Basilica Lofts

Sponsored Announcement


Final phase: Beautiful new condominiums starting at $299,500 for spacious condos with two-bedroom plus den, with a three-bedroom, three-bath, three-level penthouse available. Basilica Lofts, the conversion of a historic row of storefronts into two and three-level lofts, named after the ideal vistas of the nearby Dome of the Immaculate Conception at Catholic University. Classically traditional on the outside, interiors evoke the best of true loft living - large, open spaces, long expanses of hardwood floors, Close to Metro, Catholic, and Trinity College, Basilica Lofts borders the booming NoMa neighborhood, now realizing the long-planned development of massive commercial space that makes it the fastest-growing neighborhood of DC. Only 3 units remaining.

Todd Place Condos

Sponsored Announcement

Todd Place is the total renovation of 3 separate apartment buildings, 302-310 Todd Place, into 12 condos, each with two bedrooms, deep walk in closets in each bedroom, vaulted ceilings, and beautifully finished interiors. Located within walking distance of the Rhode Island Ave Metro station and NoMa Metro stations, in DC's booming NoMa area, the fastest growing commercial real estate sector in the District. Off-street parking available for each unit. Interior finishes include solid bamboo floors, generously sized granite counters in the kitchen and bath, skylights on the upper floors, ceiling fans, walk-in closets in both bedrooms, and private security systems. Developed by Lindsay Development & Hillsborough Investments. Newly reduced prices range from $249,500 to $265,500.

Eckington Condos: Going Once...Going Twice...

A condominium project in Eckington will be put on the auction block this month, the first such auction of individual condominiums in DC in recent memory. Todd Place Condos, at 302-310 Todd Place, NE, began sales in the middle of last year, and will auction off 12 units individually on site on February 18th. While the auctioning of entire projects has been increasingly common as a way to avoid long carrying costs, developers in Washington DC have not previously chosen to auction units individually, and have instead opted to lower prices or to rent units until condo prices rise. Located just to the north of NoMa, where more than 10m s.f. of commercial space is planned or under construction, Eckington has seen a surge in residential development as developers anticipate the need for housing as a counterweight to the massive commercial development on its border.

Prices for Todd Place initially began in the low $300's for two-bed, one-bath condos, each fully renovated from a row of pre-war apartment buildings, with parking spaces being auctioned separately. Also on the auction block on the same date will be 4 units at 1609 Isherwood St., NE, in the Hill East community. Homeland Auctions will be conducting the auctions, which conducted the auctions for the Parkside of Alexandria last year.

Changes to Eckington Project to be Decided Tonight

Tonight, NoMa West Residential I LLC will request a Planned Unit Development modification for the design plans for 618,000 s.f. of development on a 190,000-s.f. parcel in Eckington (or NoMa, depending on whether you are marketing the project or already live there). The vacant site at Eckington Place and Harry Thomas Way, NE, which falls within the NoMa BID, had already been approved for development as of October 2006, but since then both the applicant, Fairfield Residential, and the initial proposal, have changed. The new P.U.D. application seeks construction of only 1,000 s.f. of retail and a total 617,318 s.f. of residential space to be split amongst 600 units in three separate buildings.

Initial plans for the site were drafted by Fairfield (FF Realty, LLC) on behalf of the site-owner CSX Realty Development Corporation back in 2006. The Zoning Commission subsequently approved the P.U.D., signed June 22, 2007. Unfortunately for FF Realty, a new developer has stepped into their shoes, changing the design plans and ultimately the scope of the development.

Under the old plans, three large residential buildings, 27 townhouse units and five, four-story single family townhouses were to be constructed over 4.3 acres, with Q Street dissecting the property in order to "establish [a] street grid," according to a Zoning Commission summary. In total, a maximum of 636 residential units comprised of 739,951 s.f. of residential area would have been created combined with 15,084 s.f. of retail space for a total cost of $150 million. The modified P.U.D. reduces the amount of residential space by more than 120,000 s.f. and cuts the retail portion of the site by 90%.

The only remaining design from FF Realty's old plan will be the three mammoth buildings and the Q Street dissection. The first structure, Building 100, will have about 120,000 s.f. of floor area measuring 57 feet in height; Building 200 will house 250,000 s.f. of space at 64 feet and Building 300 will also have about 250,000 s.f. of space and will measure 61 feet in height. In addition to shaving the townhouses off of the plan, the new developers have also proposed to rezone the site from its approved C-3-C District, which allows 100% lot occupancy and permits building heights up to 90 ft, to C-3-A which reduces lot occupancy to 75% and allows a height of no more than 65 ft.

