Efforts of a General Dynamics Corp. (NYSE: GD) subsidiary to expand high-tech innovation capabilities from a suburban office building fueled the largest lease deal outside of the District proper in the first quarter.
General Dynamics Information Technology inked a 114,867-square-foot renewal at 7770 Backlick Road in Springfield, the largest deal across Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland in the first three months of 2024, according to multiple real estate services firms. Two leases inked in D.C. during the first quarter, one by the D.C. Department of General Services at 1101 Fourth St. SW and the other by law firm Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP at 901 New York Ave. NW, topped 200,000 square feet.
GDIT, a global technology and professional services company catering to virtually every major agency across the U.S. government's defense and intelligence communities, announced plans last year to double its IT spending on key emerging technologies such as data security, artificial intelligence and 5G. As part of that effort, in September it opened the 6,200-square-foot Emerge Innovation Center at its Falls Church headquarters, which focuses on digital accelerator solutions and showcasing various innovations.
Ben Buckley, GDIT's business area vice president, said the Springfield office serves as a central location for 400 employees within this sector of the company. And he confirmed that proximity to nearby Fort Belvoir, which serves as the headquarters for the DOD's Defense Technical Information Center, is an asset that has kept GDIT coming back to Backlick.
Buckley said use of the building, which landlord COPT Defense Properties (NYSE: CDP) debuted in 2012 and GDIT occupied as its first tenant, has evolved a fair amount over time, with a renewed focus on the company's innovation efforts. For example, Buckley said GDIT has expanded the space allocated to the company's DeepSky program, a hybrid, cloud-based proving ground akin to a lab where GDIT customers can test new technologies in a secure environment.
"It's a low-risk solution for our customers," Buckley said. "We're not trying to do anything in their environment. We're doing all of the pre-work and vetting things [here]."
GDIT also houses high-performance computing machines at this location for machine learning and software development. And Raven, a Ford F-550 that's been converted into a mobile data center that creates a private 5G network for drones and other use cases, calls Springfield home, as do other GDIT innovations.
"We're creating those spaces to foster that innovation, both with our team, for things for our customers and to grow as an organization," Buckley said.
This is the second lease extension for GDIT at 7770 Backlick — the first came in 2019. The property, part of COPT's Patriot Ridge development, sits about three miles from the nearest Metro station but is served by a large parking garage.
Patriot Ridge is entitled for nearly 1 million square feet of development, though 7770 Backlick, spanning 240,000 square feet, and the garage remain its only buildings. Columbia, Maryland-based COPT has previously stated that the Base Realignment and Closure decisions of pre-2010 that led to a surge in growth at Fort Belvoir did not generate the contractor tail that developers anticipated. But continued growth in Springfield, including the Covid-era addition of the Transportation Security Administration headquarters, has kept hope alive for the 15-acre site.
Reston-based General Dynamics reported $8.459 billion in sales within its IT services division in fiscal year 2023, up more than 3% year-over-year.
