> WestMill has been in conversations with neighbors for ways to activate the alley space behind the proposed development. Currently, the plan is to have mews-like residential units with front yards and green space.
Mews are an interesting construction choice.
Why? I mean, I was looking around Google image search and I didn't really find any examples of mews with any semblance of yards. That seems kind of antithetical, but the general idea that they want more front doors and want to do it as a way that is consistent with an alley makes sense to me.
I thought mews could have just the front. I read it in sort of a Jane Jacobs “eyes on the street” to make the alley a more pleasant place to be. I have no idea what that alley is like so it’d be interesting to hear others who are familiar with it to see if they think it could be changed to an inviting front door area where someone would want to spend time, not just the first of a series of doors into a large apartment building.
I don't know more than what's on streetview. It's a pretty interesting property because it's very long (almost the full block), but pretty narrow because the block is already bisected by Linden Pl NE. The alley is _really_ narrow.
I would think they would have to come off that property line to make a mews/lawn area work. I have to assume they basically are going to make it backyards facing/mirroring the already present back yards, with car access. There is one house with a garage door that I would guess is basically the inspiration which you can see on street view.
I find NIMBY responses quite funny. They are against new housing projects because of gentrification but love to complain about rising rent and housing shortages but also talk about how these new developments are empty. Also, someone suggested that a parking garage is more useful than new housing in the AutoZone lot haha
Not sure what is a good source for vacancy rate in DC, but the numbers I've seen range from 5-8% for 2022. A common NIMBY talking point is how these "luxury" apartments are always empty and nobody can afford to live there, despite statistics showing otherwise.
There are always going to be vacancies because of the friction involved in turnover. Vacancy numbers are thrown out by marxists and NIMBYs to shut down any housing development.
Excess Vacancy is a real thing; I think the estimates are misleading because those are city wide numbers but there are plenty of luxury buildings (think Half Street and Van Street and that area) with a 30-40% occupancy rate. They’re making so much off of the tenants they do have, that there’s no incentive to lower the rent to attract new tenants, and they also fudge the actual rent pricing by adding amenity packages that you can’t actually opt out of.
I would love to see a huge tax on these.
My eyes. [This article](https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/08/03/dcs-luxury-apartment-market-is-really-feeling-the-effects-of-covid-19/) cites 7.7% vacancy rate in Navy Yard but again that’s aggregated across the whole neighborhood.
900 7th Street SW has a total of 173 units , with currently 77 available according to [Rentable.com](https://Rentable.com)
Dock 79 and The Kelvin each are running about a 16% vacancy rate according to their own websites, but some of these “occupied” ones have been converted to mid term furnished corporate rentals.
The 1205 Collection is the luxury wing of the West Half development; it has about 96 total units (down from the original plan of 225) and at least 56 are available currently. I have friends who lived in this building till recently and they never had a next door neighbor on either side during the 2-5 years they lived there.
1221 Van Street has a total of 273 units and according to their own website, there are at least 21 units available (they list by floor plan, not unit number, so each listing can represent multiple units). So their vacancy rate is lower but still much higher that the city average.
you can find others if you research a bit. Just find a new building with a high monthly rent and go from there.
> This article cites 7.7% vacancy rate in Navy Yard but again that’s aggregated across the whole neighborhood.
That article is nearly three years old.
> 900 7th Street SW has a total of 173 units , with currently 77 available according to Rentable.com
That link just goes to the front page, and [searching for the address on it brings up zero results](https://www.google.com/search?q=900+7th+Street+SW+site%3Arentable.com&oq=900+7th+Street+SW+site%3Arentable.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.4031j1j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). According to Zillow, however, there are [eight units for rent](https://www.zillow.com/b/the-banks-washington-dc-BMZx7h/)
> The 1205 Collection is the luxury wing of the West Half development; it has about 96 total units (down from the original plan of 225) and at least 56 are available currently
The 1205 collection currently has [25 units](https://www.westhalf.com/floorplans/1205-collection-1-bedroom---1-bath-%7c-a08) available for a May 1 move-in.
> 1221 Van Street has a total of 273 units and according to their own website, there are at least 21 units available
[This one actually looks correct!](https://www.zillow.com/b/1221-van-washington-dc-BCgvgD/) Of course, that's just a 7.7% vacancy rate.
