Over a month after the auction for the Georgetown West Heating Plant began Jan. 18, the bidding for the historic building has reached $15.5 million and continues to rise.

The plant, located on a two-acre site at 1021 29th St. N.W., is owned by the United States General Services Administration. The building itself is 20,000 square feet and has eight stories.

Bidders must pay an initial deposit of $500,000 to participate in the auction and must bid in increments of at least $200,000.

The auction entered a soft closing period Feb. 19, meaning that it will close if 24 hours pass without a new bid.

As of press time, the property had received over 30 bids from five different potential buyers with the highest bid at little over $15.5 million.

Marc Waddill, senior vice president for government services at commercial real estate firm Jones Long LaSalle, which has been hired by the GSA to market the plant, could not predict how high the auction will go.

“The entire auction process and the framework behind it is to encourage competition and maximum price,” Waddill said.

While anonymous bidding makes it difficult to speculate which firms are interested in the property,Waddill said that interested buyers are likely large D.C. developers who intend to completely convert the facility’s use.

Potential companies that may be driving up the property price could include real estate developersEastBanc, Hines and Akridge, among others, according to local news blog Georgetown Patch, which based its findings on companies who had attended an Oct. 2012 industry meeting regarding the heating plant sale.

Although no one has won the auction yet, local politicians are already expressing concern about what will be built on the heating plant site.

Last summer, Councilman Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) wrote a letter with interest group Friends of the Georgetown Waterfront Park asking GSA Administrator Dan Tangherlini to require restrictions that would require the future owner of the property to leave the southern half of the property vacant for a public park.

“[Evans] is very supportive of seeing this being put toward some sort of neighborhood productive use,” said Ruth Warner, Evans’ committee clerk.

However, GSA Deputy Press Secretary Dan Cruz said that construction on the property will be a matter of negotiation between the new owner and the District government.

“The future use of the site will be determined by negotiations between the successful bidder and the D.C. government, which is responsible for establishing appropriate zoning for the site and administering various regulatory and planning procedures,” Cruz said.

Whoever purchases the property must also contend with the site’s historic status, which includes obtaining permits and approval from the Old Georgetown Board and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts for any changes to the site appearance.

In addition, it will be the buyer’s responsibility to treat any environmental consequences of redevelopment. A Human Health and Risk Assessment completed in 2011 stated that there would be no unacceptable risks to chemicals in soil and groundwater samples, but a December 2012 Final Environmental Assessment by the GSA stated that runoff during construction could indirectly impact Rock Creek or the C&O Canal and the area’s floodplain.

Cruz declined to comment on the potential environmental impact of redevelopment.

The GSA is selling the property as part of an effort by the Obama administration to use federal real estate more efficiently and eliminate unneeded property from government books, according to the auction website. The heating plant, built in 1948, was previously used as an industrial steam generating plant but has been out of use since 2000.