Scaling Southeast's Washington Heights

Crime Sites Transformed Into Affordable Housing

A rehabilitated building at what is now called Brandywine Crossing, where Denise Kuenzel, lower right, was able to purchase her first home. (Photos By Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)

Moments after she signed the papers to purchase a condominium in Southeast Washington, Denise Kuenzel thanked the man who rehabbed the brick building and made it possible for her to own her first home.

Then, after he left the room, she broke into tears.

"I really appreciated that he made these affordable," said Kuenzel, 43, a secretary for the U.S. Postal Service. "It was just so profound. If he hadn't made these, I wouldn't have been able to buy."

The subject of her gratitude was developer David Tolson, who invested nearly $11 million to transform eight dilapidated and dangerous buildings in Washington Heights into Brandywine Crossing, affordable condominiums for working-class men, women and families. The units range from $149,900 to $269,000.

"There's a great demand for workforce housing," Tolson said. "It's for people like the guy picking up the trash or the single mom, places they can afford."

Tolson began developing housing in 1989 with rehabilitated single-family homes on Capitol Hill and then condominiums that helped to gentrify the neighborhoods of Logan Circle and Columbia Heights. Brandywine Crossing is his first project east of the Anacostia River. It's one of many housing developments underway in Southeast.

"The momentum and the word are getting out," he said. "It's a natural progression of the market. I'm a big east-of-the-river convert."

The buildings that now make up Brandywine Crossing had long been an eyesore and a menace to the neighborhood, Tolson said.

About two-thirds of the buildings were unoccupied. Drug runners stashed guns and drugs around the complex. Addicts used vacant apartments to smoke drugs and perform sexual acts in exchange for drugs, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which threatened to prosecute the owner of the buildings if he didn't clean up and secure the properties.

As prosecutors were preparing to take action last year, the owner sold the buildings to Tolson for $6.3 million. The developer was the lender for a condominium project across the street.

"I felt like I had to protect my investment across the street," Tolson said.

He put $4.6 million in painting, landscaping, fencing and security systems. He rehabilitated all 114 apartments, installing windows, flooring, countertops, appliances and bathrooms. Most have two bedrooms; a few have four.