1,800 Units In The Works: Connecticut Avenue's Building Boom

• 11:27 AM EDT

by UrbanTurf Staff

✉️ Want to forward this article? Click here.

From the Maryland line down to the edge of downtown, a mix of office conversions, infill apartment buildings, and pending zoning changes are poised to reshape portions of Connecticut Avenue. UrbanTurf rounds up what's in the works, from north to south.

---

Chevy Chase, MD

Just over the District line, Potomac Development Group and Landmark Realty have plans for "Flats at Columbia" at 8402 Connecticut Avenue (map), a roughly two-acre site along the Georgetown Branch Trail. The project would deliver up to 134 units — at least 21 of them designated Moderately Priced Dwelling Units — in a building that is replacing a long-vacant commercial building that once housed Parkway Custom Drycleaning. The design nods to the site's history with interpretive markers commemorating the former Chevy Chase Lake Trolley Station.

Nearby, phase two of the Chevy Chase Lake mixed-use development — Chevy Chase Lake West — has preliminary plan approval for a 220-unit mix of apartments and townhouses at 8550 Connecticut Avenue.

---

Chevy Chase, DC

Mayor Bowser's office selected Rift Valley Capital to redevelop the District-owned civic campus (map) — home to the Chevy Chase Library and Community Center — into 177 units of mixed-income housing, plus a new library, community center, and ground-floor retail. The affordable housing share was revised upward in June, with 26 units shifted from market-rate to 80% MFI affordable; the plan now includes 80 affordable units (up from 54), or just over 45% of the total. A legal challenge to the underlying zoning changes was also dismissed by the DC Superior Court in June, clearing the way for the project to move forward. Studios Architecture is leading the design, with OVS on landscape architecture and GCS Sigal as contractor.

The zoning changes, approved in 2025, cover more than 40 lots along upper Connecticut Avenue, so additional infill proposals in this stretch are likely as owners take advantage of the new multifamily-friendly zoning.

---

Dupont Circle/Downtown/K Street

This downtown stretch has the corridor's largest projects by unit count. Post Brothers' conversion of the Universal Buildings at 1825 and 1875 Connecticut Avenue NW (map) — branded The Geneva — broke ground in January as the largest office-to-residential conversion in DC history. The 604,000-square-foot property will become a 15-story, LEED-certified building with 532 homes (60 affordable) and 57,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space. The conversion is designed by Handel Architects.

The Longfellow Building conversion at 1201 Connecticut Avenue NW will deliver 161 apartments, with ground-floor retail and residential amenity space. Designed by Maurice Walters, the facade renovation aims to restore the building closer to its original 1941 Lescaze design.

A block away, 1625 Massachusetts Avenue NW — now branded "Aviator House" — is being converted by National Real Estate Advisors into 157 units, at least 15 affordable, in the former Air Line Pilots Association headquarters.

Right at the corridor's southern end, Stonebridge and The Bernstein Companies plan to raze the office building at 1990 K Street NW and construct a 435-unit residential building with 17,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, designed by Design Collective — one of the larger new-construction (rather than conversion) projects planned for downtown. The address for the new development will be 1999 Eye Street NW.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/1800_units_in_the_works_connecticut_avenue/24859.