Home | Newsletter | Advertise
loading...

350 Units Proposed to Replace Friendship Heights Building Housing Maggiano's and DSW

  • September 24th 2021

by Nena Perry-Brown

Existing property. Click to enlarge.

This spring, the Urban Land Institute released a study looking at DC's Friendship Heights neighborhood, tracing the causes of the area's "naturally-occurring retirement community" reputation and offering prescriptions for future redevelopment.

Now, a landowner is taking heed to those recommendations.

On Thursday evening, Federal Realty held a meeting to share preliminary plans to redevelop Friendship Center, which houses DSW, Maggiano's, Marshalls, and the former Nordstrom Rack space at 5333 Wisconsin Avenue NW (map). The 130,000 square-foot building would be replaced with a building delivering 350 units above 12,000 square feet of retail.

Massing study for the proposed development. Click to enlarge.

In light of the site's designation for high-density mixed-use development, Federal Realty wants to rezone the site from MU-5A to MU-9 and pursue a planned unit development (PUD) application in order to exceed the allowable height under MU-9. This will enable a design that steps down considerably where the building abuts the existing townhouses to the east.

The development team also hopes to secure a mid-block crossing on Wisconsin Avenue and add a story of below-grade parking, resulting in 180-250 parking spaces instead of the current 120 or so spaces.

While designs are not fleshed out, building materials may include clay and terra cotta, and the building will also be informed by biophilic design, including green space atop the stepped volumes and gardens at the retail entrances. Shalom Baranes is the architect and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is the landscape architect.

UrbanTurf will continue to cover this development as plans evolve. 

Similar Posts:

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/350-units-proposed-to-redevelop-friendship-heights-retail-buil/18743.

DC Real Estate Guides

Short guides to navigating the DC-area real estate market

We've collected all our helpful guides for buying, selling and renting in and around Washington, DC in one place. Start browsing below!

First-Timer Primers

Intro guides for first-time home buyers

Red Flags Revealed During a Home Inspection Top 5 Tax Breaks For Homeowners Tax Relief for DC Homeowners
Condo Fee Tutorial What is a Rent Back? 10 Ways To Tell If a Home Renovation is Well Done
Obtaining a Basic Business License For Your Rental What is an Adjustable Rate Mortgage? The Splitting the Rent Formula
How Much Cash Do You Need to Buy a House? Is This Condo Building Financially Healthy? Interest Rates and Mortgage Points
The Scoop on Mortgage Insurance

Unique Spaces

Awesome and unusual real estate from across the DC Metro

The Most Intriguing Loft in DC The R Street Firehouse DC’s One-Room House
Dupont Circle’s Old Frat House To Become Alley Home Best Transition From a Garage To a Home The Roundhouse
Tilden Gardens Restaurant-Turned-Home Hits Market Next Week Logan Circle’s Most Intriguing Garage Frank Lloyd Wright Goes Green in Kensington
Sears Bungalow Gets a Modern Makeover Old Town General Store Becomes Three-Level Home Making the Most of a Skinny House
A Studio 27 Renovation on Capitol Hill Once a Carriage House, Now a Home The Bank that Became a Home
From Pie to Hooch to Heroin to Home The Live-Aboards of Gangplank Marina A Treehouse with Rock Creek Park As A Backyard
Modern Tranquility in Sperryville Saddle Up For Stable Living Throwing a Curve at 550 Square Feet
A Modern Hilltop Retreat Tilden Street Restaurant Becomes Spacious Home Focus on Design: A Vastu Unit at 22 West
The DC Area’s First Net Zero Home A Yankee Goes Green DC’s First Carbon Neutral Home
Eco-Friendly Alley House Off H Street The Gym, The Stables and The Firehouse