Moving downtown

When their son left home several years ago, John McIlwain and his wife sold their home in Chevy Chase and moved to Dupont Circle.

“It took us about a week to decide that we had made a wonderful decision,” said Mr. McIlwain, a senior housing fellow for the Urban Land Institute, a think tank in the District.

Empty nesters across the United States are surrendering to the lure of city life, according to real estate agents, municipal planners and demographers. Data that supports this trend are scarce, but it is expected to pick up steam as baby boomers enter their 50s and 60s.

Mr. McIlwain, who studies housing trends, said he has seen anecdotal evidence of empty nesters moving into urban areas in about 40 U.S. cities he has visited over the past few years.

“There is a significant portion of the baby boomer generation that is opting to go to the cities. I think this is the beginning of a long-term trend,” he said.

It is especially prevalent in the District, according to local real estate agents and city officials.

The District does not track the number of empty nesters who have moved into the city, said Chris Bender, a city spokesman.

However, 77 percent of the District’s households are “non-family” — including singles, unmarried couples, childless couples and roommates — compared with a 64 percent average for other big cities, researchers said at an Urban Land Institute conference this year.

In recent years, several apartments and condominiums have opened in the District that cater to upscale residents, particularly empty nesters. These include Avalon at Gallery Place, a luxury apartment building near the MCI Center, and Market Square, a posh building near the Naval Memorial downtown.

“Most of [empty-nester boomers] are affluent, so they can afford to buy in the better communities in town,” said Dale Mattison, a real estate broker who said the number of homes in the city he has sold to older suburbanites has steadily increased in recent years.

The District targets empty nesters — as well as other groups, including suburban commuters of all ages — through “City Living, D.C. Style,” a marketing campaign that aims to bring 100,000 new residents to town over the next few years.

The District tries to reach empty nesters by running advertisements that stress the convenience of city living on local oldies radio stations and in area newspapers, Mr. Bender said.

“In our outreach, we try to show that you can do your grocery shopping on the Metro and that you can find interesting museums in the neighborhoods, not just on the Mall. Those are the things that demographic is most concerned about,” he said.

Cities like having empty-nester residents because they pay taxes to help support public schools even though they don’t have children in the system, Mr. McIlwain said. On the other hand, empty nesters are less likely to volunteer in the schools.

“It’s a very mixed bag,” he said.

As more boomers become empty nesters, they are even more likely than previous generations to be drawn by the urge to move back to downtown areas, said Brad Edmondson, a former editor of American Demographics magazine and the co-founder of EPodunk.com, a site that profiles residential communities across the nation.

More than previous generations, boomers are more likely to be single as well as college educated, making them more likely to be drawn to urban cultural attractions such as performing arts, museums and gourmet food.

“Boomers really don’t have very many limitations on where they live, and in that situation density becomes very attractive,” Mr. Edmondson said.

Downtown areas are vastly different from those of 10 to 20 years ago, said Robert Bach, national director of market analysis at the real estate firm Grubb & Ellis.

In addition to being more vibrant, they are also safer, Mr. Bach said.

Charles A. Docter, a lawyer who lives in the Market Square building in downtown Washington, said he believes the District is much safer now than when he and his wife left their Kensington home in 1991.

Mr. Docter said he recently walked from an evening community meeting near Massachusetts and Sixth avenues NW, at one time a sketchy area, to his downtown home.

“I can assure you I would never have thought of doing that in 1991,” he said.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.