What's Next for One of H Street's Last Large Developable Plots?

• November 18th 2021

by Nena Perry-Brown

The H Street Corridor has more or less reached a development plateau, but there is one large property along the corridor whose future is a bit up in the air. 

WestMill Capital Partners (WCP) has owned the AutoZone site at 1207 H Street NE (map) for over a decade. With AutoZone's lease expiring next year, there are a few different futures being pitched for the property. 

On Wednesday, WCP's Ben Miller shared with the ANC 6A Economic Development and Zoning Committee that the company is in talks with AutoZone to renew the lease. However, the property is also on the market and WCP is also in the process of submitting a rezoning application for the site which could lead to it being redeveloped into a large residential project. 

The site is currently zoned NC-14, enabling arts-/entertainment-heavy, moderate-density mixed-use development. WCP will pursue a map amendment application to rezone the site as NC-15, enabling the same type of development at a medium density scale. Marketing materials for the site advertise a potential 173,862 square-foot residential-over-retail development with a maximum height of 70 feet; as-is, a by-right development would be just over 100,000 square feet.

The map amendment would also trigger the city's relatively new IZ-plus requirements, according to Miller and attorney Allison Prince, mandating that 20% of the rental residential square footage of the new development be affordable for households earning up to 60% of area median income.

This would be the second map amendment-only application filed since IZ-Plus was codified, other than two for projects designed to be 100% affordable. The Office of Planning also applied this month to upzone a church site in Bellevue, although the application requests an exemption from IZ-Plus. Planned-unit developments that include a map amendment do not trigger IZ-Plus.

WCP expects to file a rezoning application by the end of the year.

Correction: A previous version of this article referenced Fundrise as the owner of 1207 H Street NE. The property is owned by WestMill Capital Partners. The article has also been updated to mention another map amendment application.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/whats-next-for-one-of-h-streets-last-large-developable-plots/18963.