Old Georgetown Board Says No to Heating Plant Demolition


The developers of the West Heating Plant site — the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, the Levy Group and the Georgetown Companies of New York — ran into a brick wall Feb. 4 with a decision by the Old Georgetown Board.

Arguing that proposed building’s design does not honor Georgetown’s industrial past along with questions about its adjacent park, the OGB said no to the group’s plans to demolish the structure at 1051-55 29th St. NW.

Despite ample support from 29th Street neighbors and the Citizens Association of Georgetown and favorite but not unanimous approvals by the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission, members of the federal board found that designs for the 10-story building made it look too big and not quite residential.

With his development group, Richard Levy of the Levy Group is promoting the designs of two star designers: British architect David Adjaye and landscape architect Laurie Olin.

The property group bought the two-acre property— situated between the C&O Canal, Rock Creek, 29th Street and K Street — from the federal government in 2013 for $19.5 million. High-end condo units, to be managed by the Four Seasons, will number 60 to 70, and half of the land will become a park. Levy said at a December community meeting that the condo units would run $2,000 per square foot at this year’s prices.

Adjaye was the lead architect for the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, set to open in September, as well as for two D.C. public libraries. As opposed to his first concept with vertical lines aping the heating plant, Adjaye’s second vision 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 sailing up to Georgetown. The footprint of the building is to be smaller than the original. Olin’s one-acre park joins green space from Rock Creek Park to the new building, K Street and close to Georgetown Waterfront Park.

Per the structure’s demolition, Levy and his team must get Mayor Muriel 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.

The heating plant condo design team will next present to the Fine Arts Commission Feb. 18.

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