Cashing Out on NSF's Move to Alexandria

A national life insurance company is looking to take advantage of the National Science Foundation’s move to Alexandria by marketing its Mill Road property to potential buyers, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance has brought in a real estate service firm to market its five stories of offices in the Carlyle Overlook building located at 2318 Mill Rd.  

The company paid $50 million for the office space about five years ago.

The building is located just east of the site of the NSF’s planned office along Eisenhower Avenue. The NSF office is expected to be occupied in 2017.

The NSF is bringing its 2,400 employees to the new office, while some of its estimated 2,200 contractor tail may follow. According the WBJ report, at least 10 NSF contractors currently lease space around the agency’s Ballston headquarters. The agency’s move to Alexandria could carry many of them to the Carlyle section of Alexandria and elsewhere along Eisenhower Avenue.

Along with its contactor tail, the NSF is expected to bring as many as 90,000 hotel room night stays a year to Alexandria, necessitating the construction of new lodgings.

City officials have been in talks with developers of other Eisenhower Avenue projects about the addition of a hotel to their plans.

Alexandria City Council will consider a slight height increase to the proposed NSF office at its meeting on Saturday, Oct. 19. The city’s Planning Commission recommended that council consider modifying some of the incentives given to the developer of the 660,000-square-foot complex.