After it declared bankruptcy in January and teased a possible move from its current home in Fairfax, the National Rifle Association has tapped a commercial real estate brokerage to potentially find new office space in Texas, Washington Business Journal reports.
Although the organization’s headquarters are located in Virginia, the NRA is incorporated in New York, and it hopes to reincorporate in Texas in an effort to be what it describes as “free from the toxic political environment of New York.” (The state’s Attorney General, Tish James, is currently pushing forward with a lawsuit to dissolve the NRA).
The gun-rights organization announced last month the formation of a committee to consider moving headquarters from the Old Dominion to the Lone Star State. While it hasn’t said it will definitely relocate, retaining the real estate firm Colliers International would appear to indicate that such a move is on the table.
But leaving Fairfax may not help the organization’s finances much: As Business Journal reported last month, ” it remains to be seen how much interest there will be from prospective buyers in a 30-plus-year-old office building in a part of the region where the vacancy rate closed 2020 at nearly 29%, per CBRE.”
If the NRA did go, it wouldn’t be the group’s first time packing up the U-Haul. The NRA once called the District home, moving from 16th Street to Fairfax in 1993. Since then, Virginia’s government has become steadily less pro-gun. Last year, Governor Ralph Northam signed a slate of gun-control laws. Meanwhile, Texas remains gun-friendly territory.
Daniella Byck joined Washingtonian in 2022. She was previously with Outside Magazine and lives in Northeast DC.
