New Details and Images Offered for One of DC's Most Exciting Mixed-Use Proposals

• April 16th 2019

by Nena Perry-Brown

The multi-faceted Art Place development in Fort Totten has come out with some new perspectives of and details on how the development will look and be experienced.

The current application from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation would deliver 270 apartments, including 30 artist live/work units; a Union Market-esque food hall; an ALDI grocery store; 87,000 square feet of restaurants; and a Family Entertainment Zone (FEZ) that will incorporate a 30,000 square-foot Explore! Children’s museum and a 78,000 square-foot location of experiential outlet Meow Wolf to the approximately five-acre "Block B" site at South Dakota Avenue and Ingraham Street NE (map).

In addition to a pedestrian bridge between the residential buildings on either side of 4th Street, which will also be a woonerf-style shared street, the latest plans give an enhanced idea of the vehicle-sized cut-through from one of the residential buildings to the alley behind. 

There will be a public dining terrace above some of the commercial space on the west side of 4th Street. Ground-floor artists' studios and makerspaces, on the corners at 4th and Kennedy Street, will have glass garage doors. The artist housing units will be affordable for 20 years at 80 percent of area median income. 

Residents of the new units will have access to the amenities produced in the first Art Place phase, including a rooftop pool with lounge, fitness center and three courtyards. In the latest plans, the number of parking spaces has been reduced to 780 from 930.

Perkins Eastman is the executive architect of the development while Studio Shanghai is the design architect. The Zoning Commission is expected to rule on the project on May 20th.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/new-renderings-and-additional-details-offered-for-fort-totten-development/15268.