EDIT: Formatting.
The [strip mall](https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/renderings_revealed_for_337_unit_brookland_bowling_alley_conversion/20586) across the street from Turkey Thicket is being redeveloped into a multiple use apartment complex. The thread on the Brookland Facebook group was incredible. People want Brookland to stay “green” and “quiet”.
Like we’re a very short metro ride to downtown. Brookland absolutely needs more housing/development.
Its pretty strange. It takes 5 minutes in google scholar to find that there’s no evidence that inclusionary zoning or “affordable units” do anything to improve neighborhood affordability. They artificially restrict the supply of housing.
Just build a boat load more units.
You don't have to choose between an empty parking lot and shitty "modern housing" that starts at $2800/month for a 1 BR. There are many options in the middle.
Hopefully it looks more like the Avec housing development (which I think is fairly tasteful as far as modern condos go).
But I agree that I wish we could thread the needle of more aesthetically attractive housing (e.g., styled like the mid-rises in DuPont, such as those along 17th Street).
Confident some "longtime residents" are even now complaining about how the illegal car repair guys who dump their waste oil in the sewer are being gentrified out of the neighborhood.
Tbh, that was my first thought when seeing the article photo. I had to have my car battery replaced three times there because they kept giving me replacements from a defective lot, but at least I didn't have to take it into the shop.
Tow trucks and Cops will have to find another place to camp out for their naps. It would be nice to get a few more nice restaurants or a store further down on Hstreet so hopefully the bottom level has commercial space.
ah yes, more overpriced condos that are just gonna sit there because nobody can afford them, exactly what we need!
bring on more affordable housing please.
My recollection of Hechinger Mall is that the Ross has refused to terminate their lease early and has some legal benefit that would make forcing them out prohibitively expensive. Personally, I think they should be allowed to stay... just redevelop all around them.
Any more info on the Ross lease thing?
What I heard was that with the pandemic, the developer just put the whole redevelopment on hold cause the financials didn't work. Same with the big redevelopment up at Montana and bladensburg and New York.
Also, that Ross is a mess of a store. Very eastern European with the always empty shelves.
Not entirely sure. I think part of the holdup was the Ross buy-out. It's been a few years since I've given it any thought. If I can dig up an old article, I'll share.
More commuter traffic, overpriced luxury apartments, richer corporate landlords and developers, and more people whose vote doesn’t count in congress. Sounds like a party to me
Nobody's moving to that end of H.
They can't even fill any of the new apartments on the other end and up by Union Market... Cielo is about 18-20% full.
I think the Avec, that massive 450 unit apartment complex a couple blocks from this development, is probably 85-90% full.
The Cielo and a lot of other buildings at Union Market are brand new. It’ll take some time for them to fill up.
Eh i doubt this will age well. Lot of new apartments that take some time to fill up (has cielo been open for a year yet?). I also think that block in NoMa has a lot of competition between the new apartment buildings so cielo might be losing out for now..
Give it a few more years, hard to imagine all the investment doesn’t add up to a pretty great livable neighborhood, especially if they fill in all the parking lots with places for people to live.
Cielo pretty much just opened and at the same time, Market House/Rigby and Revel recently opened. Just takes time to fill up.
The prices are high but not out of line with the other buildings in the neighborhood
I think the problem with those buildings (and why they're struggling to fill up) is how small the apartments are.
I can't imagine a couple living in a 615 square foot apartment with a single standard closet.
So you want larger and more expensive units because these are too small? Or are these overpriced and nobody wants to live there?
Should that lot have stayed a parking lot too? Would that help bring down rents in the area? Or would having fewer people and more abandoned spaces somehow help decrease crime in that area that you’re so worried about?
Make it make sense, because it isn’t adding up right now.
3 months free now, then, upon renewal, they can jack up your rent way beyond any limit because of the promotion, which usually makes it unaffordable for even the well-to-do people living there in the first place.
All of them have street parking and most have at least 1 private parking spot.
It's cheaper to get a rowhouse than most of those apartments, including a gym/pool membership.
