One morning last July, an office tenant near McPherson Square in Downtown D.C. requested a security escort from the building’s management. The tenant’s guests, staying at hotels a few blocks away, were afraid to walk to the office alone after they had witnessed an armed robbery at a building next door.
Blake Real Estate President Owen Billman, whose firm owns the building at 1425 K St. NW, said the landlord couldn’t provide an escort, but the property’s staff suggested the guests take a cab or an Uber for the two-block trip.
It is an incident that’s seared into Billman’s memory. His firm owns several 1960s and 1970s-era office buildings downtown, and he told Bisnow the moment illustrated similar concerns he has heard from tenants over the past year as D.C. has seen a spike in crime.
“That was a big red flag,” he said.
“If people aren’t feeling like I can walk a block to get from my office or my guests shouldn’t walk the block to get from their hotel to the building or from the building back to their hotel, that’s a problem,” Billman added. “And that’s the kind of thing that would then have, in my mind, have a tenant consider, ‘Do I want to be downtown?’”
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Emily Wishingrad over at Bisnow
