Scaling Southeast's Washington Heights
Crime Sites Transformed Into Affordable Housing

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 23, 2006

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.

Tolson said he is charging $10,000 to $20,000 less than market price for each condo, in part because he wants the units to sell quickly. Of the 114 units, 40 have closed and sales for 18 are pending. The new owners are largely coming from the District and Prince George's County, with a handful from Virginia.

Kimberly Stribling, 30, a single mother, had been renting in the neighborhood and looking for a place to buy for two years.

"The housing market is ridiculous," said Stribling, who sews book bindings in the Government Printing Office. "Everything was between $200,000 and $300,000, which is out of my range."

One day, she drove past Brandywine Crossing and slowed down to read the sign. "It looked nice and it said mid-$100,000s," she said. "That was for me."

Kuenzel, the postal worker, is paid $47,500 a year, a comfortable income in many parts of the country but not enough to afford much in the overheated Washington real estate market.

"Just when I was getting ready to buy, the buying and selling frenzy took off," Kuenzel said. "I was so behind the power curve, I thought, . . . 'I'll never catch up.' "

She put her name on a waiting list for one of the city's several affordable housing programs "like 3,000 other people," she said, but feared "they'll never get to me."

Then, while trolling the Internet, Kuenzel came across Brandywine Crossing.

Her two-bedroom, one-bath basement condo is about 750 square feet. With a parking space, the unit cost $138,450, less than the price of some studios in more affluent neighborhoods.

"Other places have hardwood floors and granite counters and fancy Jacuzzi tubs and they cost $200,000 and up," she said. "I've got laminate floors and laminate countertops and a plain tub and plain tile floor. But I love it. It's mine, and it's brand-new. I've never lived in something brand-new before. I'm cleaning it all the time to keep it looking new."