faktorow are brokering the the deal on behalf of Chemonics, while Meany & Oliver Cos.' Sharon Oliver is representing Forest City.
Mayor Muriel Bowser's administration has proposed nearly $6M in tax incentives for Chemonics, dependent on the company leasing at least 240K SF, employing at least 1,000 people and at least 500 D.C. residents.
The office building would be part of the next phase of the 48-acre The Yards development. The project already includes three multifamily buildings, with two more delivering by year-end, several popular restaurants and retailers, and a 5.4-acre waterfront park.
At full build-out, The Yards is slated to include 1.8M SF of office space, 3,400 residential units and 400K SF of retail, plus the 225-room Thompson Hotel. The project's future development sites had been included as part of D.C.'s bid for Amazon HQ2, which was awarded last week to neighboring Crystal City, along with Long Island City in New York.
