Longfellow Building Eyed For Residential Conversion After Selling At Auction
A historic, 1940s-era Dupont Circle building is the latest D.C. office property to be pitched for a residential conversion.
Rockville-based Duball filed plans Wednesday with the Historic Preservation Office to turn 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW, also known as the Longfellow Building, into 161 apartments and ground-floor retail.
The company doesn't own the property, according to deed records. Los Angeles-based BrightSpire Capital, which was the lender for the previous owner, took back the 12-story building at a foreclosure auction in November for $21.1M. The previous owner was Chicago-based coworking company Expansive, which is still located at the building.
The property was being marketed by JLL as recently as May, according to a listing on its website, which says the building is under contract. JLL lists a 68% occupancy at the property.
Duball declined to comment to Bisnow.
The plans were filed with the HPO due to the building’s historic nature. The application says it was constructed in 1941 and designed by “noted” architect William Lescaze.
The project would restore the facades “to a condition that is closer to its original 1941 Lescaze design” and restore the original balconies to the units running along Connecticut Avenue, the filing said.
The proposal includes a new rooftop pool and deck, grilling area, lounge and party room, as well as about 10K SF of ground-floor retail.
Duball is the developer behind the two-phase Rockville Town Center, the Palisades medical complex-to-townhome redevelopment Foxhall Ridge and two condo developments in Downtown Bethesda, Lionsgate and Stonehall.
The architect on the filing is D.C.-based Maurice Walters, which designed projects including JBG Smith's 699-unit The Bartlett apartment building in Pentagon City, Duball's 276-unit St. Elmo Apartments in Bethesda and The Bernstein Cos.’ 187-unit 301 M St. SW near the Waterfront Metro station.
More than a dozen conversions had been announced as of the beginning of this year, according to the Washington DC Economic Partnership, but amid a difficult capital markets environment, only a handful have received financing and started construction. Among them are Willco’s 163-unit office-to-residential conversion at 20th and L Streets NW and Folger Pratt’s 255-unit revamp of an office building at 1425 New York Ave. NW.
D.C. has been betting on office-to-residential conversions as a way to reimagine its downtown in the wake of the pandemic. The city has a 20-year tax abatement program for owners who reposition office buildings as housing in a portion of downtown. Applications for that program opened in March, with a $2.5M funding cap for fiscal years 2024 through 2026, $6.8M in 2027 and $41M in 2028. But amid a whirlwind of office distress, real estate leaders say it is just one of many solutions the city should be leaning into.
