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The District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virgina (DMV) region is emerging as a national test case for the future of office space. As cities across the country grapple with persistent office vacancies, D.C. is taking a bold approach: Instead of focusing solely on residential conversions, it is pioneering a broader strategy to convert offices toanything. While the concept of office conversions isnt new, most efforts have been centered on residential use. D.C.s strategy breaks that mold. In January 2025, the city launched the Central Washington Activation Projects Temporary Tax Abatement, better known as the Office to Anything program. This policy targets buildings that arent suitable for housing conversion and opens the door to a wider range of uses. With this program, D.C. is positioning itself as a laboratory for alternative office conversions, from data centers to hospitality and mixed-use spaces. As federal workforce reductions continue and General Service Administration (GSA) leases expire, the DMV faces mounting vacancies. This presents a rare opportunity for other cities to watch D.C.s approach in action and consider how similar policies could reshape their own urban cores. WHY D.C.S OFFICE MARKET SIGNALS A NATIONAL SHIFT The DMV is ground zero for federal downsizing, with one-fifth of all federal workers, according to Brookings, and 46 million square feet of office space leased by the government. With our Federal Property Pulse (FPP) tool, we are tracking these GSA leases and cancellations across the U.S. Since January 2025, 24 leases in the region have been canceled, contributing to 1.9 million square feet of vacant office space. This is over 4% of the total space leased by the GSA. The FPP shows that another 9.98 million square feet of space could enter the already struggling DMV office market in the next year. This is a critical moment for the region. As the structure of the federal government continues to evolve, so must the economic core. Brookings DMV Monitor reported a mismatch in displaced federal government workers and available private sector positions. While there are new jobs entering the market, many of these are unsuited to the 17,000 displaced federal government workers, as the new roles are concentrated in construction, hospitality, and healthcare sectors. As GSA lease expiries and cancellations increase and federal workforce reduction continues, D.C. could become a case study for the role of office conversions in supporting a shifting economic core. FEDERAL LEASE EXPIRIES: A TICKING CLOCK FOR OFFICES A wave of expiring federal leases is approaching. As part of the effort to cut government spending, the GSA will reduce its leased footprint by allowing expiring leases to lapse without renewal. With the GSA leasing 145 million square feet of office space across the U.S., the DMV will not be the only region affected. Of that space, 51.4 million square feet are already in holdover, soft-term, or nearing soft-term. While we can predict an influx of former GSA-leased properties will enter the market, lease terms make it difficult to know exact timing. GSA leases typically include a noncancellable hard-term followed by a soft-term, where leases can be terminated with 120180 days notice. This creates uncertainty around when properties will re-enter the market. UNLOCK NEW USES FOR OFFICE SPACE The initial hype around office-to-residential conversions was driven by a rise in vacant office properties in favorable downtown neighborhoods. These properties helped address housing shortages, but many of the most viable buildings have already been repurposed. With residential conversion options narrowing, cities must assess market demand and local economic drivers to identify alternative uses. The D.C. Office to Anything policy seeks to reposition underutilized office assets into higher-performing uses based on zoning, market demand, and building characteristics. Key alternative uses include small-scale industrial, data centers, hospitality, and mixed-use spaces. Looking beyond the office-to-residential model could offer cheaper conversions and shorter timelines. Small scale industrial and logistics conversions come in around $100-$150 per square foot with timelines of 6 to 12 months, while residential conversions cost $250-$400 per square foot with 24-to-36-month timelines. Not only do industrial uses offer lower conversion costs, but shorter timelines could also result in quick returns on investment. It isnt only a matter of cost and timelines; alternative office conversions are better suited to meet the needs of an individual market. For some cities, data centers are emerging as an opportunity for conversion. With a projected shortfall of over 15 gigawatts of processing power by 2030, vacant