NASA Surveying DC’s Office Landscape for Headquarters

A request for information is one small step for NASA’s office lease, but possibly one giant leap for Washington, D.C.’s office market.

The space agency is soliciting information from real estate, academic and aerospace experts, along with other federal agencies as it weighs its next commercial real estate move, according to a request for information reported by Bisnow. It’s a fact-finding mission for the agency, which occupies 597,000 square feet at 300 E Street SW in the nation’s capital.

Its lease with owners Hana Alternative Asset Management and Ocean West Capital Partners is set to expire in August 2028. At that point, NASA wants to have options.

A spokesperson for the agency said it would “work collaboratively with the General Services Administration throughout the process of identifying the agency’s next headquarters building.”

The GSA is in charge of the federal government’s commercial real estate dealings. It would need to put out a prospectus to Congress before finding a new space for NASA’s headquarters.

“They’re in a fact-finding mode,” top government office broker, Cushman & Wakefield Executive Vice Chair Darian LeBlanc, told the outlet. “They are not in operating and transaction mode. So they’re seeking information to help them make the best decisions that they can make as it relates to their agency.”

NASA is exploring for its next headquarters include a lease, a lease with the potential to purchase the property or sharing space with another agency. All options appear to point towards a reduction in the agency’s office footprint, putting it on common ground with other federal agencies in a post-pandemic world.

NASA’s headquarters was one of the least utilized federal office spaces around last year. The agency only hit an estimated 15 percent of its capacity on a daily basis, according to a report from the Public Buildings Reform Board.

Perhaps the most intriguing option for NASA, however, is purchasing its own building. The agency is seeking properties in the D.C. region — either in the city or in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs — ranging from 375,000 square feet to 525,000 square feet. The office will need to house up to 2,600 employees.

If NASA decides to blast off from the nation’s capital, it could have a welcome landing spot in the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis said he was supportive of any interest in NASA relocating to the Space Coast; the Kennedy Space Center is one of NASA’s most important field centers.

— Holden Walter-Warner