Apple recently signed a lease for office space in a soon-to-be developed Washington, D.C., building located directly across from Carnegie Library, where the company is expected to open a flagship retail outlet later this year.
Citing a source involved in the deal, Bisnow reports Apple will lease a full floor in 700 K St. NW, currently under development as a high-end office building.
Part of The Meridian Group's Anthem Row project, 700 K St. is one of four properties in a complex previously known as Techworld. Meridian purchased the site in 2014 and began a $142 million redevelopment in 2016 with plans to split the building into two addresses, 700 K and 800 K. Microsoft's Innovation and Policy Center is located two blocks away.
The Anthem Row facility overlooks Carnegie Library, which will later this year house a 63,000-square-foot global flagship Apple store. Apple signed a ten-year lease for the historic building in 2016 and was granted permission to renovate the structure last year.
Apple revealed plans for Carnegie Library last May, saying the location will be refitted to retail chief Angela Ahrendts' specifications. Along with the usual sales floor and Genius Grove amenities, Apple intends to use the space to host free concerts, art exhibits and educational workshops.
While Apple's intentions for 700 K are unknown, the lease reportedly covers about 23,000 square feet, a relatively small area for the tech giant. Apple typically seeks larger offerings, into the hundreds of thousands of square feet, making the D.C. deal an outlier.
The company in 2012 leased a 215,000-square-foot, four-building complex in Cupertino before building its AC3 campus a stone's throw away. Apple expanded its presence in the area with the lease of a 260,000-square-foot property near Apple Park in 2015. That same year, the company's footprint swelled in San Jose with leases for a 300,000-square-foot multi-use space and a 202,000-square-foot office building.
Also in 2015, Apple inked a deal for its first major office space in San Francisco, a 76,000-square-foot facility in the city's SoMa neighborhood estimated to accommodate 400 to 500 workers.
Expansions in California continue, with a pair of Santa Clara office locations leased in 2017 and earlier this year.
More recently, the iPhone maker reportedly leased more than 185,000 square feet of space in the heart of Los Angeles' film scene, as well as an 85,000-square-foot production facility, as part of efforts to build out an original video content business.
I was in the neighborhood several weeks ago, hoping to catch Aretha Franklin pop up exhibit at Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery and American Art Museum. To my surprise, you can actually see the Carnegie Library from the marble steps of the Smithsonian museum. It's an awesome sight line. I went by the future Apple Store and it had big tubes snaking out of the windows. I'll try to upload some photos later.
Ahh. Certainly one of the most historically under appreciated assets of the Smithsonian, simply because it is not along the Mall. A truly great museum. Now finally getting more attention since the neighborhood has come back significantly. A real success story. Glad to see Apple participating.
I can see both the future Apple Store and 700 K from my workplace. Both are under extensive renovation and have been for months. They stripped the entire exterior from the latter building, for example. I had not idea that Apple was getting space in that building. Based only the fact that K Street is synonymous with lobbying, perhaps this small Apple footprint will house Apple's DC lobbying staff.
That's exactly what I was thinking. A large business would be quite foolish not to have a major lobbying arm fighting for their interests in Washington. They either help shape the laws or they get steamrolled. This is a realization I reached only in the past ten years or so.
Not really. It’s going to be the offices of lobbyists. You know, the people whose job it is to influence lawmakers to do what they want, like not change those pesky tax laws so companies like Apple have to pay more. The other face of “democracy”.
Thanks, RandomInternetPerson, for posting that view. Unfortunately no luck in four sign-in attempts this afternoon getting those AppleStore DC shots from my iCloud. (Upgrading to iOS 12, in haste I put photos to cloud, rather than storing on my iMac as usual) When next AppleStore story comes around will try again if still relevant.