A portion of the struggling retail stretch along Wisconsin Avenue in Friendship Heights may see some revitalization. The Friendship Center - which includes the DSW, Maggiano's, Marshalls, and the former Nordstrom Rack - is in talks to be redeveloped into 350 housing units over 12,000 sq ft of retail space. This mixed-use development may aid in turning around what Urban Turf describes as "the area's 'naturally-occurring retirement community' reputation."
This spring, the Urban Land Institute released a study looking at DC's Friendship Heights neighborhood, tracing the causes of the area's "naturally-occurring retirement community" reputation and offering prescriptions for future redevelopment.
Now, a landowner is taking heed to those recommendations.
On Thursday evening, Federal Realty held a meeting to share preliminary plans to redevelop Friendship Center, which houses DSW, Maggiano's, Marshalls, and the former Nordstrom Rack space at 5333 Wisconsin Avenue NW (map). The 130,000 square-foot building would be replaced with a building delivering 350 units above 12,000 square feet of retail.
In light of the site's designation for high-density mixed-use development, Federal Realty wants to rezone the site from MU-5A to MU-9 and pursue a planned unit development (PUD) application in order to exceed the allowable height under MU-9. This will enable a design that steps down considerably where the building abuts the existing townhouses to the east.
The development team also hopes to secure a mid-block crossing on Wisconsin Avenue and add a story of below-grade parking, resulting in 180-250 parking spaces instead of the current 120 or so spaces.
While designs are not fleshed out, building materials may include clay and terra cotta, and the building will also be informed by biophilic design, including green space atop the stepped volumes and gardens at the retail entrances. Shalom Baranes is the architect and Gustafson Guthrie Nichol is the landscape architect.
UrbanTurf will continue to cover this development as plans evolve.