Law Firm Inks 28K-SF Sublease in D.C.

An Alabama-based law firm has inked a sublease deal with one of its peers in Washington, D.C. — just the latest example of law firms gobbling up trophy space in the nation’s capital as office availability otherwise remains high and the federal government retreats from the city.

Law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings has signed for 28,251 square feet from multinational law firm Dentons at 1900 K Street NW, along D.C.’s K Street corridor. Bradley will relocate to the 13-story office from roughly 33,000 square feet at 1615 L Street NW, just a few blocks away, according to CoStar. The K Street property was constructed in the late 1990s and updated in 2023.

TIAA affiliate Nuveen Real Estate owns the building, which totals 361,200 square feet. The investment management firm purchased the property from Hines in 2005 for about $217 million, per property records. Dentons is the largest tenant there by far, taking over 150,000 square feet across multiple floors, for which it re-signed in 2022. It wasn’t immediately clear why Dentons opted to sublet part of its space. 

Other tenants include Fidelity Investments, International Franchise Association, HLP Integration and fellow law firm Dechert. Dechert also renewed its 70,000-square-foot space in the building in 2022.

Savills’ Adam Brecher and Tom Fulcher represented Bradley in the sublease agreement, while JLL (JLL)’s Elizabeth Cooper and Bobby Blair represented Dentons, per CoStar. Representatives for Bradley and Nuveen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Bradley’s sublease agreement is emblematic of the flight to quality in the District lately as the city’s office market remains in turmoil years after the pandemic ended. Multiple high-profile law firms snatched up Class A trophy space across D.C. last year, including Freshfields, which in February inked a 117,000-square-foot relocation lease at Carr Properties‘ Midtown Center complex, just a few blocks north of the White House. Freshfields joins fellow firm ArentFox Schiff, which in October signed its own 120,000-square-foot relocation lease at the complex.

Office availability in D.C. hit 23.5 percent in the first quarter of this year — a slight improvement compared to the final quarter of 2024, but still up 90 basis points year-over-year, according to a recent market report from Savills. Yet that availability, and D.C.’s office usage in general, is likely to get worse before it gets better — President Donald Trump’s cuts to the federal government’s real estate portfolio and federal workforce haven’t fully hit the District yet, Savills said.

A March report from D.C.’s Office of Revenue Analysis anticipated a loss of up to 40,000 federal jobs in the District from the Trump administration’s cuts — equivalent to about 21 percent of the city’s federal employees. Unemployment in D.C. reached 5.6 percent in March, its highest point since January 2022 as the country emerged from the pandemic, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Such a large exodus could have severe downwind effects on the District’s office, retail and housing markets, experts told Commercial Observer after the November election, as D.C. recoils from losing swaths of its top industry. 

D.C.’s weekly average office occupancy, at just 50 percent between April 9 and April 16, was among the worst of 10 cities surveyed by Kastle Systems. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s headquarters at the 700,000-square-foot Robert C. Weaver Federal Building exemplifies the problem. The General Services Administration has officially added the property to its growing list of buildings slated for “accelerated disposal,” as officials reckon with its 50 percent occupancy rate, exorbitant maintenance costs — and sheer perceived ugliness. 

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.