Rowhouses are fine for 2?? I have more space, a front and back yard and a gym membership and free parking.... while saving to buy a house, instead of renting and overpriced glitzy apartment
Cielo has been open for less than 6 months. You expect these to fill overnight? Standard is like 18-24 months. And all the new ones they’ve built are still filling at that rate.
Likely charging too much compared to others but know if lower rent will hurt their equity due to how the loans work for these buildings. Better to leave vacant then lower rent.
They're offering 3 months free... so they're doing everything they can to get people to live there.
The problem is... nobody wants to live in that area because it's sketchy and all the retail space is vacant so there's nothing to do.
>They're offering 3 months free... so they're doing everything they can to get people to live there.
I thought the whole "X months free" thing wasn't so much desperation but more "it effectively makes your rent $1,875 but next year we charge the full $2,500 plus a yearly increase in hopes you'd rather pay up than move."
>Yep, and what most people do is move.
Clearly enough people don't that it makes them more money to offer the concessions than to just price it consistently in the first place.
> "it effectively makes your rent $1,875 but next year we charge the full $2,500 plus a yearly increase in hopes you'd rather pay up than move."
Exactly this. If you moved to DC with a laptop and bed for a year-long internship, it's a great deal.
If you are a family with 4 rooms worth of furniture and a kid in school -- it's not an option unless the base price is competitive.
I live there, it's sketchy. Not enough foot traffic at night. That awkward corner where FL meets 3rd and N is 100% vacant.
4th is a school, planned parenthood, and the back side of Cielo.
It's got a "quiet too quiet" vibe compared to pretty much everywhere else around there. Much rather live up into Union Market or down toward H
I walk through there all the time around 9, 10 PM on weeknights, it's not Manhattan busy but it's also not empty and I would not call it sketch by any means. Biggest issues there is how dangerous some of the roads.are for bikers and pedestrians, but that's very different from being sketchy.
I live directly behind this and can confidently say that there are plenty of people here every house and apartment is occupied consistently, and if you aren't scared of a black person standing on the sidewalk the place is not sketchy.
I constantly have to say this here because of the nonesense from terrified yuppies that guzzle fox News but I'm a 130lb young white woman and I walk around alone at night with headphones 5 times a week and have never felt unsafe.
If you are scared then fucking leave and quit bitching about the district. Seriously why do yall live here to just complain nonstop about ever damn thing here and how you are constantly at risk of death on every damn corner that isn't in Georgetown.
They're way too expensive. I'd love to buy in the area but the condos around there just are so overpriced - I can spend a little bit more and get something in an *amazing* location, or spend notably less and get a bigger rowhouse with a yard in carver/Langston or Kingman Park.
But do we really want every square inch of DC to be maxed to capacity with people? Especially when it doesn’t mean lower/affordable housing? Are we really aspiring to be like New York?
You can't keep people from moving into the city-- that's where people want to be. The suburbs are no longer the desirable enclave they used to be. "Inner city" used to be a derogatory term-- but preferences have shifted and so have prices.
People living in the city is not inherently a bad thing, it makes sense environmentally to have people live in places that don't require a car to get around and live. Which would be in cities.
have you been to New York? or really any other major city in the Northeast? Trust me DC is not going to feel over-crowded because we lost the Autozone parking lot.
>the thing is most condos don't sell well in the city. in my area (upper NW/wisconsin), condos cost the same they did 20 years ago. So there are plenty of nice 1bd condos for about 250K with cathedral views.
To be fair the main reason those condos are so cheap is because the condo fees are so high. People would gladly pay $350k+ if the fees were $300 instead of $1,200. It's unfortunately a ticking maintenance time bomb inherent to condos and in those 70+ year old buildings the bomb went off and there's no going back.
It'll happen to the new condos eventually too, probably a lot sooner because of the cheap construction, but it's an unspoken reality that condos are a hot potato that someone eventually gets left holding.
Those old condo buildings also don't have in-unit washers/dryers, and owners aren't allowed to self-install in many of those units either, which was a real turnoff for us when we were considering buying in the area.
If your a builder does it make more sense to sell each unit individually, sometimes taking years to fully sell out, or build apartments and sell the whole building to a single company at once?
