748 Units, a Grocery Store, and a Sandlot: The First Phase of the "Bridge District"

• August 9th 2021

by Nena Perry-Brown

The first phase of the Anacostia project formerly known as Columbian Quarter is coming back into focus.

A Redbrick LMD-led development team has filed a design review application for a mixed-use project in Poplar Point at 632 Howard Road SE (map), an area that the development team has dubbed the "Bridge District". The 130 foot-tall development would deliver 748 residential units above roughly 46,700 square feet of retail and restaurant space and a grocery store. ZGF Architects is the designer; Cecconi Simone will do the interiors.

The development will also include a 30 foot-wide woonerf (multi-modal, pedestrian-centric shared street) along the east side of the property with outdoor seating areas, between the building and future phases. The grocery store will occupy 15,000-25,000 square feet of space along the west side of the property, closest to Suitland Parkway and a future park space.

There would also be 355 parking spaces and 250 long-term residential bicycle spaces; a 45 foot-wide ground-floor easement will connect Howard Road and Anacostia Park and provide vehicular access to the garage.

Some of the retail will be on a mezzanine level, and the building will have five outdoor terraces along the second floor, a rooftop pool, and 14,000 square feet of solar panels. The residential unit mix will span from studios to three-bedrooms and 85% of the units will have balconies. Seventy-seven of the units, including 29 three-bedrooms, will be affordable to households earning up to 50% and 60% of median family income.

Community benefits will include a 10% discount on retail rents for local businesses. Before development starts, the team expects to activate the strip with a temporary pop-up of the Sandlot brand and other interim uses.

A multi-phase planned unit development (PUD) previously approved for 600-800 blocks of Howard Road was appealed, leading the developers to extinguish the PUD and look to rezone the sites, resulting in the special Northern Howard Road (NHR) zone. The NHR zone will enable up to 2.5 million square feet of mixed-use development. Additional renderings are below.

Note: The article has been updated since publication to clarify that Sandlot Anacostia will be elsewhere in the development, not on this specific site.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/748-apartments-retail-and-a-grocery-store-the-first-phase-of-the-bridge-dis/18591.