Prime Shelter Site Yields $7 Million

"They're cashing in," he said. "It's a get-rich-quick scheme to build condos and buy land in a cheaper area and have more money."

Alturas LLC has agreed to purchase the main mission and three attached rowhouses, which together amount to 39,000 square feet. The firm plans to create shops or restaurant space on the first and second floors and condominiums on the top floors.

"It's a handsome building," said Jeffrey Schonberger, who waited six years for the deal to come together.

The building, at 14th and R streets, was constructed in the 1920s as an automobile showroom, one of many that lined 14th Street and gave it the nickname Auto Row. After the 1968 riots, the street deteriorated and remained depressed for decades.

But the arrival in 2001 of a Whole Foods Market on nearby P Street NW pumped new life into the neighborhood and set off a chain reaction of economic development along 14th Street. Developers began converting the old auto showrooms into sleek urban apartments, restaurants and galleries with high ceilings and exposed ductwork. The Studio Theatre built a second venue in an old auto showroom.

Within two blocks of the mission along 14th Street, six condominium projects are under construction, men in hard hats roam the sidewalks and the sky is blocked by cranes. The mission's sale was only a matter of time, neighborhood observers said.

"So much has changed in this neighborhood -- it's crazy," said Peter Young, who manages Flowers on Fourteenth Street, which opened three years ago. "It'd be good for business."

A few doors down, at Dog by Day, a day-care facility for dogs and another recent arrival to the neighborhood, manager Helen Haifley said she would welcome another condominium building.

"They're popping up all over the place," she said. "Do you know if they're going to allow dogs?"