Dunbar Place Schedules Start Date

Years of planning appear to be paying off for the for NoMa corridor. As other District projects see their timelines extended ad infinitum in the face of market declines, development in the neighborhood surrounding Union Station are managing to stay on track and spawn secondary projects to boot.

One such project is Thoron Development’s Dunbar Place development, which will occupy the former site of six rowhouses at 1322-1330 North Capitol Street and 7 Hanover Place, NW. Despite receiving initial approval in May of 2008 and projecting a late 2009 completion, Thoron’s Robert T. Taylor now tells DCmud that construction will be underway by sometime in “March or April.” Once completed, Dunbar Place will top out at five stories and offer 29 new condominiums (along with ground level green space and a rooftop deck) to the North Capitol corridor.

Other projects currently underway in NoMa include Northwest One (part of which will be constructed at the site of the recently demolished Temple Court housing complex), the Washington Center’s intern dormitory at Third and K Streets, NE, and the Cohen Companies’ Union Place at the very same intersection.

Washington DC real estate development news

Dunbar Place on North Capitol

The Historic Preservation Office has approved the razing of six adjoining row houses: 1322-30 North Capitol Street, NW and 7 Hanover Place, NW, to make way for Thoron Development's Dunbar Place, a five-story condominium building.

Thoron founder Robert Taylor describes Dunbar Place as a five-story, 29-unit condominium project that will include a deck of underground parking, ground-level green space, and a rooftop deck. Having completed the design phase of Dunbar Place with PGN Architects, Thoron now moves into the permit process, after which it will begin construction, with completion by the end of 2009. Taylor hopes that Dunbar Place and Mews will augment the blossoming NoMa neighborhood and notes that neighbors and the local ANC feel likewise.

Dunbar Place used to be Dunbar Towers, but Thoron recently dropped the name. As Taylor notes, “It didn’t really look like a tower.” Dunbar Mews, around the corner on O Street, is another Thoron project, this one an eight-unit renovation. Thoron recently completed Parkview Condos, a 24-unit renovation of a historic building at 610 Irving St., NW.

Just a few blocks north of the new project, at 1600 North Capitol, sits a lot with plans for a 40-unit building, where progress on and interest in the development is hard to detect, while just a few blocks south lies Northwest One and all of Noma, where progress is significantly easier to detect. Let's hope the activity to the south is a better indicator of success.