Another Rogue 24 to the Wonder Bread Factory?

• June 6th 2012

by Shilpi Paul

On Wednesday night, Paul Millstein from Douglas Development stopped by the ANC 2C meeting to update the committee on the redevelopment of the Wonder Bread building at 641 S Street NW (map) and dropped a relatively juicy hint about who the possible restaurant tenant could be.

As Left For LeDroit reported in March, the building will include ground floor and basement level retail, possibly a restaurant or microbrewery, and upper level office space. Douglas has secured Workspace Solutions as an office tenant and is actively speaking with other interested parties. But on Wednesday, Millstein also said they have been talking to Rogue 24’s RJ Cooper about the possibility of opening up his second restaurant in the space. No more details were provided about the type or size of this possible new eatery.

With feedback from the ANC, the developers negotiated a few extras for area residents that will mitigate the inconvenience of living next to a retail strip, such as creating vestibules to cushion the sound, aiming lighting away from homes, directing all service traffic to the alley rather than the street, offering double pane windows to interested neighbors, and creating 27 below grade parking spaces for tenants and guests to avoid taking up street parking.

Douglas was seeking support from the ANC on several zoning relief issues, which it received. The firm has already started demolition and is hoping to deliver with full occupancy in March 2013.

In other news from the meeting, Grant Epstein from Community Three Development presented plans for a 22-unit condo building at 435 R Street NW (map), currently the site of a vacant dry cleaners and an empty lot.

The building will be comprised of 18 one-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units, ranging in size from 650 to 1,000 square feet. Epstein told the community that they are keeping the units on the small size in order to price them moderately, between $300,000 and $400,000. The four-story building will have eleven parking spaces.

Community Three will start demolition this summer; due to some chemical issues, they will also be digging up and cleaning the soil. Total construction is estimated to take 18 to 24 months.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/another_rogue_24_to_the_wonder_bread_factory/5627.