Extreme Leasing: The Largest GSA Lease

“Extreme Leasing” is a periodic feature profiling the biggest, smallest, highest, oldest, newest and other extremes in the government lease inventory.

600 Dulany Street (center) flanked by four additional PTO office buildings. Photo: CoStar

The largest GSA lease in the United States can be found in Alexandria, VA.  It is the 2,386,940 RSF home of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (PTO), a project spanning 5 office buildings and a small string of townhouses. It is the largest lease-construct project in GSA’s history and also among its most ambitious.  PTO occupied office space under 33 leases in 18 buildings throughout Crystal City. All of these were consolidated into one comprehensive lease agreement in the Carlyle section of Alexandria. Initially, 7,350 employees and contractors relocated to the site in a phased process that began in late 2003 and continued through much of 2005. Since then, the number of PTO employees has increased by 1/3, spilling over into neighboring buildings in the Carlyle district.

Not only is the PTO headquarters GSA’s largest by square footage, it is also its most expensive. Annual base rent is slightly more than $62 million (approx. $71 million today, including CPI adjustments).  The 20-year lease contract totals $1.24 billion.

LCOR developed the project with SOM as its base-building architect and Turner Construction as general contractor. LCOR remains the project’s operating partner today.