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?’”

Many U.S. cities saw crime increase during the first years of the pandemic before receding, but in D.C., violent crime incidents spiked to their highest levels this century. Organized retail theft and vandalism have taken a toll on local businesses, but there have also been high-profile carjackings and homicides in the heart of the city’s central business district.

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