Know your market #2: DC commercial property incentives

In "Know your market" I commented on some pretty obvious disconnects between Utah and the products being hawked by some of the vendors.

Similarly, DC announces a tax freeze on downtown commercial space for "retail, grocery, or child care" ("D.C. launches ‘Office to Anything’ conversion tax incentive, commits millions," Washington Business Journal).

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has opened up the application window for a new program aimed at revitalizing obsolete offices in or near downtown, offering developers a 15-year property tax freeze to convert their properties largely to nonresidential uses.

The program, dubbed “Office to Anything,” could create up to 2.5 million square feet in repositioned property, according to Bowser, who shared details Monday evening with members of the Business Journal's Power 100 list of influential area leaders.

“Operators were saying, ‘Well, what about us? We don’t want to do housing. We think that we have a different and better idea for a particular building. Can you work with us?’ So, that’s what Office to Anything is about,” Bowser said.

Office to Anything means just that: entertainment, hotel, retail and beyond. The incentive could also be used to renovate outdated offices into trophy space, a segment of D.C.’s office market that faces high demand but low supply. The program locks in a building’s real property tax rate for 15 years, starting either the year after the conversion is complete, or if requested by an applicant, the tax year the conversion is finished.

If because of WFH downtown visitorship is half of what it was, there's no market for retail or child care, until in 10+ years, there's more housing (note: I worked on projects in DC that took 13 years or 20 years or more to come to fruition.

Note: I have to acknowledge that given the fall off in the commercial property market, the Executive Branch is desperate for anything.  And this incentive program will have some impact.  OTOH, desperate projects as a way to fill up space isn't much better.  

The right project in the right space is hard to achieve but worth the wait.