office properties located near economic and urban centers could help to curb demand. In particular, offices can be converted to edge computing facilities that distribute processing and data storage, keeping these capabilities closer to data sources. WHAT MAKES CONVERSIONS WORK? Successful conversions depend on two things: physical feasibility and financial viability. Local government support is key to improving the viability of conversions through streamlined approval processes, zoning flexibility, and financial support. Zoning is one of the first, and more formidable hurdles that office conversions face. If a commercial property cannot be rezoned, the entire viability of the project falls apart. Downtowns with zoning flexibility will see the most success in the long run. In Texas, statewide zoning flexibility is enabling office conversions in cities like Dallas. Local government can also play a major role in determining the financial viability of a conversion project. Without tax incentives or subsidies, the cost of conversions could be prohibitive. This is part of what makes D.C.s Office to Anything conversions so appealing. Providing a 15-year temporary property tax freeze, the policy improves viability. Combined with the potential for lower conversion costs for nonresidential uses, these projects could become more appealing for developers. SCALE THE STRATEGY The DMV isnt alone in facing office vacancy challenges. Across the U.S., millions of square feet in GSA properties stand to enter the market. D.C. can show us what to do with that vacant space. Office conversions dont have to mean housing, they can mean anything. As cities continue to rethink their economic cores, the success of D.C.s Office to Anything strategy could redefine how we use space. Mark Rose is chair and CEO of Avison Young.
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Greetings, and welcome back to Fast Companys Plugged In. Even by tech-industry standards, the air of serene confidence OpenAI CEO Sam Altman projects in public appearances is overwhelming. Still, that doesnt mean he never sweats behind the scenes. Indeed, we learned this week that Altman is downright concerned about the future of his companys flagship product, ChatGPT. On December 1, The Informations Stephanie Palazzolo and Erin Woo reported that Altman had initiated a code red effort within OpenAI to make its chatbot more personalized and customizable. The move involves diverting resources from other efforts, such as developing AI agents and monetizing the companys platform through advertising. Drawing on an Altman memo distributed to OpenAI staffers, Palazzolo and Woos story says he called now a critical time for ChatGPT. Their piece doesnt spell out the reasons for his alarm in much detail. But it ties his redeployment of resources to Googles recent surge as a provider of AI platforms and products, which Altman called out as at least a short-term issue for OpenAI in an earlier memo. Since he wrote that one, Google released Gemini 3 Pro. The new version of its LLM has achieved breakthrough high scores in multiple AI benchmarks, along with excellent reviews. No wonder Altman is feeling pressured. ChatGPTs historic success leaves OpenAI with more to lose than any other AI chatbot company. In October, Altman said it had reached 800 million active weekly users, a figure few tech products have ever reached. I dont know of any truly reliable comparative stats on usage of the major AI chatbots. But every chart Ive seen tells a similar story, with ChatGPT sailing along by itself in the stratosphere and everyone else huddled in its shadow. Why is that? Well, with ChatGPT OpenAI created the modern AI chatbot category, giving itself a head start that still matters three years later. People who use these products have different tastes and priorities, but ChatGPT has evolved rapidly. It remains one of the strongest options, even though GPT-5 turned out to be ludicrously overhyped. Despite furious competition from startups and tech giants alikeincluding worthy contenders such as Anthropics Claudenobody has come up with anything manifestly superior enough to knock it off its pedestal. But it might be a mistake to assume that ChatGPT has an everlasting lock on its market, akin to the one Google secured in conventional search engines early in this century. Altman clearly doesnt think so. And over the past couple of weeks, Ive come to think the market might be more fluid than I realized. Thats because Ive found myself spending far less time with ChatGPT (as well as Claude, my other chatbot of habit). Instead, Ive taken almost all of my AI needs to Googles new version of Gemini. Now, when I wrote about Gemini 3 Pro for Plugged In shortly after its release, I did tend to accentuate the negative. That was based on experiencing some pretty severe