The Green Line Effect

• January 12th 2017

by Nena Perry-Brown

Today, the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (BID) released its second Green Print For Growth study which examines economic and development growth along Metro’s Green Line from the Georgia Avenue-Petworth station to Navy Yard. The study, conducted by real estate advisory company RCLCO, looked at a number of different data sources to determine the spread of development, demographic shifts and job creation along the Metro line.

Among its most notable conclusions, the study found that 48 percent of the city’s new households under the age of 35 have settled along the Green Line corridor since 2010.

“Based on construction activity to date and projects that are planned to deliver by 2019, Navy Yard-Ballpark station is one of the Green Line’s biggest magnets for new households and development this decade,” the report states. Columbia Heights is the only Green Line Metro station north of Gallery Place where there hasn’t been an uptick in households led by 18-34 year-olds.

This settling pattern has a lot to do with the development boom along the Green Line since 2000, where one out of every four apartments in the city have been built. Over 2,300 of these 9,500 new apartment units have been concentrated around the Navy Yard-Ballpark station, more than twice as many built around Shaw or U Street and 50 percent more than were constructed in the Rosslyn-Ballston Metro corridor during that period.

Additionally, 640 new condominiums in Navy Yard are expected to deliver by 2019. The study found that new condos in the Waterfront area command a 79 percent premium per square foot compared to resale units in the neighborhood, indicating not only the area’s increasing desirability, but also hinting at a time when development there was more stagnant.

The development boom along the line is not limited to residential units. The study found that half of the city’s retail development since 2010 has been concentrated along the Green Line. While CityCenter in Mount Vernon Square is probably the most buzzed-about (and upscale) example of this retail boom, that site only accounts for 20 percent of the retail growth along the corridor. The Navy Yard-Ballpark station area will see 1.5 CityCenters’ worth of retail built out by 2019, most of which will be incorporated into mixed-use developments.

The first GreenPrint study was commissioned by the BID in 2012 to track the development of the areas within a quarter-mile from stations along the Green Line.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/led_by_navy_yard_the_green_line_may_be_dcs_hottest_development_corridor/12038.