A major development planned near Eastern Market that neighbors call too overwhelming will have to jump through a few more hoops before it wins approval from a historic preservation panel. The Historic Preservation Review Board gave partial approval to a development that includes four buildings on one city block on the site where the shuttered Hine Junior High School sits. But developer Stanton-Eastbanc must justify the height of the project, planned to include one of the tallest buildings on Capitol Hill.
“This is time to prove you can make an exception — if not, those floors are coming off,” said the board chairwoman, Catherine V. Buell, referring to the office building planned for Pennsylvania Avenue between Seventh and Eighth streets that is 88 feet tall at its highest point.
More than a dozen residents at a meeting testified against the project, which has been the subject of intense community meetings in recent months. The chief complaint has been that the Pennsylvania Avenue building is about 20 feet too tall compared with neighboring structures.
“This building is so far out of place the word ‘compatible’ can’t even be used,” said nearby resident Leonard Hacker. “It overwhelms the [adjacent] historic buildings with its height.”
Residents also objected to the retail layout and said the boxy design of the office building and a residential building on Seventh Street don’t blend in with Capitol Hill’s historic brick facades.
“If the architecture is so abstract … it requires explanation of the relationship, then the sense of place is at risk,” said Shauna Holmes, a member of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society.
One resident testified in support of the project.
The preservation board said they had a few qualms about some of the building designs but approved the project’s layout, which includes ground-floor retail on Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street that is meant to guide pedestrians from the Eastern Market Metro station to the historic market building one block north of the project.
The project also proposes reopening C Street and using it as a pedestrian plaza on the weekends for Eastern Market’s outdoor vendors.
Because the project is in a historic district, the board must sign off on it before it can be submitted to the city zoning commission. A second hearing date on the project’s heights has not been set.