hallucinations on its part, some of which it oddly tried to blame on others. Having used the new Gemini a lot more since then, Ive given it more opportunities to impress meand it has. Ive used it for everything from discovering lesser-known bossa nova music to vibe coding to figuring out how to manually install apps on my network server. In those instances when I tried the same task with ChatGPT, Ive consistently liked Geminis responses better. But the lesson Ive drawn isnt just that Googles AI has improved by several orders of magnitude since the days when Bard, its proto-Gemini, was a slightly embarrassing also-ran. Its also dawned on me that absolutely nothing is keeping me from leaving ChatGPT for Gemini. Its been one of the most frictionless transitions between platforms Ive ever experienced. For instance, no learning curve was involved: The two chatbots have damn near the same user interface. Nor did I have anything stored in ChatGPT that provided a powerful incentive to stay there, the way my Gmail archive (and rules Ive set up to organize my inbox) induces me to keep using Gmail. Even ChatGPTs memory featurewhich tries to mine your chat history to improve its responseshasnt figured out enough about me to make the app stickier. It still feels more like an eager-to-please stranger than an old friend. As does Gemini and every other AI bot. As a person who uses AI, the realization that Im not boxed into ChatGPT has been . . . kind of thrilling, actually. For OpenAI, however, its a problem. I currently pay OpenAI $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus and Google $26 a month for a Workspace Business Plus account. But along with enterprise-grade Gemini, Googles $26-per-month plan gets me a full complement of productivity tools, 5TB of cloud storage, and more. At some point, ChatGPT Plus might look expendableespecially if I continue to prefer Gemini. Now multiply my decision process by the 220 million paying users OpenAI has said it expects to have by 2030. Without them, the business model behind its mind-bendingly expensive plan to build out its data center capacity would crumble. If users of ChatGPTs free plan defect to Gemini in significant numbers, it would also complicate the companys intention of becoming an ad platform. Altmanunderstands all this. Thats why he set off the code-red alarm to quickly bolster ChatGPTs user experience. It explains why hes particularly focused on personalization and customization, two features that would help the chatbot feel less like an easily replaceable commodity. According to The Informations report, Altmans memo also said that OpenAI is about to release a new reasoning model that beats Gemini 3 in its internal tests. Personally, I hope that the companys gambit to quickly make ChatGPT much better pays off. If it does, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and other AI purveyors will feel even more heat to make similar great leaps forward. May the best chatbot win. And even if they start to feel like they truly understand our needs and desires, may it remain as simple to flit between them as it is now. Youve been reading Plugged In, Fast Companys weekly tech newsletter from me, global technology editor Harry McCracken. If a friend or colleague forwarded this edition to youor if you’re reading it on fastcompany.comyou can check out previous issues and sign up to get it yourself every Friday morning. I love hearing from you: Ping me at hmccracken@fastcompany.com with your feedback and ideas for future newsletters. I’m also on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, and you can follow Plugged Inon Flipboard. More top tech stories from Fast Company The Browser Companys Tara Feener is advancing search for the AI eraThe recent Atlassian acquisitions head of engineering on how it aims to build the ultimate AI browser for knowledge workers. Read More The choice to be interviewed by a human or AI could hurt some job candidatesA new University of Chicago analysis finds that a candidates choice of an AI or human interviewer unintentionally signals their strengths and weaknesses. Read More Jeff Bezos calls his AI company Project Prometheus. So does this California lawyerTensions over names and trademarks arent new in Silicon Valley. Read More 92% of millennials use dating apps while at workRecent survey data also shows that 74% of Gen Z do the same. Read More Trumps anti-EV rules arent stopping Californias electric truck boomyetMore than 15% of medium- and heavy-duty trucks sold in California in 2023 were zero-emission. Can that trend continue despite the uncertainty the Trump administration brings? Read More The Fast Company AI 20 for 2025These 20 technologists, entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, and creative thinkers are pushing artificial intelligence in unexpected directions.
