250 Units, Most of Them Micro, Proposed for Crystal City

• May 14th 2014

by Lark Turner

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Vornado is collaborating with communal office developer WeWork on a new “WeLive” development on S. Clark Street featuring 252 units, most of them micro-sized.

The units will be retrofitted into a vacant office building at 2221 S. Clark Street (map). Because the building is eventually slated to be torn down as part of a long-term development plan for the area, the changes would be temporary — but would still last for 20 years, as ARLNow reports. The concept would be developed by WeWork, which up to now has focused on coworking office concepts, not residences.

Each floor would have shared living and kitchen spaces, because the units will not have an oven or a stove, according to ARLNow. Residents won’t share bathrooms, though.

The building will have 208 studios divided into three categories: studio, studio+ and studio max, along with a few two-bedrooms, 22 three-bedrooms, and 20 four-bedrooms. The different types of studios correlate to size. Studios are 300 square feet, while studio+ are larger and studio maxes top out at a comparatively massive 660 square feet. The plans indicate that the studio+ units may also have higher-end features or other amenities, because some are just 13 square feet larger than the simple studios.

The project is especially interesting because the units will be leasing for about $24.77 per square foot (a calculation that includes amenity spaces and can’t be correlated to market rents), about $10 less than its area office space gets, the Washington Business Journal reported. But apparently that relative loss of income is worth it to try and turn Crystal City into a cool place to work and live, which Vornado is betting this project will do.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/250_units_most_of_them_micro_proposed_for_crystal_city/8488.