Rockefeller Group, Stonebridge Begin Work on 400 KSF DC Project

600 Fifth rendering. Image courtesy of Rockefeller Group

Rockefeller Group and Stonebridge have begun construction on 600 Fifth, a 400,000-square-foot redevelopment office project in Washington, D.C. The groundbreaking marks the closing of a 99-year ground lease with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro), which remains the ground lessor of the property.

Situated at 600 Fifth St. NW, the redevelopment of the former Metro headquarters is the first new office development to break ground in Washington, D.C., in 2023. Previously housed on the 1.1-acre lot was an eight-story building completed in 1974, CommercialEdge data shows.

Upon completion, 600 Fifth is set to include an additional three stories, along with an updated façade, a rooftop and outdoor decks. Designed by architect of record Kendall Heaton Associates and planned by design architect Pickard Chilton, the redeveloped building is slated to feature modern upgrades and new building systems. The general contractor is Clark Construction.

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Located in Penn Quarter, the project is between the National Building Museum and the Capital One Arena. Tenants will be one block from the Gallery Place and Judiciary Square Metro rail stations.

Along with the groundbreaking, the redevelopment also landed the largest private-sector lease in the city since 2019. Crowell & Moring LLP, an international law firm founded in Washington, D.C., will be 600 Fifth’s anchor tenant and occupy nearly 200,000 square feet on the building’s top five floors. Courts and federal agencies will be within walking distance, and tenants will have views of the U.S. Capitol and Washington Monument.

Taisei USA LLC and Mitsubishi Estate New York, a U.S. affiliate of Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd., provided additional equity financing for the project.

Bill Prutting and Martine Combal led the JLL Capital Markets team that represented Metro in the ground lease transaction. The Cushman & Wakefield Capital Markets team, Bill Collins, Drew Flood, Marshall Scanlon and Bindi Shah, acted on behalf of Stonebridge and Rockefeller Group in the deal.

A JLL brokerage team including Tom Doughty, Elizabeth Cooper and Greg McCavera represented Crowell & Moring in the lease transaction, while CBRE’s Scott Frankel, Carroll Cavanagh, Dimitri Hajimihalis, Emily Eppolito and DJ Callahan are the exclusive leasing agents for the rest of the building.

DC’s office market continues to rebound

Although it is true that post-COVID-19 other gateway markets are making a comeback more quickly than Washington, D.C., the city is experiencing upward momentum. In 2022, there was 2.7 million square feet of new office space delivered in the metro, with more than 8.5 million square feet under construction at the end of December. Office leasing activity also increased throughout 2022.

Recently, a mixed-use office, retail and residential project entered pre-construction work in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8. The $290 million project will feature 240,000 square feet and is anticipated to deliver in 2026.