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The data center boom is fully underway, and the numbers are staggering: billions of dollars in costs, millions of square feet worth of buildings, gigawatts of energy, and millions of gallons of water used per day. But before these AI-fueling behemoths can get up and running, there’s an extensive amount of prep work needed to build the infrastructure those data centers rely upon, with a whole other set of staggering costs, material flows, and resource requirements. The infrastructure behind (and below) the data center boom is in the midst of its own massive scale building boom, with no end in sight. That’s created a thriving business for the companies that provide the raw materials used to make that infrastructure. “The focus for the most part is always on the facility . . . but what gets a lot less attention today is actually what it takes to build the infrastructure around them,” says Nathan Creech, president of the Americas division at CRH, the $81 billion market cap building materials company. “Most people don’t see the below-the-ground infrastructure for water, for telecom, for energy that it takes, or the road systems to get in.” CRH is the largest building materials company in North America and Europe, providing aggregates, cement, road, and water infrastructure for building projects around the world. The company is currently working on more than 100 data centers in the U.S. This data center work was highlighted in the company’s third quarter financial results as a “robust” growth area and part of its $11.1 billion in quarterly revenue, which the company expects to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. Grading and site preparation underway at a Microsoft data center construction site in Aldie, Virginia. October, 2025. [Photo: Lexi Critchett/Bloomberg/Getty Images] Most of CRH’s large data center projects are covered by nondisclosure agreements, but you can probably imagine some of its potential customers. As competition for AI dominance heats up, so-called hyperscalers like Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle are investing in ever bigger data centers. AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic have announced multibillion-dollar data center building sprees. According to one report, total data center construction spending is expected to exceed $52 billion in 2025. These investments will lead to a lot of state-of-the-art buildings. But first, they’ll require even more traditional infrastructure. And with construction material costs rising 40% over the past five years, all that infrastructure is part of the reason so much money is being spent to build these data centers. “Think about the water, energy, and communication systems required to operate themit’s a huge logistical challenge and demands a significant amount of expertise,” says Creech. What it takes to build a data center Once a big tech company has identified the site for a new data centera process that requires its own complex calculus to balance spatial demands, electricity generation capacity, and access to watera significant amount of concrete and asphalt has to be laid down. [Image: courtesy CRH] The estimated size of data centers varies from 20,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet, but CRH notes that average data center building typically requires 150,000 tons of aggregates, or enough to build a four-mile long lane of interstate highway. This is used to lay the concrete foundation for the building, as well as subsurface structures like water retention cisterns and retaining walls. Most of this material is mined and supplied locally. Roads have to be built to access these sites both during construction and operation, requiring even more raw materials. CRH operates more than 2,000 manufacturing plants and quarries across the U.S., and Creech estimates that 85% of U.S. datacenters sit within 30 miles of one of these facilities. For those projects that aren’t located near an existing facility, CRH builds them. [Image: courtesy CRH] “You hear about the main investments, but what you never hear about are the investments that we’re making in greenfields and building out new mines and making sure that there’s asphalt plants and concrete plants and pipe plants and paver plants that are in the area,” Creech says. “Because our products, you can’t ship them very far.” Speed has become a priority for many of these projects. Earlier this year Meta revealed that it was accelerating the startup time for new data centers by building them with hurricane-proof tents. A spokesperson told Fast Company at the time that tents are currently being set up as part of at least one of the multi-gigawatt data centers the company is building, located in New Albany, Ohio. [Image: courtesy CRH] Creech says this time pressure has also changed the way CRH approaches these big projects. Typically site works and utility infrastructure can take between three and six months to build, but he says there have been cases where CRH has sped up the delivery timeline of the baseline concrete pad infrastructure to just four weeks. An Amazon Web Services data center under construction on Quail Ridge Ln in Stone Ridge, Virginia. March, 2024. [Photo: Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images] The race to stand up AI data centers has some analysts concerned about overbuilding, cautioning that dynamics in data center technology and future demands may put some of the infrastructure being built at risk of becoming obsolete or even unnecessary. Some have even called this an “infrastructure bubble.” In the near term, none of these concerns seem to be stopping the building boom that’s now underway. And as it continues to progress, it’s going to require a whole lot of concrete. [Image: courtesy CRH]
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