New Renderings of Georgetown’s West Heating Plant

• October 23, 2013

by Shilpi Paul

Rendering of the Heating Plant, courtesy of the Georgetown Companies.

On Tuesday night, the team behind the redevelopment of Georgetown’s West Heating Plant, made up of architect Richard Levy, The Georgetown Co., and The Four Seasons, revealed their plans for the long-vacant site to the community.

As we’ve reported in the past, the site will be turned into a high-end 80-unit condo project, which will be connected to the Four Seasons via a skybridge.

Famed achitect David Adjaye, who designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture, as well as the Francis Gregory and Bellevue libraries in DC, talked to the crowd about his plans and shared renderings and a small sample of the materials.

Right now, the structure has a masonry facade on all four sides, and an interior that is divided for industrial uses.. Once the team began investigating the site, they found that the brickwork was not well attached to the interior frame, and was full of cracks. As a result, they are planning on removing three of the four exterior walls completely (the fourth wall, on 29th Street NW, happens to be better connected and will be maintained.)

The bulk of the building, aside from the foundation, will also be removed, and a condo layout will be rebuilt. Then, a new facade will go up. Adjaye’s design mimics the color, shape and size of the current building, but in a fashion that is structurally sound, has bigger windows and uses modern materials. The outermost layer of the building will be a transparent skin, made up of slim horizontal beams — terracotta or ceramic — in the same color as the current plant, spaced generously apart. From the inside, condo residents will have a break in glare through their windows, and from the outside the plant will appear to have a screen.

The current look of the heating plant. Courtesy of GSA.

Chris Hunsberger, an Executive VP at the Four Seasons, spoke to the crowd on behalf of the hotel chain. They had been searching for a residential component to the Four Seasons, said Hunsberger, to extend the experience beyond the hotel. According to Housing Complex, Levy has stated that the condos will be the most expensive units in DC, “by far.”

The team will be meeting with the public and with various city agencies over the next few months. The timeline, said Levy, is still a ways out: the entitlement process could take another year or two, remediation of the contaminated site a year, and construction another two years, putting the final delivery estimate at about 2017 or 2018.

Similar Posts:

• Renderings and Details of the Park at Georgetown’s West Heating Plant
• 80 High-End Condos Planned For Georgetown Heating Plant

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/new_renderings_of_georgetowns_west_heating_plant/7728