Zoning Commission Unhappy With Foulger-Pratt's NoMa Development, Threatens Rejection

NoMa has no shortage of development plans in the pipeline, but one of the biggest mixed-use projects could be in jeopardy. 

The DC Zoning Commission is taking aim at Foulger-Pratt's 301-331 N St NE project, threatening the projects approval because they say the community benefits package falls well short, the Washington Business Journal reports. 

Foulger Pratt, in a JV with Juster Properties and Clear Rock Properties, submitted plans in November that call for 370 residential units, 175 hotel rooms, and ground-floor retail and office space. It sits on 3rd Street NE. Foulger Pratt's Adam Davis, who's leading the project, said at a Bisnow event earlier this year that corridor could become the next 14th Street.

As part of its community benefits package, which the zoning commissioner called "meager," the JV agreed to make 8% of its units affordable housing. It also agreed to create a $100k art installation, to spend $225k to improve the surrounding streetscape, to build the two residential towers to LEED Gold standard and to preserve the National Press Building on-site.

“That is a businessman’s plan to develop as much as you can and get the density you can without thinking about the future of the city,” commissioner Michael Turnbull said at the meeting, according to the WBJ. “And that bothers me. It really bothers me that it’s density, density, density and you’re not proffering anything for the city as a whole.” 

This just one of many developments in NoMa's pipeline, including Foulger Pratt's other recently announced mixed-use project in Eckington. In the same area JBG's massive Eckington Yards project, a JV with The Boundary Cos. [WBJ]