Sarah Krouse of the Washington Business Journal provides an update on the plans for the southwest corner of the 14th and U Streets NW intersection, which will be the home to a as-yet-unnamed mixed-use project.

Preparations for the project are well underway, with most of the businesses — including Taco Bell, Foot Locker and El Paraiso — that had been occupying space where the new development will be built having already vacated. According to Krouse, the new development will feature 267 apartments and 30,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space. (That includes a space for the ChiDogO’s hot dog stand, which only opened last year.) JBG also told Kraus that they “would try to keep as many of the tenants currently in the historic U Street buildings,” including Coppi’s Organic Restaurant and Utopia Bar and Grill.

The first reaction for many will be the size of the development — it’s big, and will create an interesting dichotomy, in which the west side of 14th Street (which already features the towering Reeves Center) will be far bulkier than the east side, which is populated, for the most part, by reconfigured three-story rowhouses. This editor also remains curious about how the building currently holding the McDonald’s — which won’t be going anywhere — will look next to the giant development.

What do you think?