Coming Soon to NoMa: Life

With Little Land Available Downtown, Developers Look East

Gretchen M. Dudney stood one recent sunny afternoon on the roof of a four-story warehouse building she and her partners own at 1111 N. Capitol St. NE, looking at her surroundings as the wind whipped her shoulder-length red hair.

To the south, heading down North Capitol Street, she could clearly see the dome of the U.S. Capitol a few blocks away. To the east, empty patches of asphalt lay among warehouses, lots filled with parked cars and the Greyhound bus station. To the northeast, a crane moved beams to upper floors of an office building under construction without a tenant in place -- risky in a market that is still trying to prove itself, developers and real estate brokers say.

This is NoMa -- north of Massachusetts Avenue NE -- and Dudney, city planners and other developers say the crane is a sign of much more development to come. The city expects a dramatic transformation, with the potential for 17 million square feet of development in coming years. That vision includes a pedestrian-friendly mix of office, residential and first-floor retail space and outdoor cafes along tree-lined streets.

For the past few months, city planners have been working with landowners, residents, community leaders and $200,000 consultants to come up with a plan for how NoMa should look. They expect to release the report this spring.

"We want to create an area that has a mix of uses and doesn't die at 5 at night," said Patricia Zingsheim, associate director of revitalization and design for the city's Office of Planning.

Downtown is built out, Dudney said. "There has to be a place to build new buildings, and this is it."

Dudney, of J Street Development Co. in the District, is working to remake the building at 1111 North Capitol into a $100 million mixed-use complex of offices and retail. The Smithsonian Institution now uses the warehouse building on the block to build exhibits for its museums on the National Mall.

Some developers are partnering with out-of-town investors, flush with cash and eager to get a piece of the Washington real estate market, which is considered more stable than other major metropolitan areas because the federal government is one of the largest tenants.

Developer Charles "Sandy" Wilkes, who said he has been buying land in NoMa since the mid-1980s, thinks the market will now support residential and retail on land he owns at M and Third streets NE instead of just office buildings.

"It's a harbinger of things to come when you see institutional investors helping local developers acquire land and fund pre-development costs," said Wilkes, who is chairman of the Wilkes Co. "This is very different than a pension fund buying an office building in Tysons Corner. This is a powerful signal that NoMa is ready for major development."

NoMa is competing for that sort of development with Near Southeast, the area around the proposed baseball stadium, where developers have rushed to buy land to transform abandoned lots, taxi garages and nightclubs into a 24/7 environment of housing, retail and offices. Which area will develop faster remains to be seen. But some developers -- some of whom have money invested in both areas -- argue that NoMa is more established and has more amenities.

In addition to having the new New York Avenue Metro stop, they point out, NoMa is close to Union Station and has ready access to highways. It also has new large-scale tenants such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, near H and Second streets NE, and the headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms, under construction at New York and Florida Avenues NE.