The corner of New Hampshire Avenue and M Street has never been known as one of the city’s most beautiful. With Don Shula’s steakhouse, Lulu’s Club Mardi Gras and the Exxon gas station in the center, you may wonder why the West End Ritz Carlton decided to set up shop on the edge of what could be described as a garish, undefined regurgitate semi-urban, semi-suburban architectural mess. Lulu’s attempts to transform the corner of M and 22nd streets NW into a ‘lil-bit-o Bourbon Street certainly haven’t helped.

But maybe like the positioning of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Southwest, we’re all just blind to see the Ritz Carlton’s foresight. A new luxury condo building is set to go up on the triangular plot of land across the street from the hotel, according to the West End Guide, replacing the ugly gas station with one that is neatly tucked inside the building, out of sight, out of mind. (Sound familiar? There is that strange church in Rosslyn on Fort Meyer Drive with the gas station below the sanctuary.)

As you can see in this rendering from EastBanc Inc. — which has undertaken a number of projects in Georgetown and helped develop the West End Ritz Carton — the zinc- and glass-armored building, called “XonWest,” will be a dramatic improvement to what’s currently there.

Says the West End Guide:

The New Hampshire façade will not have curved walls like the 22nd Street side, but will have “vertical gardens” of trees in structural planters. These will be part of the design of the building, and cannot be changed by the tenants. Crepe myrtles have been specified, and the architects stress that there will be “no hanging vines.”

Heaven forbid we let nature intrude on the West End, but keeping vines in check can be a gardener’s nightmare.