The project was to transform a parking lot into residences and retail
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/60692351/shutterstock_541968817.0.jpg "Metro and developer scrap mixed-use project next to Fort Totten station 5")
Metro and Bethesda-based Donatelli Development have abandoned plans to redevelop a 3.35-acre surface parking lot adjacent to the Fort Totten station into a mixed-use project.
The cancellation comes more than three years after Metro picked Donatelli to lead the redevelopment. In March 2015, the transit authority billed the project as part of “a series of major Metro initiatives to advance transit-oriented development projects across the region.”
The project was supposed to include 345 housing units and 10,000 square feet of retail on the street level at First Place NE and Galloway Street NE. The development would have also replaced some of the more than 400 parking spaces currently on the lot.
In a statement to Curbed DC, Metro says it has not yet decided when to offer the property for redevelopment again. It does not indicate why the project failed to gain traction or what led to the cancellation.
“Donatelli Development and Metro have mutually agreed to terminate their negotiations on the joint development project at Metro’s Fort Totten Metro Station,” the transit authority says. “Metro has not determined when it will put the property on the market again for development, but believes that transit-oriented development at Fort Totten has very strong potential.”
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11906989/donatelli_fort_totten_joint_development_bid.jpg "Metro and developer scrap mixed-use project next to Fort Totten station 6")
Neither Donatelli Development nor its president Chris Donatelli immediately responded to requests for comment. The company has previously developed Metro-adjacent land in Columbia Heights and Petworth and on Minnesota Avenue NE into mixed-use projects.
Currently, Donatelli is developing another Metro-adjacent parcel near the Stadium-Armory station in Hill East. That project calls for more than 300 residential units and 30,000 square feet of retail on Reservation 13, a long-underutilized site where the D.C. General shelter and other municipal services are located. Construction started in April.
Neighborhood blog “Next Stop…Riggs Park” was the first to notice earlier this week that Donatelli Development had scrubbed the Fort Totten project from its website. The blog also noted that a slew of other rental projects around the Metro station, including JBG Smith and Lowe Enterprises’ Fort Totten Square, have come online or been planned in recent years.