Montgomery County continues to award grants designed to reduce office vacancies and rebuild the county economy as the office vacancy rate continues to climb.
The office vacancy rate in Montgomery County during the first quarter of 2024 was 18.2%, according to CoStar. That same organization lists the office vacancy rate here as of Aug. 14 at 18.73%.
MOVE – Make Office Vacancy Extinct – awards grants to companies looking to move into the county or expand their presence in the county. MOVE grants are available to businesses that are signing their first commercial lease or expanding their existing lease by at least 500 square feet in office space. Awarded grants range from $60,000 to $150,000.
While vacancies have not been reduced, County Executive Marc Elrich said the program is still a good one. Considering the federal job cuts and other economic news, the vacancy rate could be much worse, he said.
“It would be naive to think we would be getting anything but an increase in vacancies,” he said.
Every company that received a grant brought employees to the county, Elrich said. “You get your grant based on the number of people who come here.”
“Since January, the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and government contractors have caused office vacancy rates to climb,” said County Councilmember Evan Glass, who spearheaded recent MOVE legislation, in a statement to MCM.
“The MOVE program has successfully helped Montgomery County soften some of the negative effects of the DOGE reductions by creating jobs and growing our local economy,” he said. “This countywide program is working to offset some of the regional trends.”
In Fiscal Year 2023, the MOVE program supported 22 companies across a variety of industries that leased a total of 92,720 square feet.
The MOVE grant program began in 2017. The amount of money allocated to builders has increased since that time.
According to data from the Montgomery County Economic Indicators briefing for the first quarter of this year, the Kaplan Group estimated that the county has 75.7 million square feet of office space and a total of 1,516 office buildings.
Currently, 14.2 million square feet of office space is vacant here.
The office vacancy rate hovered around 11% in 2019, according to the Kaplan Group. That was before the pandemic when a great many employees were forced to work from home.
