Business Specialties Leasing
Brookfield Inks World Bank to 227,000-SF Lease in D.C.
Nov 14, 2008
By: Coreen Bailor, Research Editor

The World Bank Group has agreed to a 10-year lease with Brookfield Properties Corp. that will allow the international organization to occupy all of the office space--227,000 square feet--at 1225 Connecticut Ave., N.W. in Washington, D.C. The group plans to move into the property during the late winter or early spring of 2010.

Paul Schulman, Simon Carney and Eddie Trujillo represented Brookfield internationally. Zeke Dodson, Brian Daly and Laurie McMahon of Cassidy & Pinkard Colliers represented the tenant in the deal.

Brookfield renovated and redeveloped the 30-year-old property over the past two years, investing $32 million in the project. The eight-story, Class A building is expected to gain LEED-gold certification. The building’s amenities include an underground parking garage for 310 spaces, a tenants-only fitness center and U.S. Mail and FedEx on-site drop boxes during business hours.

Located in Downtown Washington’s Central Business District on highly coveted Connecticut Ave., the building is near the Metro Subway system and along the avenue’s shopping district.

“This long-term agreement with the World Bank is a major achievement for our U.S. operations, and another example of the enduring strength of the DC office market, especially in light of the current challenging economic climate," Brookfield president & CEO Ric Clark said in a statement.

A third quarter 2008 report from CB Richard Ellis Inc. on the D.C. office market does, however, expect the market to experience sluggish net growth in the near term. “Vacancy rates are projected to increase as preleasing continues to slow in projects under construction and renewal activity increases,” the report said. “Tenant contractions are anticipated due to the national economic crisis and contractions around the region, and additional space returned to the market. These trends will have a tremendous impact on the vacancy rate as large amounts of unoccupied space from the construction pipeline are delivered to the city in the coming months.”

Brookfield, which owns and operates 28 commercial properties totaling 6.6 million square feet in the greater D.C. area, recently completed 77 K St., an 11-story, 327,000-square-foot building in the NoMa submarket.

 
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