The modified P.U.D. will be considered for final action tonight. Prior to ZC's decision, they have required that NoMa West provide the Construction Management Plan and further detail as to the design changes.

St. Martin's Housing Project to Break Ground in February

After an onerous battle between residents of Eckington and the parish of St. Martins Church, plans are being finalized for groundbreaking on the new 178-unit workforce housing development on 116 T Street, NE, projected for completion in the first quarter of 2010. The apartment complex, totaling 241,000 s.f., is being designed as a Class A apartment building. It will hold 50 junior one bedroom units reserved as public housing for residents earning 30% of the Area Median Income with the remaining 128 units being comprised mostly of two bedroom apartments, available to residents who earn 60% of the Area Median Income. The project should break ground in February of 2008.

Upon completion, the project will serve as “the largest affordable housing project in DC,” said Reverend Michael Kelley, the pastor and leader of the project. “The bad news is that no one else is doing this type of thing,” he added. The reason for a lack of affordable housing developments in the District might be due to the clamor that these types of undertakings tend to cause within the community. St. Martins serves as the perfect example: when some of the neighboring residents discovered what was being constructed on the corner of Summit and T streets, a massive amount of lawyering commenced; they found a way to get an old convent, which would have been destroyed to build the apartment complex, classified a “Historic Building” with the Historical Preservation Society, effectively halting the development process. According to Reverend Kelley, some of the neighbors had a problem with “greed, race and class.”

Most of those community problems have been assuaged thanks to some tricky engineering and cunning design strategies by project architect Grimm & Parker and development manager NorthStar Consultants, who found a way to include the now historic convent (pictured) into the project by moving the massive structure 80 feet eastward. The move will be so astounding that U.K. based documentary program Mega Movers contacted Reverend Kelley to film the convent’s relocation. If the development schedule for the project can coalesce with Mega Movers’ production schedule, St. Martins could appear on the History Channel’s new season of the hit show.

The $41 million project will take the convent, which once served as a housing complex for nuns who taught at the St. Martin’s grade school, and merge it into the design of the apartment building. In 1990, the age-old convent was leased to DC-based Catholic Charities for use as a recovery location for drug-addicted mothers. Then in 2001, Catholic Charities began using the space as subsidized housing for recovering homeless men who needed supportive services and were unable to afford rent at market price. Now, Catholic Charities and St. Martin’s parish have decided that the building, which appears increasingly dilapidated with each passing day, the parking lot and the rest of the property would bode well as affordable housing for struggling adults. According to Reverend Kelley, it fits with the church’s mission – public outreach and social stewardship. Reverend Kelley added, “This speaks volumes about how the Catholic Church is putting Gospel beliefs into practice, or how we say here, taking our faith to the street.”

In Noma's Shadow, Eckington Mushrooms

As the next great construction site in the District, NoMa has attracted justifiable media attention as well as some of the heaviest-hitting real estate development teams in the area, Akridge, Douglas Development, Trammell Crow, MRP and the Wilkes Company, vying for the ability to write upon the blank slate of its startlingly empty surface. Admittedly not likely to be on any tourist agenda or history tour, the newly invented moniker still offers commercial developers an attractiveness that seems hard to have missed in the past - a downtown development site with major bisecting traffic arteries, a pair of Metro stations and a train terminus within walking distance of Congress.

Attracting decidedly less media attention, Eckington, its immediate neighbor to the north, has nonetheless been discovered by local developers not quite ready for an Akridge-sized purchase of air rights over railroad yards, but who view the more than 10 million square feet of commercial space being built on its southern edge as an invitation to develop the residential market. 

Bounded by North Capitol to the west, New York Avenue to the south, Rhode Island Avenue to the north and, of course, the proverbial railroad tracks, Eckington appears to sit on the right side of those tracks judging from development teams that have been quietly converting forlorn apartments into condominiums and vacant lots into loft-like housing for the inevitable office workers that will soon pour into NoMa. Zoned largely for residential and bounded north and south by Metrorail stations, the neighborhood has been populated by rows of single family homes, many of which still belatedly sport the once ubiquitous metal awnings, and small, forgotten apartment buildings, providing affordable alternatives to out-of-the-ground construction.

