Development of Rare Vacant Lot in Dupont to Start Next Month

A nine-story apartment building planned for the corner of 17th and O Streets, NW will break ground this year, replacing a parking lot on one of the last undeveloped lots in the Dupont Circle neighborhood.  The First Baptist Church of Washington owns the lot, but developer Keener Squire will build the 218-unit building under a 99-year ground lease with the church.  Eric Colbert and Associates is the architectural firm on the project.

Rendering: Eric Colbert & Associates

DCMud reported in April that the developer intended to break ground this year, but unlike project start dates that regularly slip indefinitely, executives at Keener Squire assure DCMud that the initial estimates are still valid.  Developers expect the total construction time to be about 18 months.

The project has obtained necessary approvals from the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) (the site sits in the Dupont Circle Historic District), and the DC Board of Zoning adjustment, and has the support of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2B and the Dupont Circle Conservancy.  The building's 118 units will be mostly junior one-bedrooms and some two-bedrooms, which were added to plans in response to requests from neighbors.

The building's design fits in with neighboring 1930's-era buildings, an architect on the project said.   "The design draws from the art moderne apartment buildings in the area, but at the same time is an updated 21st century building," Steve Dickens, architect with Eric Colbert and Associates told DCMud.  He cited Bay State Apartments and Boston House Condominiums, both just across the street from the site, as examples of neighboring art moderne-style structures.

Art moderne buildings in the neighborhood, Dickens said, were built after just after the historic district's so-called "period of significance" - a period historic districts look to in consideration of design appropriateness - which goes up until the 1930's.  Still, the HPRB backed the design.  "Given that this neighborhood has almost no buildings that date to the period of significance, the HPRB felt that the buildings that were around us were the significant buildings to look at."

Dickens emphasized that the design process has been collaborative, with the church as a major partner, "they want to make sure that whatever goes there is something that the most immediate neighbors are happy with."

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First Baptist's Apartment Building to Replace Dupont Parking Lot

Having finally received approval for their requested zoning exceptions, the First Baptist Church of Washington's planned nine-story, 218-unit apartment building, set to be built on one of Dupont Circle's last remaining surface parking lots, is juuuuuust about ready to go.

"The project has a clear runway to ground- breaking. All we need now is the building permit. We're thinking we'll start construction in 4Q of this year, and it'll take about 18 months, all told," said Michael Korns, Developer at Keener Squire, the firm overseeing the project.

The Eric Colbert and Associates-designed project was initially met with considerable community resistance, for reasons ranging from noise, a potential influx of students, and preserving the neighborhood's last parking lot (arguably the least sympathetic cause of all time). In response to the outcry, developers and architect Eric Colbert revised the design to reduce the exposure of rooftop common areas, and reduced the number of efficiency units. (There was some speculation that the reduced number of efficiencies was in response to complaints that the building might become a magnet for students. Perhaps sensitive to the suggestion of reverse ageism, ANC 2B removed text praising the efficiencies reduction from their resolution in support of the project.)

At around ninety feet, the building will fit in with the established scale of the area, and aesthetically it should match the neighboring structures. "It's a stone and brick and precast building, yellow in color, a fair amount of glass, and metal sunshades," says Korns, all of which is in keeping with the modern architecture in the area. Though the area will lose some parking spaces once the lot is gone, the edifice does include 93 below-grade parking spaces. And although any construction is, of course, disruptive, the plan that was approved was the least disruptive of all possibilities that were discussed.

"Some of the plans we were thinking of presenting would have involved demolishing an extension built onto the church in the Eighties, but we decided against that. It would've been too disruptive to the neighborhood and to the church; they have daycare there, and community programs."

Having finally cleared the last hurdle, after withstanding fierce community resistance and making significant concessions and design changes to appease those concerns, did Korns have anything he'd like to say to the community?

"No comment," Korns said dryly.

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