HOUSINGNEWS REPORT
WILL AMAZON SAVE THE SWAMP?
Doing Business Beyond the Amazon Distraction
While the whole Amazon conundrum has been a
distraction for DC and the rest of the cities vying for HQ2, other major companies have already chosen to make the move to the metro area. Hilton Hotels Corporation moved from Beverly Hills, California, to McLean, Virginia, opening its new worldwide headquarters there in 2009. In early 2017 Nestle USA relocated its corporate headquarters from Glendale, California, to Rosslyn, Virginia. Just recently Gerber, a subsidiary of Nestle, moved its headquarters from Florham Park, New Jersey to the District, joining its parent corporation in the same building in Rosslyn. The DC metro area is also home to a number of Fortune 500 public companies including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, General Dynamics Corp., Lockheed Martin Corp., Capital One Financial, Danaher, Marriott International, Host Hotels & Resorts and Hilton Worldwide Holdings.
Currently Urban Pace has three projects in the NoMa district (an area north of Massachusetts Avenue) with modern developments replacing old industrial lots. One project is completed while the other two are set to start construction at year’s end. Overall, Fuller believes the Washington D.C. economy is in reasonably good shape — substantially better than last year with an expectation that 2019 will be even better. “Washington has a housing market where the demand for housing is harder to measure because so much of the population is transient. As for the homebuying market, the more expensive homes in the $800,000 plus category, a significant portion is purchased with foreign money. We have a lot more than most markets because we have 180 foreign consulates here,” he said. Overall, Fuller said that uncertainty is not good for either the area economy or its real estate market, and there is sense of uncertainty
builders need to offer the same amenities in their new housing that they have in the city, according to Mann. “Builders have to build further out because of available land, and people are not willing to commute two hours each way. You have to drive 40 miles to find developable land that is relatively cheap,” said Fuller. “The concentration of jobs is still around the beltway and inside the beltway. High-paying jobs are concentrated inside the beltway and along the major corridors.” Converting Churches to Condos With available land too far for many to build, and rising construction costs, material costs and more expensive entitlements, builders are either tearing down old buildings and putting up new ones, or converting older buildings, according to Mann. “We do everything,” he said. “Adaptive reuse, conversions. Last year we converted two churches to condos. We’ve also done school houses and office buildings.”
right now associated with the Trump administration and the budget decisions it is making.
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MAY 2018 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS
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