The area's conversion process began auspiciously when a joint venture between CSX and Fairfield Residential announced plans to build 650 condominium units, but braked in early 2007 as the condo market slowed as construction costs were rising. But by then other developers had used the momentum to build and sell condos like the Jordan (314 V St.), Eckington Heights (330 Rhode Island Ave.), and Basilica Lofts (1900 4th St.), adapting former apartment buildings and abandoned storefronts into modern homes even before the first ceremonial groundbreaking in NoMa.

With NoMa construction now underway, the pace of development in Eckington has now quickened, with new, modern projects now dotting the Eckington map, including Century Court at 14 S Street (14 units), The Indigo at 1901 Lincoln Road (30 units), Todd Place Condos at 302-310 Todd Place (12 units), Eckington Station at 1927 3rd St. (7 units), Capitol Overlook at 221 R Street (12 units), and the Winthrop at 1956 3rd Street (5 units); other buildings beginning construction include 219 T Street, 1921 2nd St., as well as a pair of buildings on 4th Street at V and U and several vacant lots, now under contract by developers. While the scale of development does not match that to the south due to height restrictions and its residential nature, real estate developments here seem more concentrated than any other existing neighborhood. 

"Eckington is is one of the rare neighborhoods in DC next to massive commercial development that has not yet matured, so the potential upside for buyers is tremendous", says Dan Lindsay, whose development team, Lindsay Development & Hillsborough Investments, recently completed a project on Capitol Hill and is now completing the full renovation of Todd Place. Most of the new projects have sold from $340 to $400 per square foot, a price that is difficult to match on the other side of North Capitol Street or anywhere closer to nearby Capitol Hill.

Washington D.C. retail and real estate updates

New NoMa Condo Opens for Sales

Macy Development has opened its sales center at its latest condominium project, Basilica Lofts, a 21-unit condo in the Eckington - NoMa neighborhood. The Basilica Lofts project is the conversion of a row of historic storefronts-turned condos in an area once known for its expanses of undeveloped land and lonely Greyhound Bus Station, but that now stands apart by the sheer volume of new construction planned and underway. Developers have been attracted to NoMa’s proximity to downtown, where vacant land is now scarce, and new Metro station, though nearly all development is office space, with over 10 million s.f. of commercial space on the way. Basilica Lofts will feature two-bedroom condos on two stories starting at $359,000 with immediate occupancy. As DCMud reported last week, the nearby Washington Gateway project will add another 250 residential units to the area, but no further residential units are project to complete until 2009 at the earliest. Marketing and sales by DCRE.

Eckington Fairfield Residential Project Now Off?

Despite earlier reports that groundbreaking would start in June 2007, it now appears that Fairfield Residential and CSX Realty Development will not be pursuing their $150 million mixed-use development at Eckington Place and Harry Thomas Way, NE. Word on the neighborhood Bloomingdale blog is that CSX has decided to not sell the land for this project. The development, to be located on 4.3 acres across the street from XM Satellite Radio and north of the Fedex center just off the intersection of New York and Florida Avenues, was to feature three buildings containing up to 675 condo units, 15,000 sf of retail, and almost 800 parking spaces, with about 70 of the units reserved for workforce housing. The project was to also extend Q Street NE through the project, and connect it to the nearby Metropolitan Branch Trail (which travels under New York Avenue and then becomes elevated over Florida Avenue alongside the Red Line tracks). 

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Eckington Fairfield Residential Groundbreaking Now Set for June 2007

Despite earlier reports that it would be breaking ground this October, it now appears certain that Fairfield Residential and CSX Realty Development will officially break ground on their $150 million mixed-use development at Eckington Place and Harry Thomas Way, NE, in June 2007. This project, located on 4.3 acres across the street from XM Satellite Radio (pictured) and north of the Fedex center just off the intersection of New York and Florida Avenues, will feature three buildings containing up to 675 condo units (though some of these may become rentals depending on the market), 15,000 sf of retail, and almost 800 parking spaces. About 70 of the units will be reserved for workforce housing (for households earning less than 80% of the area median income). One interesting fact about the project is the plan to extend Q Street NE through the project, and connect it to the nearby Metropolitan Branch Trail (which travels under New York Avenue and then becomes elevated over Florida Avenue alongside the Red Line tracks), which will permit residents to reach the New York Avenue metro stop without having to risk their lives crossing traffic on New York/Florida Avenues. The first phase of construction (a 173-unit building and all retail) is scheduled to be done in September 2009.

Washington D.C. real estate development news