Part of Mount Vernon is getting a makeover, thanks to a pair of developers with big plans.
Two large buildings at the north end of the 800 block of Park Avenue are the targets of new development projects. One, the historic Brexton Building, will be turned into a boutique hotel. Across the street the Waxter Center, a senior center, will be rebuilt at an adjacent site along with a 600-unit apartment-condominium complex targeted to young professionals and grad students.
RWN Development Group hopes to turn the abandoned Brexton into a 29-room boutique hotel, renovating the tall, spired building. The developer purchased the building for $750,000 and expects to spend about $4 million on the effort, according to project manager Lonnie Fisher.
“We like the location of this hotel because other than Peabody court and the Biltmore Suites, the Mount Vernon cultural district doesn?t have a lot of options,” Fisher said. “It will be the closest hotel to [Maryland Institute College of Art], to the Meyerhoff, the closest to Artscape.”
Fisher said the project is “on the small side” of the developer?s usual efforts, but pointed to the building?s historical significance and fusion of architectural forms. He said Mount Vernon?s high rate of ongoing occupancy would lead to overnight visitors, and profitability for the hotel.
Across the street, developer Howard Chambers and two European partners await final approval from city officials to rebuild the Waxter senior center.
Chambers said he hopes to start work on the new center by spring, for completion during summer of 2009. Construction would then begin on the housing units, and will take 18 months. The entire project will cost about $100 million, he said.
“There?s a lot of current and future mass transit opportunities right there,” Chambers said. “We?re really in a great crossroads here. Because of all that we have a lot of potential for young workers to live there.”
Both men said their respective projects would help revive that section of Mount Vernon ? and hope that there may be more on the way.
“Mount Vernon might be the next area to see the renaissance,” Fisher said. “It?ll completely change Mount Vernon.”
