The Embassy of Ivory Coast, long an unfinished eyesore on Massachusetts Avenue just north of Sheridan Circle in Northwest Washington, is finally nearing completion.
Twice before in the past five years, work on the construction project stalled because of political upheaval in the West African country. This time, Ivory Coast officials insist, the multimillion-dollar renovation and building project will be completed.
Ivory Coast's embassy on Massachusetts Avenue NW is the fruition of years of work.
(Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
|
|
The property, owned by Ivory Coast since the 1960s, originally included two mismatched buildings separated by a parking lot. A 20,000-square-foot stone and glass structure that unites the existing buildings and will serve as the main entrance to the complex is in its final building phase. The work is being done by Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. of Baltimore and is scheduled to be completed this summer.
The two older buildings -- one a two-story gray limestone Italian Renaissance house built in 1930, the other a three-story red-brick Classical Revival house dating from 1941 -- have been gutted and are being redone for the first time, with all new systems and new configurations of space.
The new building is made of a manufactured gray stone chosen to echo the limestone of one adjacent building. A two-story underground parking garage with 47 spaces has been built below.
When construction is complete, Ivory Coast, a nation of 17 million people caught in the grip of civil war, will have an imposing new 60,000-square-foot complex on Embassy Row, a leafy stretch of grand and gracious buildings along Massachusetts Avenue NW.
"For the prestige of the Ivory Coast, we needed to do something," said Koffi Cisse, who is acting as the government's representative overseeing the construction effort. "Even though there's a war going on, it doesn't mean we have to stop construction. We need offices so people can discuss the problems going on over there."
The new embassy for Ivory Coast, a nation a little larger than the state of New Mexico, has been a long time in the making. Work on the design began in 1996, when the country was relatively stable.
Architect Wanchul Lee, principal of Wanchul Lee Associates PC in Georgetown, said getting the design approved took two years and included much back-and-forth with the local community over design considerations.
"There's always give-and-take about design," said Kindy French, president of the Sheridan-Kalorama Historical Association. "It was a very, very difficult design, trying to build something in the middle of two existing buildings that don't complement each other to begin with."
Demolition and excavation of the site began in May 1999. In December of that year, Ivory Coast President Henri Konan Bedie was overthrown in a military coup. The project was halted for three months, then briefly resumed.
"There was still some money left in escrow accounts, so we picked the project back up," said architect Lee. "Then the money ran out and we stopped."
Construction manager Cisse said the military government that took power "didn't want to give any money to the project."
For three years, the site stayed as it was -- two gutted buildings, a huge two-story hole in the ground, and a builder's trailer parked behind a high chain-link fence.
