Thursday, May 08, 2014

WBJ: Big News for 646-654 H Street

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646-654 H Street

Michael Neibauer of the Washington Business Journal has more big news for H Street today. He reports that Pilgrim Baptist Church (7th & I St) is selling some properties on H Street (646-654). These properties have been come to Aspire (a health foods store), Mr. Lee's Beauty Salon, Inspire Bar-B-Q, a Fresh Look Salon, and Adobe Design Studio. To be clear, this does NOT include Hikari Sushi's building. Look for a mixed use development with reail on the ground floor, and residential above.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

i'm all for development and change, but it's sad when old buildings are to be torn down, just because they are not legally "historic".

Anonymous said...

Well, in a hundred years this new building will be "historic." It's the same reason we don't have log cabins around the area. :)

Anonymous said...

wish we did though. i wish we did.

h st ll said...

The writer was saying on twitter that the developer gets FAR bonuses if they keep the original facades so I imagine they are staying. With large new building(s) behind it.

Anonymous said...

What is a FAR bonus

Anonymous said...

Anyone taking bets on when the announcements will come on developing the rest of the south side of the 300 block, across from the Giant? Unless I've missed it and it's already happened, I'd guess within a few months.

Anonymous said...

H Street Community Development Corporation purchased 329 H Street, NE, a
vacant 1300 square feet site, on February 8, 2006 for $806,000.

i hope they turn it into a public space or park. wishful thinking?

JRO said...

Good call ANON 4:13. Most people pay 800k for lots to turn them into park's. That is probably what will happen...

h st ll said...

Floor area ratio/essentially density.

Anonymous said...

Re south side of the 300 block....

http://frozentropics.blogspot.ch/2014/05/wbj-big-news-for-646-654-h-street.html#comments

Anonymous said...

http://www.elevationdcmedia.com/developmentprojects/301HStreetNE.aspx

Anonymous said...

JRO, you should get paid for your commentary that no one wants to read. They are the HSDC, they will do whatever they want with it. Good thing you aren't in charge of anything important in this neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Glad the h street community DEVELOPMENT corp is doing its part by leaving a valuable parcel vacant and fenced off.

Kavakos said...

FAR stands for Floor Area Ratio. It's a component of the zoning regulations that defines the allowable bulk of a building as a ratio of floor area to lot area. If the lot is 10,000 square feet in size and the allowable FAR is 1.0, you can in theory build 10,000 square feet of building. If the far is 2.5 you can build 25,000 square feet of building. There are other zoning regulations that govern height, setbacks, lot coverage, etc. You can read the regulations online at www.dcoz.dc.gov.

The zoning regulations include an "overlay" zone that allows an additional 0.5 FAR for preservation of a pre-1958 facade in certain areas. Unfortunately this provision was recently abused at 1001 h st where the owners of Bems Chili bowl have been allowed to demolish a pre-1958 facade and construct something totally different, yet still retain the 0.5 bonus. Why? Because they are politically connected. There s no other logical explanation.

4th and G said...

Re: Historic Preservation

There's an effort to expand the Capitol Hill historic district beyond it's current F Street NE border all the way to H Street NE. That would suddenly make my 1890 house "historic." I can only assume that the designation would require that I (and all of my neighbors) rebuild the outhouses that were once commonplace in the back alleys.

jimmy crack corn said...

@kavakos

Ben's Chili Bowl builders claimed the facade was taken down brick by brick and that they're going to re-assemble it (at least that's what I heard, even though it sounds absurd because I seem to remember the facade being there one day, then gone the next).

pat said...

the sad one was they tore down the apollo theater to build the self store.

Truly sad.

jumping jack flash said...

@4th and G,

You can't possibly be ridiculous enough to legitimately think that historic preservation requires you to *rebuild* something that is no longer there. Terrible joke.

Also odd that you think you need to put rabbit quotes around historic like 1890 was last week. Why don't you sell your house to someone who would actually appreciate its historic character?