In Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser recently initiated construction of The Geneva, billed as the city’s most ambitious office-to-residential conversion project to date, promising to add 532 new homes, 60 of which will be maintained as permanently affordable, according to a press release from the Mayor’s Office. The initiative, falling under the Bowser Administration’s broader ‘Housing in Downtown’ strategy, aims not only to reshape underused office buildings into residential spaces but also to facilitate more activity in the district’s central regions.
Funds from the District’s Housing in Downtown program, meant to spark residential development downtown, played a pivotal role, furnishing the project with a 20-year tax abatement designed to shift office spaces into residential areas. Mayor Bowser underscored the project’s alignment with her administration’s vision and commitment to inclusive housing solutions, quoting, “The Geneva shows what it looks like when we follow through on that vision. We are delivering housing, bringing more people Downtown, and setting a national standard for how cities adapt and grow,” as reported by the Mayor’s Office. The newly converted residential building, located at 1825–1875 Connecticut Avenue NW will reach a height of 15 stories, encompass 604,000 square feet and feature a LEED-certified design, including commercial space on the ground floor, offering a concerted blend of living and commercial amenities and its extensive financing package, including a $465 million in C-PACE financing and a $110 million senior loan, totals a commanding $575 million.
Matt Pestronk, President of Post Brothers, praised the collaboration with Mayor Bowser and the efficiency of the District’s support systems in enabling the project, stating in a Mayor’s Office announcement, “Mayor Bowser and her team were a pleasure to work with in terms of supporting the approval process for a large project while being extremely responsive and putting its Housing in Downtown Tax Abatement to work.” In addition to the Geneva, two other commercial-to-residential conversions were announced with conditional tax abatements through the HID program, promising an additional 811 homes, including 106 affordable units…