Ground was finally broken on the massive, $700 million CityCenterDC development on the site of the city’s old convention center this afternoon, a project that’s spanned three mayoral administrations and countless starts and stops.
Originally, former mayor Anthony Williams proposed building a new main library facility on the site, but those plans were scuttled in 2008 by then-mayor Adrian Fenty, who courted Hines-Archstone-Smith to construct a mixed-use development. The project will always stand as a testament to how much of a struggle it can be to get large projects started in the District — after it was originally proposed on the site of the old Convention Center by Williams, it took nearly eight years of squabbling to actually break ground. (Today’s groundbreaking is also more than two years later than the initial estimate made when Fenty announced the Hines-Archstone-Smith deal in May 2008.)
At today’s ceremony, Mayor Vince Gray called the development one of the “most important projects in the history of this city” and touted that it would bring thousands of construction jobs to the city. The first phase of the project — which will eventually boast 325,000 square feet of retail space (quite specifically broken down into 32% restaurants, 30% fashion, 13% fitness, 12% specialty, 6% home furnishing, 4% entertainment and 3% grocery), 443 apartments including some affordable housing and a 350-room hotel on a ten-acre parcel — is slated to open in 2013. (Construction actually started on March 23.) For more information on the project, check out a few renderings of the project, several of which are also included in the PDF below.