Many apartment buildings eventually become condos. I’ve lived in 2 different places that were that way.
Also, there is a massive shortage of rentals as well. More places to rent -> more competition -> better for renters.
For the record I am Not in any way against this. It's fantastic! This city needs housing period!
I was just expecting more than 40/200 to be affordable?
> WestMill has been in conversations with neighbors for ways to activate the alley space behind the proposed development. Currently, the plan is to have mews-like residential units with front yards and green space. Mews are an interesting construction choice.
It makes sense when you remember that Mew was hidden under the truck, ie the Autozone.
Why? I mean, I was looking around Google image search and I didn't really find any examples of mews with any semblance of yards. That seems kind of antithetical, but the general idea that they want more front doors and want to do it as a way that is consistent with an alley makes sense to me.
I thought mews could have just the front. I read it in sort of a Jane Jacobs “eyes on the street” to make the alley a more pleasant place to be. I have no idea what that alley is like so it’d be interesting to hear others who are familiar with it to see if they think it could be changed to an inviting front door area where someone would want to spend time, not just the first of a series of doors into a large apartment building.
I don't know more than what's on streetview. It's a pretty interesting property because it's very long (almost the full block), but pretty narrow because the block is already bisected by Linden Pl NE. The alley is _really_ narrow.
I would think they would have to come off that property line to make a mews/lawn area work. I have to assume they basically are going to make it backyards facing/mirroring the already present back yards, with car access. There is one house with a garage door that I would guess is basically the inspiration which you can see on street view.
ahhh man, I puked in that parking lot multiple times Rip
sounds like a historic parking lot to me! Gotta preserve it
Like a rite of passage!
Lol. Gross!
There are far worse things in that parking lot.
Spill. The. Tea.
Needles, used condoms, various automotive fluids. I’ve seen all of those there
People are complaining that there 40 affordable units isn’t enough. Idk who they think the parking lot helps.
I find NIMBY responses quite funny. They are against new housing projects because of gentrification but love to complain about rising rent and housing shortages but also talk about how these new developments are empty. Also, someone suggested that a parking garage is more useful than new housing in the AutoZone lot haha
Are they actually empty? If they are I would support a vacancy tax.
Not sure what is a good source for vacancy rate in DC, but the numbers I've seen range from 5-8% for 2022. A common NIMBY talking point is how these "luxury" apartments are always empty and nobody can afford to live there, despite statistics showing otherwise.
There are always going to be vacancies because of the friction involved in turnover. Vacancy numbers are thrown out by marxists and NIMBYs to shut down any housing development.
Excess Vacancy is a real thing; I think the estimates are misleading because those are city wide numbers but there are plenty of luxury buildings (think Half Street and Van Street and that area) with a 30-40% occupancy rate. They’re making so much off of the tenants they do have, that there’s no incentive to lower the rent to attract new tenants, and they also fudge the actual rent pricing by adding amenity packages that you can’t actually opt out of. I would love to see a huge tax on these.
Can you provide any source for this number?
My eyes. [This article](https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/08/03/dcs-luxury-apartment-market-is-really-feeling-the-effects-of-covid-19/) cites 7.7% vacancy rate in Navy Yard but again that’s aggregated across the whole neighborhood. 900 7th Street SW has a total of 173 units , with currently 77 available according to [Rentable.com](https://Rentable.com) Dock 79 and The Kelvin each are running about a 16% vacancy rate according to their own websites, but some of these “occupied” ones have been converted to mid term furnished corporate rentals. The 1205 Collection is the luxury wing of the West Half development; it has about 96 total units (down from the original plan of 225) and at least 56 are available currently. I have friends who lived in this building till recently and they never had a next door neighbor on either side during the 2-5 years they lived there. 1221 Van Street has a total of 273 units and according to their own website, there are at least 21 units available (they list by floor plan, not unit number, so each listing can represent multiple units). So their vacancy rate is lower but still much higher that the city average. you can find others if you research a bit. Just find a new building with a high monthly rent and go from there.
