Fancy Walgreens Coming to Chinatown

• April 5, 2012

by Shilpi Paul

Millstein with 801 7th Street NW

Douglas Development stopped by last night’s ANC 2C meeting to update the community on a few projects, including the development it has in the works for 801 7th Street NW (map). The big news of the night was the anchor tenant of the 25,000 square-foot retail space: Walgreens.

Before the crowd could react, Douglas Development’s Paul Millstein started describing some pretty cool elements of this particular Walgreens, which seems to transcend a simple pharmacy and drugstore. This outpost will have an on-site doctor, fresh and pre-packaged food, a coffee shop, a bakery, and an extended cosmetics section that includes a nail salon and some high-tech makeup visualization stations. Douglas is also hoping to bring Yo Sushi, a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, to the space. The building should be opening up in November.

Also announced at the meeting was a six-unit condo development that will be located at 460-462 Ridge Street NW (map), a one-block street just east of the Convention Center Metro station. Developer Blue Skye is going before the HPRB soon and came to the meeting to get ANC approval, which they received. They will be building on top of a “dilapidated” one-story property and a vacant lot, and all the units will be 1,100 square-foot two-bedroom, two-bath condos.

The simple facade attracted some commentary from the community, but the developers explained that the Historic Preservation Review Board wanted them to match the modest architecture on the rest of the block. “Historically, Ridge Street was a common folks street,” said the developer. We will update you when we know more.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/fancy_walgreens_coming_to_chinatown/5377