The Dumont Goes Smoke Free

• April 12, 2010
• 8 Comments

by Mark Wellborn

The Dumont

UrbanTurf has learned that The Dumont near Mount Vernon Triangle will be a completely smoke-free apartment building, perhaps one of the first to institute this policy in DC.

For those that don’t know, The Dumont has been on a pretty wild ride over the last two years. The delivery of the two-tower, 559-unit residential project at Fourth Street and Massachusetts Avenue was a widely reported fiasco, and all deposits were returned to would-be buyers and the project was pulled off the market. Earlier this month, we reported that the development was up for sale, listed at $170 million, and it has since sold to Equity Residential for $167 million. Instead of condos, the buildings have gone rental.

The Equity Residential website is now boasting 425 Mass (one of the former buildings known as The Dumont) as DC’s “first smoke-free apartment community.” By our interpretation, this means no smoking anywhere on the property, including the units themselves, a fairly restrictive but likely pleasant option for all the non-smoker renters out there.

This is not an entirely novel idea. 220 Twentieth, a high-end apartment building in Crystal City and the Millennium at Metropolitan in Arlington have both adopted no-smoking policies. View 14 in DC was also considering a similar policy, but has since decided against it.

8 Comments

1. IsaacTraynor said at 7:20 pm on Monday April 12, 2010:

   Good for them. I wish my building was smoke free. I live upstairs from a chimney.

1. swester said at 10:42 pm on Monday April 12, 2010:

   Kudos to the Dumont for this.

   I can’t fathom why people smoke inside a home of any kind. So destructive in so many ways, and no discernible benefit whatsoever.  If you absolutely have to, go outside.

1. ML said at 10:42 am on Tuesday April 13, 2010:

   I am for this move, but frankly, people should be able to do what they want in their own home.

1. swester said at 12:25 pm on Tuesday April 13, 2010:

   @ML:

   Not when it interferes with a neighbor’s right to enjoyment of their own property.

   The putrid smell of smoke that wafts through a building because of one tenant is a definite intrusion on that right.  Sure, I’d love to be able to blast music from my stereo at all hours, but it’s a privilege I give up when living in a residential building.

1. Jack said at 1:15 pm on Tuesday April 13, 2010:

   Anyone know what they decided to do with the other Dumont Tower?  Is it confirmed rentals or possibly condos?

1. FourthandEye said at 12:23 pm on Wednesday April 14, 2010:

   @jack - The property manager and the EQR execs told me during my tour that the roof of both 401 and 425 Mass will be one big unpartitioned common space. My immediate question was: “401 will be apartments too then?” Answer: Yes.

1. jack said at 9:19 pm on Wednesday April 14, 2010:

   Thanks fourthandeye…I guess it makes sense to fill one up before opening the other.

1. Richko said at 12:22 pm on Friday April 16, 2010:

   Sure woulda’ been nice if they could’ve sold them again as condos, what with the practical end of any new condos coming online in the next few years. I bet it would’ve gone a lot better this time around. Even impossible-to-please old me would have been interested.

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