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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is officially moving forward with its plan to vacate 1320 Braddock Place in Alexandria, with food assistance program workers at the facility set to relocate to Washington, officials announced Wednesday.
The announcement comes as city property records show the roughly 150,800-square-foot office building quietly changed ownership just two weeks ago. On Feb. 11, the property transferred from WRIT Braddock Office LLC to a Chicago-based entity called 1320-1340 Braddock Place Holdings LLC, according to Alexandria real estate assessment records. The transfer was recorded at $0, which typically indicates an internal restructuring rather than an open-market sale.
The building was part of the four-building Braddock Metro Center complex that Miami-based Kawa Capital Management purchased from WashREIT — now Elme Communities — for $79 million in 2018, a deal that came after USDA signed on as a major tenant. The property is currently assessed at approximately $8.5 million, according to city records. It was built in 1986.
Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden said employees in the Food and Nutrition Service, which administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations from the Alexandria office, will move to D.C. rather than to one of the department's five new regional hubs.
The announcement follows through on a reorganization plan USDA first outlined last July, when the department said it would return the Braddock Place facility to the General Services Administration as part of a sweeping effort to reduce its National Capital Region footprint.
The broader reorganization is expected to ramp up over the summer, allowing employees with school-aged children to finish the academic year before completing their moves, Vaden said. He said the reorganization would be complete by the end of 2026, though the steps will require compliance with laws, regulations and union contracts.
Secretary Brooke L. Rollins announced the moves at a press conference in front of USDA's South Building in Washington, which will also be transferred to GSA. More than 70 percent of offices in the South Building sit empty on any given day, with deferred maintenance costs that have exceeded $1 billion, she said.
"Behind me, along this entire city block in bricks and mortar, is what government that has grown too big, too bloated and too disconnected from its citizens looks like," Rollins said.
USDA's plan calls for reducing its capital-region workforce from roughly 4,600 to around 2,000 while expanding regional hubs in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.
GSA Administrator Edward C. Forst called the process "a very preliminary stage" and declined to commit to a timeline for the South Building transfer. He said GSA would consult with stakeholders, including the private sector, to determine a future use for the property.
It remains unclear how many USDA employees work at the Braddock Place facility. The department did not respond to a request for that information last July.
The ownership change and pending federal departure raise questions about the future of the Braddock Road Metro corridor, where the federal presence has been a longstanding commercial anchor. The Alexandria Brief has reached out to Kawa Capital Management for comment on its plans for the property.
This story was updated on Thursday, February 26, to clarify the ownership history of 1320 Braddock Place. The building was part of a four-building complex purchased by Kawa Capital Management from WashREIT, now Elme Communities, for $79 million in 2018. City property records list the owner as WRIT Braddock Office LLC.
