IBG's Plans for the Specialty Hospital Apartments

• January 27th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

Last night, IBG Partners, who developed Yale Steam Laundry, met with community members to discuss initial plans for their proposed apartments in the now vacant south wing of Specialty Hospital at 700 Constitution Avenue NE (map).

Most of the meeting focused on the exterior changes that would be made to the building, which will ultimately need to be approved by the Historic Preservation Review Board. IBG plans to rip out many of the additions on the front of the building and in the inner courtyard, as well as the ramps and stairs facing 8th Street. In their place, they will create bay windows and will install an addition along the inner wall facing the courtyard. In doing so, they will increase the usable space without increasing the total square footage — taking 21,000 square feet out and creating 21,000 new square feet.

Right now, IBG is estimating that the project will consist of 140 apartment units, but that could drop to 130 or lower, based on market information. The building would have some partially below-grade “English basement” units, and a community member at the meeting spoke up in favor of seeing two and three-bedroom apartments that could accommodate families and older residents.

“Don’t just create one-bedrooms for twenty-somethings!” said the attendee.

IBG said that the building would have a 24-hour front desk attendant, and a two-level parking garage will likely be created, though the design won’t allow for anywhere near 140 spaces. Parking and traffic were a big topic of discussion, and IBG said that extensive traffic studies would be completed before a final plan was in place.

The developer is in the early stages of design and permit gathering and estimates that construction will start at around this time next year and then take 18 months to complete. To keep the community abreast of all developments, they have launched a website called 700 Constitution.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/ibgs_plans_for_the_specialty_hospital_apartments/5002.