Businesses in the Golden Triangle are hoping for a golden opportunity.
“It’s definitely going to help us a lot,” said Ryan Nguyen, owner of 68 Café.
Nguyen believes his company could benefit from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day requiring all remote federal employees to return to work in person.
“In fact, today we saw more office workers than we’ve ever seen before,” Nguyen said. “So I don’t know if it’s started yet.”
News4 spoke with Golden Triangle Business Improvement District Executive Director Leona Argouridis.
“This is great news for downtown and the District of Columbia as a whole,” Argouridis said.
Argouridis says the pandemic hit the neighborhood hard, with 120 businesses closed in the first year.
She also told News4 the area’s business vacancy rate is between 20 and 25 percent, the highest in the city. She says the rate was only 10% before the pandemic.
“We have noticed steady improvement,” Argouridis said. “Are they where we were?” No. Will this latest announcement from the federal government be useful? This will absolutely help.
This and other executive orders regarding the federal workforce are drawing backlash from some Democratic lawmakers.
“They could potentially lose their jobs and be forced out of the DMV,” said Sen. Tim Kaine of Virigina.
The largest union representing public employees, the American Federation of Government, also opposes the order, issuing a statement saying in part: “This directive turns the clock back to before 2010, when Congress required federal agencies to expand telework by law. Offering eligible employees the opportunity to work hybrid schedules is a key tool for recruiting and retaining workers in the public and private sectors.