Is Bethesda building worth more without McDonald's in it? The newly completed building at 4500 East-West Hwy. in Bethesda offers many of the modern features that companies clamor for: Floor-to-ceiling glass on the walls allow for loads of sunlight. Floor plates of 28,000 square feet mean very little wasted space. Excellent access to restaurants and public transportation. And it is designed to meet the highest standards of green building design. The developer of the building Oliver Carr III - whose family has been building in Washington for more than 100 years - called the project "a major achievement for our company." For nearly two years, however, no companies agreed to lease space in the building. There could be a lot of reasons tenants weren't signing up to move in. The office market has been slow recently, with vacancy in suburban Maryland rising to 12.7 percent last quarter. Job growth has waned. Carr's building is pricier than most in the area. But Carr and its leasing partner thought there was another reason tenants weren't signing up: McDonald's. Since 1975, the site was home to a popular McDonald's, one that was a particular favorite of students from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School down the street. Washington Post columnist John Kelly wrote at the time of the demolition that there was "no better place for mutual showoffery - for wisecracks, capers, quips, jokes, japes and (literally) sophomoric witticisms - than ensconced in the hard plastic seat of a corner booth at a McDonald's after play rehearsal, band practice, soccer practice, detention." "It's the end of an area," wrote Bethesda blogger Robert Dyer. The Golden Arches have stood along America's highways for decades, beckoning to hungry travelers. So it was here on our East-West Highway. It will be missed. The McDonald's on East-West Highway before it was torn down in 2012. Courtesy CoStar Group It wasn't supposed to be the end for McDonald's. When the original restaurant was torn down, McDonald's bought 5,000 square feet in the ground floor of the new building for $1.5 million. But as the months went by and no companies leased space in the building as it went up, the deal for McDonald's prompted a lot of questions from interested companies about the fast food and high school crowds. Phil McCarthy, executive managing director at leasing firm Transwestern, said he was pursuing a wide range of companies for the building - associations, consulting firms, law firms and tech companies, but it turns out many of them didn't want to be in a "McDonald's building." "We all love McDonald's, but it's not ideal for trophy-quality office space," McCarthy said . No offense to McDonald's, but 300 teenagers hanging out at four o'clock in the afternoon is not what a law firm is necessarily looking for. "They'd ask all kinds of questions about it," he added. You can have the same sorts of things from restaurants but we received more pushback with McDonald's in the mix. Carr bought back the McDonald's space and is instead planning a white table cloth restaurant. And last month the first tenant signed on, when online lender RapidAdvance inked an entire floor. McCarthy said it would be difficult to attach a specific financial value to the removal of McDonald's, but he's not looking back. "People who would not have considered the building before are willing to consider the building now," he said. McDonald's did not respond to a request for comment before this story was published.