After two years of construction and $90 million spent, the
SK&I-designed
View 14 started accepting leases this month as the building prepares
for its first tenants to move in by the end of the month. A joint project of
Level 2 Development and
Centrum Properties, View14 sits at the intersection of 14th Street NW and Florida Avenue, on a site that once held the Petrovitch body shop and a dozen two-story Comcast satellite dishes - few neighbors were sad to see them go. The project will soon lose the remaining 14 story antenna tower; that alone is a welcome change for neighbors. View 14 stretches U Street northward, where half a dozen projects are in either the planning or construction stage within a single block of the new apartment building.
Though originally planned as a condominium endeavor, View 14 now offers 185 rental studio, one and two bedroom units with floor to ceiling glass windows and outdoor spaces on 80% of the apartments.
David Franco, a Principal at Level 2 Development, boasted of the building's rooftop views, ranging "from the Potomac River to the Wilson Bridge." Not too shabby.
Franco described the building as initially looking like a "solid sheet of glass window wall," which upon closer review "responds to the bend in the road" by breaking up the western facade into "varying volumes of glass wall." He added
that the goal was always to create a "stunning piece of architecture" that acts as a "gateway to and from the U Street Corridor and Columbia Heights."
The general contractor is
Clark Construction, interior architecture is by
Studio Architecture and interior modeling by 14th Street neighbor
Vastu.
Washington DC real estate news
9 comments:
These guys are getting sued, doesn't that affect moving into the building if you are a renter? Or do they post some kind of money?
Who's suing them? Also, I've never heard of this developer. What else did they do in DC?
I think this is their first building. One of the guys owns Universal Gear, but I don't know who's suing them. Anybody know? Is it someone they did business with?
Level2 has done a few smaller projects before this in Columbia Heights. They also bought the Nehemiah Center, across the street, and were going to develop it, but eventually sold it shortly thereafter to UDR, which is now on hold with the project.
The PROBLEM is that these new condos are surrounded by government-run housing... meaning, it's ghetto. Is there any movement to close them down or to relocate them to the NE? Certainly, through gentrification property values go up over time, but Section 8 housing is not affected by the market -- it's completely up to the imbeciles running City Hall.
Is there any law on the books about relocating these ghetto centers as surrounding property value rises? If not, these condos are not worth buying. It's an investment that will not appreciate, ever -- at least not outside the confines of the property line.
Can we get a story on this?
these are apartments!! smarty!! and the city is the city should you decide to purchase @ the u st area... depreciation of value should not be a problem.
The 'ghetto' with projects as one person stated, don't hurt property values in the heart of CH around 14th and Euclid, Fairmont, and Columbia. The houses there are in the upper six digits and low seven digits. "The projects" don't have to mean property values won't rise. Not everyone in the projects is a criminal or thug as I garner you are intimating (perhaps wrongly, perhaps not) from your post. The two can live in harmony.
No doubt that the 14th Street corridor is still on the upswing, but there is still that nasty area around the Reeves Center between U and Florida. The Reeves Center is completely out of place in this neighborhood and should be sold off and demolished to make room for residential property. Also on the short term "to go" list are the NA/AA meeting place on 14th & V, the Section 8 housing on the 1400 block of W Street, and the gas station/drug market on the corner of 14th & W.
Mr. Optimism has some good points. My feeling is that the old way of doing affordable housing, in which entire buildings were zoned as affordable has serious problems. Most of the new buildings, Union Row and Solea have affordable units but they are mixed in with full market price units. This makes more sense for property values and for cleaning up the area.
Just a note, the AA/NA meeting is being moved by April 2010. The lease for both the AA/NA organization and AM/PM carryout expires next year. Hopefully, something nice will go in.
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