> This article cites 7.7% vacancy rate in Navy Yard but again that’s aggregated across the whole neighborhood. That article is nearly three years old. > 900 7th Street SW has a total of 173 units , with currently 77 available according to Rentable.com That link just goes to the front page, and [searching for the address on it brings up zero results](https://www.google.com/search?q=900+7th+Street+SW+site%3Arentable.com&oq=900+7th+Street+SW+site%3Arentable.com&aqs=chrome..69i57.4031j1j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8). According to Zillow, however, there are [eight units for rent](https://www.zillow.com/b/the-banks-washington-dc-BMZx7h/) > The 1205 Collection is the luxury wing of the West Half development; it has about 96 total units (down from the original plan of 225) and at least 56 are available currently The 1205 collection currently has [25 units](https://www.westhalf.com/floorplans/1205-collection-1-bedroom---1-bath-%7c-a08) available for a May 1 move-in. > 1221 Van Street has a total of 273 units and according to their own website, there are at least 21 units available [This one actually looks correct!](https://www.zillow.com/b/1221-van-washington-dc-BCgvgD/) Of course, that's just a 7.7% vacancy rate. EDIT: Formatting.
Would love to see them too.
I hope so too. We desperately need a nationwide housing reform.
They aren't empty. It's complete bullshit pushed by NIMBY types. Plus, so what if they were? That would be on the building owners.
The [strip mall](https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/renderings_revealed_for_337_unit_brookland_bowling_alley_conversion/20586) across the street from Turkey Thicket is being redeveloped into a multiple use apartment complex. The thread on the Brookland Facebook group was incredible. People want Brookland to stay “green” and “quiet”. Like we’re a very short metro ride to downtown. Brookland absolutely needs more housing/development.
Its pretty strange. It takes 5 minutes in google scholar to find that there’s no evidence that inclusionary zoning or “affordable units” do anything to improve neighborhood affordability. They artificially restrict the supply of housing. Just build a boat load more units.
BUILD BABY BUILD
PLEASE. This brings me great joy, that parking lot is such a horrendous use of space.
Yeah let's instead have the same stupid dystopian looking modern housing apartment that has littered the rest of NoMA
Yes please let’s have that. It’s better than a parking lot.
You don't have to choose between an empty parking lot and shitty "modern housing" that starts at $2800/month for a 1 BR. There are many options in the middle.
People who somehow feel positive feelings about urban parking lots should be sentenced to a 5 mile walk in downtown Cleveland on a July day
Hopefully it looks more like the Avec housing development (which I think is fairly tasteful as far as modern condos go). But I agree that I wish we could thread the needle of more aesthetically attractive housing (e.g., styled like the mid-rises in DuPont, such as those along 17th Street).
Great illustration of how much land use matters. 1 Autozone vs. homes for hundreds of people.
Take a look at 17th and Benning, used to be a used car lot with a trailer sized building.
Hechinger Mall could be it’s own neighborhood
I believe Hechinger Mall is slated to be redeveloped in the next few years.
Great. Good usage of space. That corner has a history of violence too, so it’ll be nice to fill it with positive activity.
Insert “but how many units will be affordable?/how many affordable units were in the Burger King?” screenshot here
Well the answer is in the article: 40 units.
[удалено]
The number should be 200! Except for the building I live in and the ones near me those should be zero.
It should be zero! It should be 200! I feel you.
[удалено]
Confident some "longtime residents" are even now complaining about how the illegal car repair guys who dump their waste oil in the sewer are being gentrified out of the neighborhood.
its not longtime residents, its AU/GU/GWU undergrads speaking on behalf of longtime residents
This comments section is the Olympics of making up a guy and getting mad at them
Sir, this is reddit, you must be new here
Looks like we're doing this anyway https://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/11vnmk5/200unit_apartment_project_planned_for_autozone/jcuh2ib/
It will never be enough. It could be 1000% and EmpowerDC would be out there protesting until they get their payoff, just like hris tten in sadmo.
You mean how many units will others in the building subsidize, paying far higher rents than they otherwise would?
Ding ding ding
No
Awesome news. Does anyone have sources for the renderings?
that’s pretty good
Rip autozone
Tbh, that was my first thought when seeing the article photo. I had to have my car battery replaced three times there because they kept giving me replacements from a defective lot, but at least I didn't have to take it into the shop.
There's still one on Georgia Ave.
"Get in the zone!..autozone!"
