With 14th Street, Shaw Buys, JR Development Aims to Get DC Cooler

Been to the Standard Beer Garden on 14th Street on a sunny Saturday (or Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday) afternoon? You may have noticed a handsome red-brick townhouse right next door. And that building may be the site of more fun times in the future, if JR Properties has anything to do with it. Jared Jablonka, principal of the local development shop, tells us JR purchased the building, located at 1345 S St, a few weeks ago for just over $1M. (He's snapped here at the building, right, with business partner and cousin Curtis Jablonka.) It currently serves as office space, but Jared says JR will look to reposition it as a restaurant, to take advantage of hot demand restaurateurs have for the 14th Street corridor. 

Jared got his start in the institutional world working for firms like JBG, but five years ago started buying small residential properties with Curtis. The firm's worked on 23 deals since then, he says, but a significant portion of them have been single-family residential. They've since branched out into multifamily, and with the 1345 S St property and two recent buys on 9th Street in Shaw, are adding commercial space to their repertoire. One of the Shaw properties, located at 9th and O, has long-term redevelopment potential, he says, including the possibility of residential over retail, while the other (at 9th and S) will eventually be the site of a neighborhood restaurant concept. To Jared and Curtis, it's all about upping the District's hip factor. "Our mission is to make DC a little bit cooler, one property at a time." In all, JR has closed on nine deals this year (six off-market), and have three more off-market deals under contract.