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American cities caught in downtown doom loop
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WASHINGTON – “I have become the face of downtown’s demise,” announces Mr Anthony Lanier, president and chief executive of developer Eastbanc, as he swipes his phone at the door to get into his gleaming, high-tech building at 1875 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington.
It is a joke, but a wry one. The 20-storey, 285,000 sq ft building commissioned in 2006 that is a mere 10-minute walk from the White House is one of the best office buildings in the city. But since losing a major tenant earlier in 2023, it has been sitting empty.
