Loft Offices and 240 Apartments: The Big Expansion Plans For Union Market

by | Jun 29, 2017

As featured in DC Urban Turf.

There are big plans in the works for Union Market, which include loft office space above the market building and a new 240-unit apartment building that will be constructed just to the north, UrbanTurf has learned.

Edens and development partner Great Gulf plan to expand the Union Market building at 1309 5th Street NE (map) (“South Building”) and construct a second building next door (“North Building”) with a pedestrian plaza separating the two buildings.

The North building would deliver 240 apartments above 22,000 square feet of street-level retail. The South building would add 1,600 square feet of retail to the existing 55,500 square-foot market while constructing 223,800 square feet of loft-style office space in the floors above the market itself. Shalom Baranes is the project architect.

Previously approved rendering of South building from 6th Street

In 2015, plans were filed that included a Angelika Film Center theater atop the market building and four stories of office space or residences above that. The absence of the theater in the latest PUD is one of the biggest changes in the new iteration.

The apartments in the North building will be a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, one bedroom plus-dens and two-bedrooms. Nineteen will be set aside for inclusionary zoning, with four of the units for households earning up to 50 percent area median income (AMI) and the remainder for households earning up to 80 percent AMI.

The design of the North building will use varying patterns of brick to read as two buildings when seen from the plaza. The design of the South building will largely be an extension of Union Market’s existing aesthetic.

New rendering of the North building

The North building and plaza will sit above four below-grade levels of parking, delivering 470 vehicular spaces. The entrance to the Market will be a half-story below the plaza; the project will also create a linear park along the front of the South building.

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