87 Residential Units Could Be Coming To The Watergate's Upper Floors

• March 18th

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The Watergate complex may be getting a fresh wave of residents.

Friedman Capital Advisors has filed an application with the DC Zoning Commission seeking to convert the top six floors of the Watergate Office Building at 2600 Virginia Avenue NW (map) into residential use. The proposal would transform floors six through eleven into 87 units — 76 apartments spread across floors six through nine, and 11 for-sale condominiums on floors ten and eleven. Eric Colbert and Associates is in charge of the design.

The conversion is being pursued as a "Modification Without Hearing," a streamlined zoning process that allows changes to an approved planned unit development to be reviewed without requiring witness testimony before the Commission. Friedman argues the proposal qualifies because it doesn't increase the building's height, density, or footprint, and doesn't require any changes to the existing zoning map. The building would require only limited exterior façade modifications to accommodate the residential floors.

The project leans into the District's ongoing push to add housing downtown. The application explicitly references DC's goal of attracting 15,000 new downtown residents by 2028, and frames the office-to-residential conversion as a model for adaptive reuse — particularly in neighborhoods like Foggy Bottom where there's limited vacant land for new ground-up development.

The proposal will go before the Commission in April. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/87_units_could_be_coming_to_the_watergates_upper_floors/24434.