Real Estate: Office-to-Residential Conversion at 2715 M St. NW
By • January 23, 2023 0 2138
A proposal is on deck for converting an office and retail building located at 2715 M St. NW into a residential building. The location, on the outskirts of Georgetown, currently has plans for 28 new apartments to be added to an existing eight residential units. New units are planned to primarily be one-bedroom apartments. Right now, there are reported to be 62 parking spaces in the basement, but only 11 spaces will be required for change-of-use. There are also plans for bicycle parking spots.
Emotive Architecture, a Connecticut Ave. NW design firm, is said to be working on the conversion. Douglas Development, who submitted plans to the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board, is working on the project.
This type of proposal is nothing new in the post-pandemic real estate world. According to Yardi Matrix, a website that provides commercial real estate data, Washington, D.C. leads the way in the number of repurposed buildings during the pandemic. Along with Philadelphia and Chicago, the three cities had 15 percent of the total apartment conversions nationwide.
D.C. opened 1,565 apartments by repurposing old buildings in 2022 — nearly double the number converted in 2020. The city has almost six percent of total adaptive reuse projects in the United States.
While office-to-residential conversions like 2715 M St. NW remain the most popular, developers are starting to turn to live/work/play developments as a way to breathe new life into already existing office buildings.
Douglas Development’s proposal for 2715 M St. NW will be considered at the Historic Preservation Review Board’s February 2 meeting. Douglas has a page for the location, here.
