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Downtown DC (for our purposes the area covered by the Golden Triangle BID/Downtown BID) has long been a fairly lackluster place. But, it was steadily improving into a more mixed-use area in the 2000s-10s with the high water mark being the opening of City Center.
But, that has come to a crashing halt with the pandemic. Galley Place, the "Times Square" of DC is entering dead mall territory. Conn Ave, which has aspired to be the Michigan Ave of DC, also feels pretty underwhelming.
Post-pandemic, Downtown DC faces 4 big challenges: 1) Increased telework- even once people return to the offices, increased telework is here to stay. Downtown may only have 70% of workers in the office at any given time. It's likely to be especially low on Fridays which could hurt the happy hour/dinning culture. 2) Lack of buildable land to add housing- DT DC is getting pretty close to full buildout under the height limit. There isn't really areas to add more housing. Roslyn (and someday maybe Crystal City) is slowly transforming from an office district into a mixed-use urban environment as aging office building are replaced by mixed-use towers. DT DC can really only add housing by cannibalizing office space. And even that is difficult given that problems with retrofitting deep windowless office space into residential housing 3) More competition for "destination" space- Navy Yard, NoMa, the Wharf are competing for "destination" tourists/suburban dollars. See Dupont Circle for similar issues. 4) Decline of retail- It's hard enough to keep a Union Square/Mich Ave type area, let alone trying to grow one when retail is in decline. We can only have so many food halls.
Are we just resigned to a permanently lackluster downtown? The baseline seems to be return to about 70% of pre-pandemic: office works slowly return, 2/3rd of lunch places recover. The arena and theaters reopen and galley place gradually fills back up with sports bars and fast casual restaurants. But, probably not to the same level as tourists increasingly head to the waterfront areas. Any further progress toward a more mixed use 18-7 downtown is pretty much out the window.
I hope I'm wrong. But, I don't what would change that trajectory? Adding 20,000 housing units, would help. But, I don't see that being realistic.
Downtown DC (for our purposes the area covered by the Golden Triangle BID/Downtown BID) has long been a fairly lackluster place. But, it was steadily improving into a more mixed-use area in the 2000s-10s with the high water mark being the opening of City Center.
But, that has come to a crashing halt with the pandemic. Galley Place, the "Times Square" of DC is entering dead mall territory. Conn Ave, which has aspired to be the Michigan Ave of DC, also feels pretty underwhelming.
Post-pandemic, Downtown DC faces 4 big challenges: 1) Increased telework- even once people return to the offices, increased telework is here to stay. Downtown may only have 70% of workers in the office at any given time. It's likely to be especially low on Fridays which could hurt the happy hour/dinning culture. 2) Lack of buildable land to add housing- DT DC is getting pretty close to full buildout under the height limit. There isn't really areas to add more housing. Roslyn (and someday maybe Crystal City) is slowly transforming from an office district into a mixed-use urban environment as aging office building are replaced by mixed-use towers. DT DC can really only add housing by cannibalizing office space. And even that is difficult given that problems with retrofitting deep windowless office space into residential housing 3) More competition for "destination" space- Navy Yard, NoMa, the Wharf are competing for "destination" tourists/suburban dollars. See Dupont Circle for similar issues. 4) Decline of retail- It's hard enough to keep a Union Square/Mich Ave type area, let alone trying to grow one when retail is in decline. We can only have so many food halls.
Are we just resigned to a permanently lackluster downtown? The baseline seems to be return to about 70% of pre-pandemic: office works slowly return, 2/3rd of lunch places recover. The arena and theaters reopen and galley place gradually fills back up with sports bars and fast casual restaurants. But, probably not to the same level as tourists increasingly head to the waterfront areas. Any further progress toward a more mixed use 18-7 downtown is pretty much out the window.
I hope I'm wrong. But, I don't what would change that trajectory? Adding 20,000 housing units, would help. But, I don't see that being realistic.
Anyone more optimistic on downtown's future?
If your assumptions come true, many office buildings will be torn down for residential rebuilds which will actually finally create the downtown DC we have all wanted. Downtown DC has 2-3 times the office workers as downtown Boston and Philadelphia which should not be the case. We should have around the same amount of office workers with about an extra 100,000 residents living in the downtown DC borders.
Washington is already starting to bustle back. Tour buses are being completely filled (I know it’s nowhere near the amount of tour buses and how in the world is that allowed?)
The metro is very busy these days during any other point in Covid by far it seems. I haven’t seen ridership but it doesn’t take anything more than your own eyes to see.
The city is just busy. Imagine when more people are vaccinated & restrictions are lifted, people go back to the office and the museums open.
It’ll be fine. Worst case scenario, a pot belly’s goes under in downtown if the people don’t come back. But I’ve been skeptical from the very start everyone is going to abandon the cities for Montana and South Carolina. If you chose the city before, I don’t see how that changes unless you’re starting a new chapter in your life or something.
Yea I feel like all the panicked media is really jumping the gun. I bet by August everything seems normal and, given Americans have the memory of a goldfish, have already completely forgotten the pandemic ever happened.
Plus, I have noticed building proposals keep flowing in like hotcakes, despite the pandemic, so clearly developers see a bright future.
Even if office demand were to drop, that would lower the price of Downtown office and incentive relocation from the suburbs. So, it'd rebalance and fill back up anyways over time (something that is likely to happen anyways given the high pre-COVID office vacancy in Downtown as new office space in NoMa, Waterfront, and Navy Yard drive competition).
Now, I am actually a tad skeptical of massive office to residential conversion, given that DC is running out of land for office in core areas. Once that area between Gallery Place and NoMa fills, it's going to get a lot harder to put up giant office buildings. Navy Yard looks like it will be full in another five or so years. I think it's easier to rezone residential land for higher density retail-residential uses once the easy land is redeveloped, but much MUCH harder to rezone residential land for office over retail. Thus, I think over the long term, I would be bullish on the supply for Downtown DC office space getting pretty tight actually.
Like, once that Gallery Place/NoMa stretch is built to the height limit, I just can't see the rezoning large swaths of rowhome neighborhoods to put up a giant glass office box, but I could see the allowing moderately denser apartment units in rowhome areas over time (the whole missing middle housing effort). Thus, I think Downtown office holders have an irreplaceable asset, especially given the other markets are being built out fast. I think Rosslyn-Ballston have a lot of room to grow more office, and Poplar Point once it gets going... but... neither of those are Downtown core markets, more core-adjacent, and thus substitutes, but not perfect substitues.
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