Just what the Penn Quarter needs: another blank wall building with no retail, right next to the MLK Library. The architects even drew in a relatively dead street, with only a few scattered pedestrians and more parked cars than people. At least they know what they are going to get. Via DC Metrocentric.

Since this isn’t a historic district (unless I’m reading the list wrong), and we don’t have any design review outside historic districts, nobody is forcing these types of buildings to engage the street more directly. I’m hoping the zoning review, perhaps the Retail Strategy group, will be able to require retail and/or other active street uses in these commercial districts. Apparently the blankness is because the bottom will be a church, replacing the church that was already there. But since the church is surely profiting greatly from the development on the parcel, requiring an urban-friendly design (and they do exist) and some windows or stores on at least part of the block doesn’t seem too much to ask.

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.