The City Paper recently had a long article on the DC United Stadium deal and its history. One thing not mentioned is that the offices of Motivate, with the warehouse and operations center for CaBi, is located on the footprint of the new stadium.
It seems unlikely at this point that the stadium deal will fall apart, and thus likely that Motivate will be forced to move soon. Though not confirmed, I suspect they're already looking for a new location. Back in 2013, when the stadium deal first stated to come together, I wrote:
CaBi moved into it's new location last year, after starting in a less appealing facility on Half Street in 2010. "We now have air conditioning, heat, better office space and an easy location for staff." said Gilliland. The facility has plenty of space for storing equipment, is easily accesible by bike or transit and provides access to the core of the system in DC, Arlington and Alexandria.
But it looks like they could be moving again. CaBi has a lease until 2017, but with DC United hoping to kick off the 2016 season in the new facility, it looks like they won't make it that long. In fact, the operations center is next to property that will almost surely need environmental remediation and CaBi doesn't want its employees working outside when that is work is being done, so they'd like to move before work begins.
DC is supposed to acquire all the stadium land by September 2015 and hand it over by September 2016, with groundbreaking prior to 2017, which would mean that Motivate likely has to move before then, but could make it to the end of their lease I suppose.
Where they'll go is another question. They need space to warehouse excess equipment, run a large-scale repair center, park vehicles house offices etc... and they'd like it all centrally-located. And not too expensive either. Should be easy.
There are the lower levels of the DC USA Parking Garage. And no one will be using RFK, right?
We are actively looking for a new location.
Posted by: Eric | July 10, 2015 at 11:37 AM