Heating Plant Group Wants a Totally New Building

Promoters, developers and designers of the future building and park that will emerge out of the West Heating Plant site at 1055 29th St. NW, just south of the C&O Canal and the Four Seasons Hotel, addressed the members and guest of the Citizens Association of Georgetown Dec. 9 at the Georgetown Public Library.

The development group, headed by Richard Levy of the Levy Group, showed the designs of British architect David Adjaye and landscape designer Laurie Olin. Others in the group include the Four Seasons and the Georgetown Companies of New York. The team bought the two-acre property from the federal government in 2013 for $19.5 million. High-end condo units — managed by the Four Seasons — will number 60 to 70, and half of the land will become a park.

Adjaye is the architect for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture as well as two D.C. public libraries. He presented his first design that echoes the way the building, shut down for 15 years as a power plant, now looks with its vertical lines. As the present structure is not designated a historic landmark, Adjaye’s second and preferred version reveals a differently aligned building with horizontal lines that echo the flat sweeping lines of the Kennedy Center and Watergate complex as seen from the Potomac River coming up to Georgetown. The footprint of the building would remain more or less the same.

The group has many hurdles for completion. It may take three years to tear down the building, clear the land and finoish the building — after many approvals. Ahead is an Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting in February as well as one with the Old Georgetown Board. Levy and his team have to get Mayor Bowser to deem their efforts a “project of special merit” to have a completely different building (though it is a similar size) for the site.

Meanwhile, there will more opportunities for public comment. Overall, impressions from the neighbors at the meeting about the new designs seemed upbeat. More to come on this project, no doubt.