D.C.’s Eckington neighborhood, which sits just north of the much-hyped and fast-developing NoMa neighborhood near Union Station, is seeing its dilapidated row houses and small apartment buildings quietly transformed into luxury condos and apartments as local developers seek to cash in on the inevitable influx of office workers to NoMa.
NoMa, which stands for North of Massachusetts Avenue, was designated a business improvement district last year and is slated for 10 million square feet of commercial development. Developers have already turned row houses and storefronts on V Street, Rhode Island Avenue and 4th Street into loft-style housing and apartments and are beginning work on at least six other projects ranging in size from five to 30 units elsewhere in the Eckington neighborhood.
“These places have been run-down for so long — no one can even remember how long,” said Ken Johnson, CEO of DCrealestate.com and a Realtor with Long & Foster, which represents the new Todd Place and Basilica Lofts developments in Eckington.
The rapid pace of small-scale development in Eckington prompted the D.C. Preservation League to place the neighborhood on its “Most Endangered” list this year. Although Eckington is not a designated historic district, some of its houses are more than a century old.
“There’s a substantial development of Harry Wardman row houses from the 1910s and 1920s in Eckington,” said Rebecca Miller, the Preservation League’s executive director.
Johnson believes the area could be in store for even bigger changes.
“There really hasn’t been anything new in Eckington in a long time, and now there’s a proliferation of smaller projects,” he said. “But with all of these smaller projects, it may just add up to change in the neighborhood — it may be inviting for a bigger player to come in.”