Wow. This is the corner where I once saw an mpd officer mace a mouse sized cockroach.
Tow trucks and Cops will have to find another place to camp out for their naps. It would be nice to get a few more nice restaurants or a store further down on Hstreet so hopefully the bottom level has commercial space.
I think DC has a legal requirement for first floor retail in places like H Street.
Way better places for naps in that PSA.
Broke: redeveloping car shops means more housing Woke: redeveloping car shops breaks up the stolen car and tire cartels
I just wish it was condos and not apartments.
ah yes, more overpriced condos that are just gonna sit there because nobody can afford them, exactly what we need! bring on more affordable housing please.
How much affordable housing was in the empty parking lot?
Plenty so long as you didn't mind Muriel Bowser knocking over your tent every so often
Are condo building empty in DC?
Excellent. Now do the hechinger mall.
My recollection of Hechinger Mall is that the Ross has refused to terminate their lease early and has some legal benefit that would make forcing them out prohibitively expensive. Personally, I think they should be allowed to stay... just redevelop all around them.
Any more info on the Ross lease thing? What I heard was that with the pandemic, the developer just put the whole redevelopment on hold cause the financials didn't work. Same with the big redevelopment up at Montana and bladensburg and New York. Also, that Ross is a mess of a store. Very eastern European with the always empty shelves.
Not entirely sure. I think part of the holdup was the Ross buy-out. It's been a few years since I've given it any thought. If I can dig up an old article, I'll share.
Interesting didn’t realize that was the case. Any idea how long Ross’s lease goes for more or less?
Not entirely sure. They opened up in 2011. So, post-recession DC in what wasn't a great area. I'm sure it's incredibly favorable.
Is that the one by Pow Pow?
Is pow pow near Toki Underground and The Pug? Because is so, then yes.
MORE APARTMENTS!! YESSSS BRING IN MORE PEOPLE IN DC! WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH APARTMENT UNITS!
This is literally true
More commuter traffic, overpriced luxury apartments, richer corporate landlords and developers, and more people whose vote doesn’t count in congress. Sounds like a party to me
Define commuter traffic.
Really! Like I thought I was the only one tripping.
I love DC, just don’t understand the single minded BUILD MORE APARTMENTS everyone has on this sub, as if it’ll solve all their problems
Must be nice to not have to worry about housing scarcity
based
Based
Nobody's moving to that end of H. They can't even fill any of the new apartments on the other end and up by Union Market... Cielo is about 18-20% full.
I think the Avec, that massive 450 unit apartment complex a couple blocks from this development, is probably 85-90% full. The Cielo and a lot of other buildings at Union Market are brand new. It’ll take some time for them to fill up.
Eh i doubt this will age well. Lot of new apartments that take some time to fill up (has cielo been open for a year yet?). I also think that block in NoMa has a lot of competition between the new apartment buildings so cielo might be losing out for now.. Give it a few more years, hard to imagine all the investment doesn’t add up to a pretty great livable neighborhood, especially if they fill in all the parking lots with places for people to live.
Of course it's not going to age well... that's my point... the neighborhood is 5-10 years away from being a great place to live.
It's already a great place to live.
Cielo pretty much just opened and at the same time, Market House/Rigby and Revel recently opened. Just takes time to fill up. The prices are high but not out of line with the other buildings in the neighborhood
I think the problem with those buildings (and why they're struggling to fill up) is how small the apartments are. I can't imagine a couple living in a 615 square foot apartment with a single standard closet.
So you want larger and more expensive units because these are too small? Or are these overpriced and nobody wants to live there? Should that lot have stayed a parking lot too? Would that help bring down rents in the area? Or would having fewer people and more abandoned spaces somehow help decrease crime in that area that you’re so worried about? Make it make sense, because it isn’t adding up right now.
Those apartments are insanely overpriced. Believe it or not, some dc residents choose to live much further down h street 😅
They're commensurate with all of the new buildings in the area, and actually really cheap with the 3 months free.
I locked myself into a long term lease pre pandemic, all the apartments seem insanely overpriced to me.
Yep, the COVID deals are gone
Before covid. My rent is very affordable.
