Developers Revive Long-Stalled Project Across From Brookland Metro Station
A development team is hoping the fourth time will be the charm for a Brookland project that had its zoning approval stripped by a judge three times after it was first proposed in 2010.
The team of Horning and Menkiti Group notified neighbors last week of its intent to file a planned unit development application to build 230 apartments at 901 Monroe St. NE.
The plan, first reported by local blogger Brookland Bridge on social media platform X, would increase the scale of the project from the previous proposal. It calls for a 75-foot-tall building with 230 units, compared to a 61-foot-tall structure with 213 units.
The developers no longer plan to include retail in the project. Horning President Jamie Weinbaum told Bisnow Tuesday that removing the retail allowed a slight increase in the number of units the developers could build. The neighborhood has seen other storefronts sit vacant for years, and Weinbaum said the team wasn't sure they would be able to lease up the space.
“We wanted to focus on adding residential housing stock to the neighborhood to support the retail that is there,” he said. “Having standalone retail there that had potential to not be successful is far worse than not having retail. We wanted to make sure everything and anything we do has the best chance of success.”
The project sits across Monroe Street from the Brookland Metro station, where WMATA plans to issue a request for proposals next year for developers to build up to 500K SF on a parking lot site. It is also across the bridge from Monroe Street Market, a five-building mixed-use project that delivered its final phase in 2021, and earlier this year landed Trader Joe's to bring a long-awaited grocery store to the neighborhood.
The 901 Monroe site would not only provide transit-adjacent housing in line with the mayor's goals, Weinbaum said, but it would also fill in a critical gap in the neighborhood between Monroe Street Market and the 12th Street NE commercial corridor. Pedestrians passing between the two must take the Monroe Street bridge over the train tracks, and for years they have walked by the block-long vacant field enclosed with a metal fence.
The site became a poster child for the battle between D.C.’s developers and anti-development factions and an example of why housing advocates said the city’s comprehensive plan needed to be fixed.
The development team received its first Zoning Commission approval order in 2012, two years after first proposing the project, but a group of nearby residents brought the project to court, and the judge agreed to vacate the project’s approval. The developer kept trying, receiving another zoning commission approval in 2013 and then a third in 2015, both of which were also vacated upon appeal.
After the third court decision, the developer looked to the city’s land-use process to help make the project viable. Menkiti Group CEO Bo Menkiti told Bisnow in 2020 he was waiting for a new comprehensive plan before restarting the process after Mayor Muriel Bowser said she aimed to use the plan to mitigate some of the development delays caused by appeals.
The new comprehensive plan passed in 2021. It classified the 901 Monroe site as Medium Density Residential, whereas before, part of the site had been the lower-rise Moderate Density Residential. The Future Land Use Map designation doesn't serve as the site's zoning, but it provides guidance for how much density the Zoning Commission will approve, and the court will uphold, through a PUD application.
Horning and Menkiti are working with Maurice Walters Architect and law firm Goulston & Storrs on the project. They plan to hold additional community meetings in the coming weeks and file a PUD by the end of October.
The previous proposals for the site were all filed as PUDs, and the development team has decided to go that same route for its latest attempt.
Its other options include building by-right under the project’s existing zoning or filing a map amendment application to alter its zoning designation, two routes that developers often pursue for other sites in the District that offer neighbors fewer avenues to block projects.
Weinbaum said that while the PUD process comes with risk of appeal-related delays, it is the best way to build something “beautiful and accretive to the mayor's housing goals.”
“We realize that the potential for appeal exists with all of these projects,” Weinbaum said. “And if that’s the case, if there are folks who feel they want to do that, then we’ll defend the project and hope it gets resolved and we can move forward because I don’t think having a fenced-off vacant lot for more than a decade is doing anybody any favors.”
