City Homes at Fort Lincoln

56 new townhouse- style condos may soon greet visitors entering DC from Maryland on Bladensburg Road, if the Board of Zoning Adjustment can be convinced. Developer Fort Lincoln-Eastern Avenue, LLC, is planning a set of townhouses to be built on a 2.5 acre site in the developing northeast neighborhood of Fort Lincoln. The developer pitched City Homes at Fort Lincoln to the Board of Zoning Adjustment yesterday, and will hear the final outcome on Tuesday at a special public meeting.

The announcement is being held up as the BZA awaits a report from the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission. The plan, as originally submitted, was to build 62 units in 31 stacked townhouses but those total figures have been reduced to 56 units in 28 townhomes. The townhomes will be split between four separate buildings on the L-shaped site bounded by Fort Lincoln Drive to the east, Bladensburg Road to the west and Eastern Ave to the north.

The condominiums will average approximately 1200 s.f. each, with two to three bedrooms per unit and their own rear loaded garage. Another 56 spots will be located in the driveway. The current submission to zoning calls for a 40,000 s.f. rain garden adjacent to Bladensburg Road to help treat storm water as it leaves the site.

The Office of Planning, in their memo to the BZA dated last week, supported the project, calling the current site "underdeveloped," among other things. The location seems a popular location for residential uses; the Washington Overlook Condominiums, the Thurgood Marshall School and the Pineview Court Condominiums all sit within shouting distance of vacant site.

OP also cited the project's compliance with the Fort Lincoln Urban Renewal Area Plan, better known as FLURA. Adopted in 1972, FLURA established a "new town" site in the area bounded by S. Dakota Ave to the west, Anacostia Park to the south and Prince George's County to the east. The plan aims to create "an attractive and racially, socially, economically and functionally inclusive community" in a "physical arrangement of activities and uses which respect the area, environmental character and maximizes urban amenities and livability." OP concluded that City Homes at Fort Lincoln "generally [furthers] the overall goals and objectives of the [FLURA] plan," and recommended BZA's approval.

Developers are targeting the working-class and expect prices to range from $275,000 to $375,000, adding that they hope this helps continue the urban renewal plan for the Fort Lincoln area. "We're excited about this project. It is work-force housing. It's really aimed at schoolteachers, police officers, firefighters. It's housing that will allow them to live in the city they are working in," said Cell Bernardino of Fort Lincoln Realty

According to the Concordia Group, a partner on this project, the ANC is in support of the development. Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, pending Zoning approval. Fort Lincoln Realty is currently building Dakota Crossing, also in NE. Construction began in the spring of 2006 and is still continuing; out of 209 townhouses, about 150 have been sold, from $450,000 to $500,000 each.