Restaurants, Recreation Venue in the Works as Art Place Seeks More Time for Final Phases

• July 9th

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The final phases of one of Northeast DC's largest developments are going to need a little more runway, but some interesting concepts could be in the works.

Earlier this month, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation filed a request with the DC  Zoning Commission for a two-year time extension of the first-stage PUD approval for Blocks C and D of Art Place at Fort Totten, the roughly 15-acre, four-block development along South Dakota Avenue NE (map). If granted, the extension would push the deadline to file a second-stage application for either block from December 31, 2026 to December 31, 2028, with the final application due by the end of 2032.

The two blocks at issue represent the tail end of a development first approved in 2010. Block C, originally envisioned as a high-density residential building, has hosted two charter schools — Rocketship Public Charter School and Social Justice Public Charter School — in renovated warehouses since 2021. Block D, once slated for a civic and cultural facility, sits vacant, and the filing notes that the 2022 renovation and reopening of the Lamond-Riggs Branch Library prompted a rethink of the block's planned civic uses. All told, roughly 409 of the approximately 929 residential units approved across the PUD have yet to be built.

The delay traces largely to Block B, the mixed-use second phase that broke ground in February 2022 with plans for 294 residential units, a 35,000 square-foot food collective, 27,000 square feet of retail, and a children's museum. The phase has had a bumpy road: immersive art outfit Meow Wolf, which was to anchor the block, pulled out of the project in 2021, and the Foundation subsequently broke construction into sequences, the first of which delivered an Aldi grocery store that opened on December 5, 2024. The filing states that the project's phasing assumed Block B would be complete and stabilized before the Blocks C and D deadlines arrived. Elevated interest rates, rising construction costs, and tighter lending undid that assumption, and the applicant says second-stage financing is unattainable for now.

In the meantime, the Foundation points to momentum elsewhere on the site: it says it is close to finalizing four to five leases with restaurants, a coffee shop, and a wine retail and tasting venue that would bring the retail at The Modern (Block A) to roughly 90% occupancy, and it is pursuing a national family entertainment operator and indoor recreation venue for Block B.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/restaurants_recreation_venue_in_the_works_as_art_place_seeks_more_time_for_/24799.