Cushman & Wakefield Retained to Lease DC’s Union Station Office Space

Union Station. Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

Rexmark has retained Cushman & Wakefield as the exclusive leasing agent for the office space at Washington, D.C.’s historic Union Station. The 607,735-square-foot office and retail asset is at 50 Massachusetts Ave. NE.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Mark Wooters, Michael Katcher and John Skolnik will be the leasing agents for the property’s 130,000 square feet of available office space on behalf of landlord Rexmark.

In a statement, Wooters highlighted the property’s convenient access to seven modes of transportation and the 43 million visitors it attracts annually.

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The station opened in 1908 and features 20-foot ceilings, ample natural light and balconies with views of the U.S. Capitol. It’s 100 percent Green-e Energy certified for wind power, holds a Certificate of Environmental Stewardship and is an EPA Green Power Leader.

Currently, its retail areas are home to numerous national-brand shops and eating options, including Walgreens, Chick-Fil-A, Warby Parker and Shake Shack.

Recently the property has been the subject of a three-way dispute over its control. According to published reports, the parties are Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which in 2007 paid $160 million for an 84-year lease; Rexmark, which had extended mezzanine financing as U.S. agent for Korea’s Kookmin Bank; and Amtrak, which operates numerous trains through the station. Amtrak had its headquarters there for many years and filed an eminent domain claim to take control of the station in April 2022.

Slow times

The Washington, D.C., office market is contending with negative net year-over-year absorption, pallid interest in many buildings on the market and an overall 19.5 percent vacancy, according to a fourth-quarter report from Cushman & Wakefield.

The Capitol Hill/NoMa submarket has an average vacancy of 12.8 percent on an inventory of 15.2 million square feet.  No office space is currently under construction in the submarket, Cushman & Wakefield reports.

This past November, Rexmark was part of a consortium of investors that provided financing for Extell Development’s 1520 First Ave. project, a $425 million 420,000-square-foot medical office building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.