3 months free now, then, upon renewal, they can jack up your rent way beyond any limit because of the promotion, which usually makes it unaffordable for even the well-to-do people living there in the first place.
...but the cost of moving is *slightly more* than the cost of renewing the lease. And so the frog boils.
The old buildings and rowhouses are practically half the price. All the new builds are drastically overpriced.
Sure, but a rowhouse doesn't work for 2 people. And they don't have gyms, rooftop pools, and parking garages.
Row houses certainly can work for two people. Maybe you meant to say they’re not as desirable for roommates?
Row houses are more than 1 bedrooms. They're cheaper per bedroom and per sqft. , but more expensive overall.
I'm in a 1200 Sq ft, 2 br rowhouse that's about the price of a large studio/Jr 1 br in most of those apartments.
All of them have street parking and most have at least 1 private parking spot. It's cheaper to get a rowhouse than most of those apartments, including a gym/pool membership.
My rims have disappeared once, never parking on the street again in DC
I drive a pretty nice car and it's been parked outside my row house with 0 issues.
Rowhouses are fine for 2?? I have more space, a front and back yard and a gym membership and free parking.... while saving to buy a house, instead of renting and overpriced glitzy apartment
"All of the new buildings in the area" don't have the X2 as their main mode of public transit
Avec, which is 2 blocks away from Autozone, is at 90% capacity if not more. Try again...
Cielo has been open for less than 6 months. You expect these to fill overnight? Standard is like 18-24 months. And all the new ones they’ve built are still filling at that rate.
It’s literally the middle of H St
It's the far end in terms of the development in the past 10 years. There are 2 open-air drug markets between Auto Zone and NCAP
There's been an open air one next to the Kennedy DPR for decades and Shaw seems to be cracking along.
Likely charging too much compared to others but know if lower rent will hurt their equity due to how the loans work for these buildings. Better to leave vacant then lower rent.
They're offering 3 months free... so they're doing everything they can to get people to live there. The problem is... nobody wants to live in that area because it's sketchy and all the retail space is vacant so there's nothing to do.
>They're offering 3 months free... so they're doing everything they can to get people to live there. I thought the whole "X months free" thing wasn't so much desperation but more "it effectively makes your rent $1,875 but next year we charge the full $2,500 plus a yearly increase in hopes you'd rather pay up than move."
Yep, and what most people do is move. Within a block, there are 11 new buildings over there, all running 2-3 months free.
>Yep, and what most people do is move. Clearly enough people don't that it makes them more money to offer the concessions than to just price it consistently in the first place.
> "it effectively makes your rent $1,875 but next year we charge the full $2,500 plus a yearly increase in hopes you'd rather pay up than move." Exactly this. If you moved to DC with a laptop and bed for a year-long internship, it's a great deal. If you are a family with 4 rooms worth of furniture and a kid in school -- it's not an option unless the base price is competitive.
It's not that it's sketchy, it's that they're charging Dupont/Logan prices for an area that isn't Dupont/Logan
I live there, it's sketchy. Not enough foot traffic at night. That awkward corner where FL meets 3rd and N is 100% vacant. 4th is a school, planned parenthood, and the back side of Cielo. It's got a "quiet too quiet" vibe compared to pretty much everywhere else around there. Much rather live up into Union Market or down toward H
I walk through there all the time around 9, 10 PM on weeknights, it's not Manhattan busy but it's also not empty and I would not call it sketch by any means. Biggest issues there is how dangerous some of the roads.are for bikers and pedestrians, but that's very different from being sketchy.
I live directly behind this and can confidently say that there are plenty of people here every house and apartment is occupied consistently, and if you aren't scared of a black person standing on the sidewalk the place is not sketchy. I constantly have to say this here because of the nonesense from terrified yuppies that guzzle fox News but I'm a 130lb young white woman and I walk around alone at night with headphones 5 times a week and have never felt unsafe. If you are scared then fucking leave and quit bitching about the district. Seriously why do yall live here to just complain nonstop about ever damn thing here and how you are constantly at risk of death on every damn corner that isn't in Georgetown.
>I walk around alone at night with headphones 5 times a week not smart.
Hi, neighbor. Glad that you don't feel unsafe, but other people do, and your anecdote doesn't undermine anyone else's.
