WASHINGTON, D.C. — A public-private partnership between the District of Columbia and Hoffman-Madison Waterfront LLC has broken ground on the first phase of The Wharf, a $2 billion mixed-use development on Washington, D.C.’s Southwest Waterfront. This first portion of the project, valued at approximately $775 million according to the Washington Business Journal, will include 1.9 million square feet of residential, office, retail, hospitality, entertainment and public space.
Slated for completion in 2017, Phase I will include more than 600 multifamily units, over 400,000 square feet of office space, a 150,000-square-foot music venue, about 200,000 square feet of retail space and two hotels comprising almost 700 rooms. The entire development, which spans 27 acres of land and 50 acres of waterfront, will total more than 3.2 million square feet of commercial real estate.
City officials predict that The Wharf will have an even greater economic impact than other similar developments in the Mid-Atlantic region.
“This is going to be beyond the Inner Harbor in Baltimore,” says Victor Hoskins, deputy mayor for planning and economic development in D.C. “This is going to be beyond National Harbor [in Prince George County].”
The full development process will include three phases and entail the construction of four public piers; 10 acres of parks and other open, civic areas; 500 boat slips; and a 2,500 below-grade parking garage in addition to the aforementioned commercial properties. All components of the project are designed to meet or exceed the criteria for LEED Silver certification.
The private entity Hoffman-Madison Waterfront LLC is a team of developers led by locally based PN Hoffman & Associates and Madison Marquette. Other members of the team include ER Bacon Development, City Partners, Paramount Development and Triden Development.
In the 1950s, D.C. officials deemed the Southwest Waterfront, which is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers, a “problem area” due to overcrowding and substandard housing. In the subsequent decade, the area was redeveloped as part of an urban renewal process, but it has largely remained untouched since.
Hoffman-Marquette Waterfront begins this development with the stated mission of “reconnecting the district to the water.” David Brainerd, managing director of Madison Marquette, calls The Wharf “one of the most exciting development projects ever constructed in the city of Washington, D.C.”
Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn Architects (EE&K), an arm of international design firm Perkins Eastman, is serving as master planner on the development. Mathews Nielsen is working as landscape architect, and AMT Engineering is providing civil engineering services.
“We’re proud to be helping return the city back to where it began, with mixed uses and high density all activating one of the world’s premier maritime destinations,” says Stan Eckstut, president of EE&K. “Designing The Wharf is about creating places where people want to live and visit and bringing the human scale to a large-scale development.
“It’s pedestrian-oriented, water-oriented and transit-oriented development all in one.”
— John McCurdy