SILVER SPRING, MD–Much to Montgomery County's sorrow, Discovery Communications has announced it will relocate its global headquarters to New York City next year. It plans to sell its headquarters in downtown Silver Spring and has retained JLL's Capital Markets Group to market the 540,000-square foot building. Some jobs will remain in Maryland, according to a statement by George Leventhal, an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council, “but the number is not known right now.”

The news cannot be described as anything but a blow to the submarket, albeit with one distant silver lining. “It is a significant setback for Silver Spring, which has seemed to just be on the cusp of a breakthrough,” Sandy Paul, senior managing director of National Research of Newmark Knight Frank, tells GlobeSt.com. “It has grown somewhat consistently over the years but has also had its share of challenges in attracting the big names that went elsewhere in Montgomery County.”

Silver Spring's current vacancy rate is 12.4%, according to Paul. When Discovery vacates its headquarters the vacancy rate will rise to 17.8%, assuming there is no backfilling of space. For suburban Maryland, Discovery's departure will lead to a 70 basis point increase in the vacancy rate, he adds, rising to 16.9% from the current 16.2%.