WASHINGTON (7News) — D.C.’s 911 dispatch system was down for several minutes Friday, according to the city’s Office of Communications.

Officials said the city’s Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system experienced a connectivity disruption around 5:15 p.m.

CAD is used for dispatching D.C. Fire and EMS and Metropolitan Police Department personnel.

During the outage, public safety agencies transitioned to manual dispatch. The issue was resolved within 20 minutes, according to officials.

Officials said the OUC is still able to process and receive 911 calls during CAD outages.

The outage comes one week after a 5-month-old died while the call center was experiencing technical difficulties.

RELATED | DC police investigate death of infant in Northwest as call center experiences tech issues

The Office of Unified Communications (OUC) blamed the August 2 outage on a contractor’s software update, saying the update was installed incorrectly.

The contractor was fired, 7News learned Monday.

On Friday, August 9, 7News spoke with Public Safety Advocate and long-time OUC watchdog Dave Statter.

According to Statter, this is the sixth outage since May 23.

READ MORE | 7News pushes DC’s 911 call center for answers on system disruptions

“They don’t know where all the units for D.C. Fire and EMS are located without the computer, and there’s a lot of information they don’t have, and they have to basically use pencil and paper or pen and paper to pass notes to each other to make sure everything is done right,” Statter told 7News.

“They haven’t answered what is happening with all this, why does this keep happening at OUC…They shouldn’t lose the computers this often,” Statter added.

The Office of the Chief Technology Officer and the OUC are reviewing the latest outage, according to officials

Jessica Liberto Hosseini, Wine Director at The Dabney, The Dabney Cellar, and Petite Cerise sits down with Bloomberg’s Joe Mathieu to talk about the importance of diversity in the wine industry, as one of the leading women in the Washington wine scene. (Source: Bloomberg)

The General Services Administration’s downsize of the federal government’s office footprint continues, with the Treasury Department as the latest lucky contestant. 

The GSA late last month awarded a lease contract to Duwaliya US Real Estate to house two Treasury agencies — its Office of Management and Office of Technical Assistance — in 65,000 square feet of space at 1575 I Street NW, according to the Business Journal, which cited a source familiar with the deal. 

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The new consolidation is a hefty cutback in space for the agencies, which will vacate four leases at 1750 Pennsylvania Avenue NW (121,000 square feet) and 1722 I Street NW (75,000 square feet). Their new home is in the 12-story, 288,798-square-foot building at 1575 I Street just two blocks north of the White House. It’s also known as the ASAE Building for its tenant the American Society of Association Executives.

The Treasury agencies’ leases are set to expire in August of next year, according to a 2023 GSA prospectus for the department. Though the existing leases will likely extend into the second half of 2026, per the Business Journal.

In the prospectus, the GSA proposed a downsize to 103,000 square feet for the agencies — nearly double the amount of space they’re set to take at the ASAE Building — a consolidation it justifies as a means to enable a “more robust telework program.”

“Approximately half of the currently housed personnel are moving to increased telework and will not be accommodated under the replacement transaction,” the prospectus says. “A small percentage will go into other existing Treasury spaces. By consolidating the currently separate locations, the proposed lease will increase efficiency, streamline operations, and eliminate redundant space while maintaining mission readiness.”

Duwaliya US Real Estate is an affiliate of Sheikh Khalid Thani A. Al Thani, a Qatari businessman and member of the Qatari royal family, per the Business Journal. His affiliate organization bought the property for $107.9 million in 2015 from Carr Properties, per property records.

The GSA is in the midst of slashing the government’s office space, a trend it started in recent years in order to reconfigure leases and properties it already owns and ditch properties it no longer needs. 

D.C. recorded over 537,000 square feet of negative office space absorption this past quarter, with the city now in its fifth straight year of negative quarterly absorption, according to a recent D.C. office market report from CBRE. The GSA’s office cuts are a large part of that downward trend, accounting for nearly half of recent occupancy loss in the District, per CBRE.

Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.