Chinese American business woman Yeni Wong purchased the historic four story structure on the NE corner of 7th and H for 10+ million. Her plans are to develop the site as mixed use with an emphasis on retail. Past projects from Wong in the area include Fado, Capital Q and Matchbox. PQLiving reports that CVS will occupy the first floor and basement of the building after it’s rehabbed, leaving 3 more floors of retail available for lease. [Ed note: This prime spot can't do better than CVS? Ugggh. ]
Developed around Wong's four story building will be two towers. I believe the one with 7th Street frontage will be residential. The all glass tower fronting H Street has the look of an office building.
Rendering of entire mixed use project from Transwestern.
There was discussion in the comments about PQLiving about the setback of this developer (i.e. not building over the 4 story structure). Some think about from the perspective of "who would want to live on the 5 story of the adjacent building and have a view of HVAC equipment?" I totally get that argument and once had the very same thing turn me off to a condo in Clarendon. However I still feel variety in architecture and historic preservation contributes to sense of place and that trumps the impact on views from a few yet to be built condos. Afterall, with all the other positive attributes that come with that location I doubt a subpar view is going to cause a condo unit to sit vacantly indefinitely.
4 comments:
If I recall correctly, CVS has a long term lease for that location, so including CVS in the new space is probably a requirement. Part of what originally delayed this project was CVS not wanting to vacate its space on a prime corner.
Personally I'd love to see some kind of outdoor bar/restaurant space on the roof of the 4-story building. The logistics might me more difficult to implement, but the views would be great.
Have they begun work on the towers yet?
Also, CVS is not getting the corner retail spot. I am not sure how outdated this is but see Page 3 of the following blueprints...
http://tretail.com/pdf/gallery_square/gallery_sq_floorplans.pdf
When it was there the CVS was used quite often by people getting off the bus or rail and go wherever they are; compared to the one down the street which never gets the same amount of traffic that the 7th st one had.
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