Hot apartment market out there, you say? Major U Street landowner JBG agrees: They told ANC Commissioner Alexandra Lewin-Zwerdling over the weekend that the large hotel they’d planned at 13th and U Street NW will be a rental building instead, and she passed it on to several micro-listservs in the neighborhood. (It’s not official yet: JBG senior vice president Matthew Blocher tells me they’re still “exploring the mix of uses, overall density and height on the site,” which is what developers say when they don’t want to tell a reporter before community groups hear about their plans.)
Dangers lie either way, of course. JBG already has several large residential projects in the neighborhood, and rents are projected to level off with the new supply coming online over the next year. Hotels, though, are in the same boat.
Lewin-Zwerdling says JBG will make a presentation on the subject at 7:00 p.m. on April 10 at Busboys and Poets.