What to do with dying suburban office buildings? Turn them into schools

By some measures, the office market in Northern Virginia is as bad as its been in 25 years. Fewcompanies are expanding and those that are increasinglychoose from a small pool of buildings that are within walking distance of public transit, restaurants and other amenities.

Other building owners are weighing whether they shouldlower rents, wait until demand picks up or ifthings get really bad consider futuresfor their office buildings other than as office buildings. Among the possible escape clauses one might consider: turning those old office buildings into schools.

About 700 students elementary students began classes last month at6245 Leesburg Pike, a retrofitted officebuilding in Falls Church. Its a unique project in a lot of ways but it may not be for long.

Students in a hybrid theater-library space at Baileys Crossroads Upper Elementary.(Courtesy Cooper Carry)

In the D.C. market, the propertiesthat are Class A, that are near Metro or are in Arlington or downtown, are holding their value pretty well, saidLauren Perry Ford an architect at Cooper Carry. But anything another notch below that really struggles. So people who might not otherwise belooking around are lookingfor partners to see how they can put theirproperty to the highest and best use.

Perry Ford is head of Cooper Carrys education practice group in its Washington-area office. Most of the groups work is for colleges and universities. But because of a confluence of circumstances, she said, one of the fastest growing lines of business is in K-12 education.

Many of these conditions came into play in theLeesburg Pike project. For one, the office market in the area is hurting. As bad as things are in the rest of Northern Virginia, they are far worse in the Falls Church-Baileys Crossroads area. The office vacancy rate is 33 percent, 12 pointshigher than two years ago and two-and-a-half times the rate in the rest of Fairfax County. Space is being vacated far faster than it is being leased up (what the industry callsnegative absorption).

6245 Leesburg Pike (Courtesy Cooper Carry)

But while the office buildings in Falls Church and Baileys Crossroads are increasingly empty, the schools are packed to the brim, thanks to a booming residential population. Last year, Baileys Elementary was 30 percent over capacity, with more than 1,300 students.Overcrowding became such a problem that the school system brought in more than a dozen trailers for expanded classroom space.

Soa deal was struck: Fairfax County bought

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What to do with dying suburban office buildings? Turn them into schools