80 High-End Condos Planned For Georgetown Heating Plant

• March 12, 2013
• 5 Comments

by UrbanTurf Staff

The Georgetown Heating Plant. Courtesy of GSA.

A team that includes the Four Seasons will be building approximately 80 high-end condominiums on the site of the West Heating Plant in Georgetown, the Washington Business Journal reports.

The real estate blogosphere has been atwitter over the last week as to who paid $19.5 million for the site and what will happen with it now that it has been auctioned off. From the WBJ:

The answer, revealed Tuesday in an exclusive interview with the Washington Business Journal, is a team that includes local architect Richard Levy, New York-based The Georgetown Co. (the name’s purely coincidental) and the Four Seasons Residences. The group is planning to convert the World War II-era plant into high-end condominiums to complement the adjacent Four Seasons Hotel.

Note: Georgetown Metropolitan’s Topher Mathews did have a well-sourced yet unconfirmed report several days ago that Levy was part of a group that won the auction.

Few other details were provided about the future of the site, but one thing is for sure: the winning team will need to jump through a lot of hoops to get its project done.

The former General Services Administration (GSA) plant, which sits on just over two acres of land near 29th and K Streets NW (map) abutting Rock Creek and the C and O Canal, was decommissioned in 2000 and completely vacated in 2012. The 20,000-square foot structure has six above-ground floors and two below-ground, though with a height of 110 feet, the space could be divided into more stories. At an October meeting about the auction, Jennifer Steingasser from the Office of Planning stressed that the winning developer will likely have to go through a Planned Unit Development (PUD) process involving community meetings and approval from various city agencies.

As for other restrictions, Steingasser said that the developer will need to stick to the comprehensive plan for the area, which mandates that a significant portion should remain as green space. The site is also protected by various historic preservation measures, and the developer will have to seek approval from the Commission of Fine Arts on their plan. For example, changes to the facade, like cutting out additional windows, will need to be approved.

“Get a preservation consultant on your team, and listen to that person,” urged David Maloney of the Historic Preservation Office.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/high-end_condos_planned_for_georgetown_heating_plant/6779

5 Comments

1. makeba said at 8:46 pm on Tuesday March 12, 2013:

   Can’t wait to see the renderings!

1. Seth Rogers said at 3:07 pm on Wednesday March 13, 2013:

   I suspect it will be 10 years from now before these condos deliver! The OGB and Commission of Fine Arts are going to give Levy and his group hell…as they always do to everyone.

1. methinks said at 4:21 pm on Wednesday March 13, 2013:

   Either way.. if the 4 seasons is involved. I would guess these condos would be listed at $1-2M apiece and more for the penthouse units.  Not that I wish anyone hell, but I would hope that this group gets the same amount of hell as everyone else.

1. HA! said at 8:42 am on Thursday March 14, 2013:

   @makeba What renderings?  If you read above, what the OGB -I can think of a few other descriptive meanings that acronym could stand for- and Steingasser are really saying is “that old ugly building that has no historic value or merit needs to stay looking like an old ugly building that has no aesthetic value or merit.”  that aside, I’m sure that it will be lovely.

1. Les said at 12:31 pm on Thursday April 4, 2013:

   I think renderings would be the most appropriate device to communicate how the design team will manage the aesthetic challenge, by using renderings in the conceptual/schematic design phase to work more than one solution with regard to the plant, which for most firms in this town has been the traditional one view “money shot” perspective. Whatever the design strategy is pursued, a building ecology focus would be hard for OGB, Historic Preservation, and CoFA to ignore in the development of this site.

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