Petworth Dance Studio to Redevelop Its Home to Include Affordable Apartment Through Joint Venture

Rendering of ground-floor dance studio.

A dance studio near Petworth has teamed up with a pair of developers to buy its building and redevelop it, ensuring that the company can stay put on the ground floor.

The Dance Loft on 14 and affordable developer Heleos filed plans with D.C. zoning officials last week to overhaul a series of small properties along the 4600 block of 14th Street NW into 101 apartments above roughly 13,200 square feet of commercial. The Dance Loft and Heleos acquired the studio’s existing property at 4618 14th St. NW back in April through a joint venture, and they’ll work with the Menkiti Group, which owns several other buildings on the block, to assemble a 0.7-acre parcel for the project.

Heleos, which will lead the project, plans to set aside 66 of the new apartments as affordable, according to the plans, splitting those evenly between homes affordable to people making 30%, 50% and 80% of the area median income. The project will also include 24 three-bedroom units, a point of emphasis for D.C. policymakers given the lack of family-sized rentals in the city.

Rendering of proposed development, from 14th Street.

The developers are pursuing the project through the city’s planned-unit development (or PUD) process, which gives the surrounding community the chance to negotiate for public benefits in exchange for extra height or density. PUDs have fallen out of favor in the city over the last few years, following a slew of lawsuits targeting such projects, but Heleos wrote in its application that it believes this redevelopment’s amenities will be so enticing to neighbors as to avoid any legal hurdles.

The developer’s land-use attorneys at Goulston & Storrs PC acknowledged in the submission to the Zoning Commission that they have received some pushback over the project's size in early meetings with neighbors. But they also argued that the project is directly responsive to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s litany of policies to encourage new affordable housing construction in all areas of the city.

“It would not be fair to relocate some of the project’s affordable units or three-bedroom units to a different new multifamily building being constructed, for instance, in a Downtown zone away from single-family homes, even if such a transfer of density were possible,” the attorneys wrote. “The project’s affordable and family-sized units are especially needed in Ward 4 and in Sixteenth Street Heights.”

Rendering of proposed development, from rear alley.

Plus, they argue that the project will keep a small business from being displaced, “an unfortunately common outcome for community arts organizations in the District” and a challenge for retailers in many of the city’s redeveloping neighborhoods.

The application notes that the Dance Loft raised money with Heleos and secured loans from City First Bank, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and City First Enterprises to pull off the $4.2 million purchase, once it heard the building was for sale. Now, the studio has the chance to occupy roughly 11,200 square feet on the new building’s ground floor.

Another three storefronts totaling 1,888 square feet will be reserved for additional retailers. The developers have had preliminary negotiations with some other businesses currently on site but have yet to secure additional tenants — they’re also hoping the project benefits from Metro’s impending redevelopment of its northern “bus barn” just across the street, considering it is also set to include retail.

The new building will sit above about 40 parking spaces in an enclosed garage, a slight increase from previous plans, in a bid to meet concerns from neighbors. The filing also details a variety of other steps the developers have taken to address community feedback, like tapering the rear of the building from five to four stories as it approaches adjacent homes and widening the alley — noting that came “at the expense of approximately 500 square feet of GFA at ground level, another non-trivial expense."

Fundamentally, however, the developer wanted to be clear that it sees any community objections to the project’s density as “directly contrary to the District’s housing affordability goals.”

“Neighbor opposition to the construction of new housing and new affordable housing is a significant factor increasing the cost of housing to unattainable levels in much of Northwest D.C. and impedes the District’s fair housing and housing equity goals,” the attorneys wrote. “Those unfortunate outcomes would be the case here as well should neighbor opposition result in reducing the project’s density below the current proposal.”

The Zoning Commission has yet to schedule a hearing on the proposal, but if all goes well, the developers hope to break ground by 2023 and deliver the building a year later.

View the full article online at The Washington Business Journal.