DC’s Planned Shipping Container Residential Projects Will Not Move Forward

• November 14, 2017

by UrbanTurf Staff

A rendering of the container development planned in Brookland. Click to enlarge.

In 2014, the DC development scene saw a first for the city: a residential project in Edgewood made completely out of shipping containers.

Then last year, two more shipping container developments were put on the boards, giving credence to the thought that this unorthodox building type might become more common going forward.

Or not. UrbanTurf has learned from Travis Price Architects, the firm behind the design of all three developments, that the plans for the two developments proposed last year have been nixed.

The four-unit project that Price and Hinds Development had on the boards for a former Safeway store at 1201 Franklin Street NE (map) will not move forward. Price explained that the city’s new stormwater regulations resulted in additions to the budget that didn’t make the project feasible financially.

The site for the second project, four units made out of shipping containers along 6th Street in Shaw, was sold to developer D3. Matt Hagan of Bulldog Public Relations says that D3 is not moving forward with the container portion of the building, and instead will build something more energy efficient.

While these two developments didn’t come to fruition, don’t put the death knell in shipping container residential projects just yet. Price has at least one other container project in the works outside of DC and there a number of others planned around the world.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/neither_of_dcs_shipping_container_residential_projects_will_move_forward/13254