As Downtown DC flounders, could more apartments save it?

WASHINGTON — How much trouble is DC’s downtown in?

Workers returning to the office are not back at pre-pandemic levels and office vacancies remain high. Economists said those two things combined cost the city millions in revenue.

Tuesday, DC Councilmember Robert White hosted a roundtable to find out how to restart the District's economic engine. The consensus from the experts seemed to be less offices and more residences.

“[These] office buildings are like nuclear waste buried in the land, you have to pay to get rid of them,” Yesim Sayin, from the DC Policy Center, said.

Sayin didn’t sugarcoat her thoughts on Downtown’s current state.

“People used to move into the District for jobs and then move out for housing,” she explained. “Right now they don’t have to move into the city for jobs. But [DC] needs the people, we need the residents, we need the economic activity.”

The consensus on Tuesday was to turn Downtown, D.C. from an office park to neighborhoods.

“We really need housing as soon as possible,” Councilmember White said. “If we don't build it, the city is gonna suffer for a long time.”

As Downtown’s fortune goes, so goes the District. White estimates the business Downtown counts towards one quarter of the city’s revenue.

"Downtown is producing about $240 million less than it was before the pandemic,” he said.

Regardless of the future, the District is in for some tough conversations on the budget. If the council can’t turn around Downtown, it could get worse.

“That means we're gonna be struggling to find money to pay our teachers, struggling to find money for hiring officers and keeping our city safe,” White said. “[We would be] struggling to find money to pave our roads.”

If D.C. charts a course to transform Downtown to a more residential-heavy area, it won’t be easy. Many of the experts pointed out that a fair amount of vacant office buildings cannot be converted to residential, which could mean building demolitions in the coming years.