By Sara Gilgore – Staff Reporter, Washington Business Journal – Jul 25, 2025 -Montgomery County is already contending with a record glut of lab space, and officials are bracing for even more blows to its vital biotech sector due to the massive restructuring of the federal government’s health department.
The county is home to two of the Department of Health and Human Services’ largest agencies, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, which combined have laid off thousands of employees in recent months and are facing steep cuts under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
While it remains to be seen how severely the sweeping cuts across HHS could affect Greater Washington’s life sciences real estate market — largely concentrated within suburban Maryland’s I-270 corridor — local experts agree any reductions threaten the already fragile life sciences ecosystem in more ways than one.
Most visibly, the NIH and FDA occupy millions of square feet across the county and could vacate some of it, adding to the oversupply. But even before factoring in potential shrinkage to their footprints, experts say, reductions to grant funding and headcount at those and other agencies would leave their own scars on the commercial real estate picture.
Other unknowns — including how congressionally directed spending pans out for fiscal year 2026 — only add to the anxiety.
“In my opinion, the uncertainty is worse than knowing something bad is actually going to happen,” said JLL Executive Managing Director Pete Briskman, “because it’s going to stop the private sector, the public sector, from making decisions.”
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