Why Top-Secret Facilities Are Permeating Greater D.C.’s Office Market

The region around the nation’s capital has been hit hard by the Trump administration, as cuts to federal contracting dollars, employees and office leases ripple through the submarket.

But one sector pertinent to the Washington, D.C., area has seen a resource boost.

The hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government is pumping into defense — combined with new security requirements and contracting efforts — is creating a booming industry for a certain type of real estate in the region: sensitive compartmented information facilities, or SCIFs.

Demand for these top-secret facilities is benefiting landlords that have historically done SCIFs, and garnering interest from other landlords in the region trying to take advantage of these notoriously sticky tenants. It also means a boost in business for the brokers and contractors helping companies fulfill their SCIF needs.

“Everybody’s doing SCIFs, and everybody has a SCIF group now all of a sudden,” Brian Metras, who heads JLL’s secure environments group, told Bisnow. “It didn’t used to be cool. Used to be that law firms were cool. Now all of a sudden, SCIF space is cool.”

Over the past five years, the group’s SCIF inventory in Northern Virginia and Maryland has increased by 430%, according to JLL.

The volume of JLL’s SEG projects in the region rose from 907K SF in 2023 to 1.3M SF in 2024 to 1.6M SF in 2025, according to its second-quarter SCIF report. That increase coincides with a surge in defense contract spending in Maryland and Northern Virginia — $46.1B in 2023 to $76.3B in 2024 to $79.7B in 2025. 

“We’re in the boom,” Metras said. “We accredited 35 SCIFs last year. This year, we’re doing 45 SCIF spaces, 1.3M SF, just in our group. We have a dedicated SCIF practice here at JLL. That’s all we do is build SCIFs, our little group. So, I think that’s probably the biggest I’ve seen.”

Driving The Demand 

While SCIFs are located all over the country, there is a concentration in the D.C. region, surrounding the seat of the federal government and the nation’s security and defense infrastructure.

SCIFs are designed to be impenetrable to radio waves, sound and other technology where government officials and contractors conduct national security business. Because these facilities are top secret, they largely can’t be transferred to another tenant in anything close to a completed state, meaning each new SCIF requirement necessitates a full build-out from the shell out. 

“So tons of demand for SCIF spaces, virtually no supply,” Savills Managing Director Nicholas DiChiara said. “Ninety-nine times out of 100, someone’s going in there, they’re building their own SCIF.”

In addition to more dollars funneling into defense contracting, SCIF demand can in part be attributed to the government’s new attempts to contract with a wider variety of defense companies, DiChiara said. Instead of concentrating awards on the big defense giants that already have SCIFs, he said there are more requirements for smaller companies that include SCIF components.

Construction is also being bolstered by a new federal directive released in 2025 that requires that SCIF space be upgraded to new standards, with a focus on improved radio frequency protection.

All space was initially supposed to be upgraded by 2028, but that directive was rescinded in May. It’s now unclear what the final requirements and the new deadline will be, but contractors aren’t waiting. Some companies are renovating their existing spaces, while others find it easier to start from scratch at a new location.   

“We’re seeing many folks say, ‘Hey, you know we have these, you know, 1, 2, 3, several existing spaces. We’ve looked at the math. It doesn’t seem to make sense to upgrade. Can you help us build a new space down the street or around the corner here in Northern Virginia or D.C. area,’” HITT Contracting Vice President Cullen Hitt said.

The company has seen its SCIF work for the private sector expand 20% to 30% over the past year and a half to two years, Hitt told Bisnow. In response, the contractor has expanded that team by 10% to 20%, both from internal shifts and external hires. 

“We’ve definitely seen a pretty significant uptick in inbound requests and conversations and current builds going on,” Hitt said. 

Around three or four years ago, Davis Construction started to see demand kick off for SCIF construction and began certifying their team members in the sector to capitalize on the opportunity.

“Our group, we’re turning down some SCIFs because we can’t meet the demand at this point to build these SCIFs,” said Davis Director Dustin Hoffman, who leads a secure space team for the contracting firm.

“We’re actively probably working on, in various sizes, 10 to 20 SCIFs right now,” he said. “A year, two years ago, it was probably five to 10 SCIFs, and then four or five years ago, it was a couple SCIFs a year,” he added.

Clune Construction Senior Vice President Conor Brandquist said his firm invested in staffing and technology in preparation for the new SCIF security requirements, which didn’t come as quickly as he thought. But the demand now seems to be here, and he sees his competitors gearing up as well.

“It’s definitely a hockey stick. It’s definitely up and to the right,” he said. “I think we’ve had 10 SCIF opportunities come in the last month and a half. That’s a lot.”

Boon For Some Landlords

Due to security concerns around these facilities, there’s little public information about leasing and occupancy. While SCIF construction should act as an overall boost to the Northern Virginia office market, a certain subsector of landlords — those that have experience in the space — are benefiting, experts said.

“When you look at it, there’s going to be the landlords that know what they’re doing and do SCIF that are trusted by the tenants that capture the vast majority of the SCIF spaces,” DiChiara said.

In his letter to shareholders in August, JBG Smith CEO Matt Kelly noted the “particularly strong” demand for SCIF space at National Landing and said the “ability to deliver new SCIF or assign existing SCIF continues to be a key differentiator” in the REIT’s discussions with tenants. 

“Currently, 92% of our National Landing [General Services Administration] tenancy has a SCIF in their space, representing a lasting competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate elsewhere in the market,” he said.

When the Department of Labor gave back a significant amount of space at National Landing last year, the REIT was able to backfill it with a secure government user, JBG Executive Vice President of Leasing Brian Cotter told Bisnow.

“I think that almost all of the nonmission-critical GSA tenancy in our portfolio has basically been dealt with, and now our GSA tenancy in our portfolio is almost entirely mission critical,” he said.

Still, brokers and contracting professionals say other landlords are looking to get in the game. 

“They’re all trying to get into this market sector, because once they get one of these companies to move in their building, they’re locked in for a while because they’re going to want to use that SCIF space,” Hoffman said.