Demolition Begins for Luxury NoMa Apartment

33 N St., NE rendering by Hickok Cole Architects

WASHINGTON, DC—Construction is finally beginning on a luxury apartment that JBG Cos. has been planning for years to build in NoMa at 33 N St., NE. Woods Partners has begun demolition of the two-story office building on the site and construction of the 346-unit apartment building will begin in March. The first units will deliver in the first quarter of 2018. The apartment building is one of the pieces of JBG Cos.’ two-million square foot mixed-use Capitol Point development in NoMA that the Chevy Chase, MD-based developer has been planning since at least 2007.  One of Capitol Point’s first components was the 200-room Hyatt Place hotel, at 33 New York Ave. NE, which delivered in 2015. Last summer, JBG advanced another piece of the project—a building that will have three separate addresses and three separate uses under one roof. JBG and its partner in this development Brandywine Realty Trust submitted plans for approval of the structure that will stretch along 1250 First St., NE, 51 N St., NE and 50 Patterson St., NE. The building will house an apartment house, office, retail and movie theater. Around the same time the plans were submitted for this undertaking, JBG also filed for a raze permit application for the existing building at 33 N St., NE., yet another piece of its Capitol Point project. For decades 33 N St, NE was occupied by the Department of Health’s Addiction Prevention Recovery Administration, which ran a methadone clinic from the location, and the Department of Human Services Income Maintenance Administration.  JBG acquired it around 2005 for $10 million. The project JBG has planned for the site is a far cry from the methadone days. It tapped Hickok Cole Architects as the designer, which says on its website that JBG instructed it to design a building with “industrial overtones ….something that could look like a modernized, repurposed warehouse.” The indoor units will be lovely as well, according to Woods Partners, with natural hardwood floors, quartz countertops and floor-to-ceiling windows.