Developers Buy Parks At Walter Reed Building For Hardware Store, Café
A former nurses' quarters at The Parks at Walter Reed campus is transforming into a hardware store that pays homage to its heritage.
A joint venture between development firms Blue Sky Housing and Evergreen Urban purchased the historic Building 12 on the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus for the project.
The 18K SF property is set to be reborn as Hazel's Hardware Store, a True Value-branded hardware store with a local Black family-owned cafe called Blue’s Coffee & Tea Co., the team behind the 66-acre Parks at Walter Reed mixed-use development announced. The second and third floors of the property will have 7K SF of office space.
True Value filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week and plans to accept a buyout from its rival Do It Best Corp. It is unclear how that deal, if finalized, would affect the Walter Reed project.
Building 12 sold for just over $3M in September, records with the D.C. Recorder of Deeds show.
It is set to be renamed The General Hazel Johnson-Brown Building, or “The Hazel,” after the first Black woman to both serve as the chief of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps and earn the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. military.
Hines, Urban Atlantic and Triden Development Group are the master developers behind The Parks at Walter Reed, planned to total 3.1M SF.
“We are thrilled with Blue Sky Housing and Evergreen Urban’s vision for this building,” Urban Atlantic Managing Partner Vicki Davis said in a release. “Bringing District-based owner-operators to the site with the vision to execute on a mixed-use, community focused retail space, as well as space for office and other retail complements the other shopping, dining and services that are at The Parks and add to the vibrancy of this wonderful neighborhood.”
The Parks at Walter Reed is a large-scale redevelopment of the formerly cordoned-off medical campus that opened in 1909 and shuttered in 2011. The site is planned for 130K SF of retail, anchored by a Whole Foods, more than 2,200 housing units and a foreign language immersion charter school.
In addition to Whole Foods, retailers that have opened include Chase Bank, Nailsaloon, ice cream shop The Charmery, Jinya Ramen, District Dogs, Livewell Veterinarian and Slice and Pie. A wine bar and pediatrician are coming soon.
