HPO Recommends Approval of 78 Apartments Proposed to Replace Part of Dupont Circle Church

• November 24th 2020

by UrbanTurf Staff

A month ago, UrbanTurf reported on a proposal to replace the three-story annex at First Baptist Church at 1328 16th Street NW (map) with a 78-unit apartment building. Now, The Drake II has been given a nudge towards approval.

The Historic Preservation Office (HPO) report on the development recommends the Review Board find the concept compatible and consistent with the historic district.

"Opposite the 1980s Richmond condominium and a 1990s office building to the north and the 2014 Drake 1 apartments to the west, the site is not one that has a particularly strong sense of historic context," the report stated. "Nevertheless, the design of the new building has been developed to relate to the church through the reuse of the distinctive local stone that unifies the buildings on the block, with a neutral contemporary metal panel above that relates to the stone’s coloration."

First Baptist Church owns the annex and would partner with Keener-Squire Properties on the development; they previously delivered The Drake, a 218-unit development on an adjacent church-owned site. 

Roughly six of the units in the proposed development would be set aside as Inclusionary Zoning, and roughly 11,460 square feet of ground-floor and cellar space would be for church programming. The project would deliver 16 below-grade parking spaces for the church. Eric Colbert and Associates is the architect. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/hpo-recommends-approval-of-78-apartments-proposed-to-replace-part-of-dupont/17575.