JBG's Woodley Park Residential Tower Reborn as 2700 Woodley

Construction on The JBG Companies' long-planned residential tower in Woodley Park, just east of the Marriott Wardman Park, is well underway with excavation nearly complete, and the project - formerly known as Wardman West - has been rebranded as 2700 Woodley.
Upon completion (delivery is anticipated in Q1 2014), the upscale David M. Schwarz Architects-designed tower will offer 211 rental residences. Ongoing speculation has centered on whether the project would be condos or apartments, and it turns out that developers have decided to go the "premier apartment community" route, a savvy decision considering the almost complete absence of new high-end rentals in the immediate area. Matthew R. Blocher, Senior Vice President at JBG, said a full-scale marketing campaign will launch in the fall. (Possibly from New York-based SeventhArt?)

A new rendering acquired by DCMud (top) shows a building structurally similar to the Esocoff-designed concept depicted in the earlier renderings (below, right), but with a vastly different, and more attractive facade. Whereas the previous design verged on minimalistic (if not outright post-Soviet Eastern Bloc), the new facade is more texturally interesting, and much more in keeping with the character of the nearby hotel.

While the 2700 Woodley tower will likely be successful, the building also represents something of a defeat for JBG. After buying the nearby Wardman Park hotel and its 16-acre parcel for $300 million in 2005, JBG and partner CIM planned to convert the hotel into residences, in addition to building the new tower. Marriott objected, the project stalled, and then the recession hit. The project lay dormant for some years before resurfacing in seemingly unrelated litigation between JBG and Marriott over a new Marriott hotel at the Washington Convention Center. After a JBG-affiliated entity filed suit to block construction at the Convention Center, a Marriott countersuit claimed JBG's suit was a mere tactic to force them to renegotiate regarding the Wardman Park hotel. JBG denied this, and eventually all suits were dropped.

Regardless of what it was really all about, the Marriott Wardman Park, the city's largest hotel, and onetime home to three former U.S. presidents (I'll buy you a drink if you can name all three without looking on Wikipedia), continues to operate, even as construction kicks into high gear just to the west.

Washington D.C. real estate development news