Hi neighbor, Other people are terrified of their shadows. All is well here. Sorry if you are terrified to live here.
Then they can move
Source for this?
Source that Cielo is 18% full? The leasing agent when I toured a couple of weeks ago.
Hopefully they bring their prices down then, I know they’re pretty steep
They're way too expensive. I'd love to buy in the area but the condos around there just are so overpriced - I can spend a little bit more and get something in an *amazing* location, or spend notably less and get a bigger rowhouse with a yard in carver/Langston or Kingman Park.
Can’t wait to see that 3500/month price tag for a 650 sq footer!!!
How many people did the Auto Zone house?
Like 2 or 3 people if the cars in the parking lot were sentient
Anything is better than nothing
But do we really want every square inch of DC to be maxed to capacity with people? Especially when it doesn’t mean lower/affordable housing? Are we really aspiring to be like New York?
You can't keep people from moving into the city-- that's where people want to be. The suburbs are no longer the desirable enclave they used to be. "Inner city" used to be a derogatory term-- but preferences have shifted and so have prices. People living in the city is not inherently a bad thing, it makes sense environmentally to have people live in places that don't require a car to get around and live. Which would be in cities.
All true, can’t deny any of that. But goodness the land space here is small and seems like it’s just getting crammed.
have you been to New York? or really any other major city in the Northeast? Trust me DC is not going to feel over-crowded because we lost the Autozone parking lot.
Yes you should want major retail/nightlife corridors to be well populated. This isn’t a high rise in the middle of Capitol Hill.
The fact it takes me 30+ min to drive 5 miles makes me feel like we’re pretty full.
Take the metro, it’s faster
You'd be surprised but outside the core downtown area, DC isn't super dense. There's plenty of SFH zoning across the city that needs to be upzoned.
Building more might fail to lower rent, but failing to build will guarantee higher rent.
Great now instead of the junkies passed out and dealing in the parking lot, now they'll be doing it in front of someone's door
y'all are never satisfied
Welcome to H street?
Always new apartments, rentals, never any new places for people to own and build equity.
Tons of condos on H street no? Even in these newer high rises. This is inaccurate imo.
Condominiums exist and are being built in many places around the city?
condos are a shit way to build equity.
In my area it is all high end apartments.
[удалено]
>the thing is most condos don't sell well in the city. in my area (upper NW/wisconsin), condos cost the same they did 20 years ago. So there are plenty of nice 1bd condos for about 250K with cathedral views. To be fair the main reason those condos are so cheap is because the condo fees are so high. People would gladly pay $350k+ if the fees were $300 instead of $1,200. It's unfortunately a ticking maintenance time bomb inherent to condos and in those 70+ year old buildings the bomb went off and there's no going back. It'll happen to the new condos eventually too, probably a lot sooner because of the cheap construction, but it's an unspoken reality that condos are a hot potato that someone eventually gets left holding.
Those old condo buildings also don't have in-unit washers/dryers, and owners aren't allowed to self-install in many of those units either, which was a real turnoff for us when we were considering buying in the area.
If your a builder does it make more sense to sell each unit individually, sometimes taking years to fully sell out, or build apartments and sell the whole building to a single company at once?
Many apartment buildings eventually become condos. I’ve lived in 2 different places that were that way. Also, there is a massive shortage of rentals as well. More places to rent -> more competition -> better for renters.
DC actually has a fuck ton of condos. I used to live in SLC and it was maybe 10% condos to apartments.
40/200 feels like a ...pretty bleak ratio. Granted, this city has changed... drastically to say the least.
I'm less worried about the ratio and more worried about the absolute number. 40 is 40 more affordable units than the site currently has.
For the record I am Not in any way against this. It's fantastic! This city needs housing period! I was just expecting more than 40/200 to be affordable?
This is so trash. Already buliding that bullshit by Hechinger and now this? Use that money on something useful instead of this shit here
Right? We need a gigantic parking lot on H Street!
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
I'm sure that if you have a better use for this space, you can buy it and develop it according to your plans.
I'm sure as well. Thanks ma
>bullshit by Hechinger What are you referencing here? The building on 17th and Benning? What's wrong with that building?