In many ways the five-year term renewal was a no brainer for MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, Almquist tells GlobeSt.com. For starters, the media company is tied to the WTEA offices, also located in the same building. Also the submarket of Shirlington, a small area carved out of Arlington County, offers many amenities, she adds.

Unfortunately one is not convenient metro access, which limits the appeal of the submarket to companies like MacNeil/Lehrer that have to be there and those firms that are willing to make a trade-off in favor of slightly lower rents, compared to the nearby Rosslyn-Ballston Metro Corridor. "Overall rental rates are lower in Shirlington than in the RB Corridor," Almquist says. For instance, the 168,468-sf lease that the Patent & Trademark Office inked at 2800 S. Randolph St., a new Shirlington office building set to deliver, was in the $32-per-sf to $33-per-sf asking rate range, she says. If that same building had been near the Rossyln or Ballston metros, the asking rate would have been in the high $30s to low $40s, she says. Asking rates for the Quincy Street building, a class B structure that is largely fully occupied, is $29 per sf to $30 per sf, according to Almquist.