Jair Lynch Development Partners' 9-story apartment at 15th and V Street, NW, in the U Street District, was given the go-ahead by the Historic Preservation Review Board this morning, after lead designer Sungjin Cho with WDG Architecture presented a new design (above) reflecting the changes that the Board had requested in September.The apartment's original design (below) has been tweaked to become more sympathetic in scale to the surrounding historic district. In order to do so, WDG increased the percentage of masonry (to glass) on the facade, reduced the height of the corner tower (by one foot on V Street and 4 feet on 15th), decreased the size of all windows, created slimmer bay projections (by a
foot-and-a-half), and added more masonry between the ground-floor glass and the tower. Two kinds of glass will now be used in the bays, clear and "fritted" (i.e. enameled).Included in the development will be two levels of underground parking, 95 apartments - 87 market rate units and 8 subsidized (at 50 to 80% of AMI) - a fitness room, club room, shared interior courtyard, and roof deck.
The property, located at 2005 15th Street, will overtake an existing parking lot that serves the adjacent Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartment (formerly Campbell Heights) at 2001 15th Street, a 10-story, 171-unit apartment designated as affordable senior housing, which is property owned in large part by Jair Lynch. Lynch acquired majority ownership of the Dunbar apartment last year - as the website states - after having "structured a complex package of debt and equity totaling $43.3 million to facilitate the rehabilitation of the property." According to the U Street Neighborhood Association, "The [15th and V Street] project subsidizes a portion of the renovation work being performed on the ... Paul Laurence Dunbar Apartments."
Washington D.C. real estate development news
5 comments:
Fantasy views of buildings--across nonexistent fields--should be banned by all reviewing agencies. Perhaps a more realistic view--closer, in this case--would bring out detail (such as the fritted glass) which shows promise to provide a good building. As-is, the design appears to be a modest improvement on the adjacent duller-than-dull Paul Dunbar building, but that's about the most one can say.
Totally agree with the first poster. Definatley an improvement to the projects building to the right. Could be a bit more gracefull though.
There is little reason to be delicate about history here. The big adjacent low-income building is the predominant architecture of the area, and that has no historic value. Building something nice here is more important that being sensitive. I think the use of glass in the initial design would have been better.
The design is a nice improvement and the initial design would have been better.
I'll certainly sleep better tonight knowing that HPO-HPRB managed to more than infinitesimally change the amount of glass on the facade.
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