Photo courtesy of WC Smith

Rendering courtesy of WC Smith

Formerly anchored by a Rite Aid on H and 8th Streets NE, the H Street Connection strip mall—which included a pizza spot, McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, and other businesses—shuttered last year to make way for a massive redevelopment. And Mayor Muriel Bowser took an excavator to the property today during a groundbreaking event in the Atlas District.

Gary Rappaport developed the single story shopping center in the mid 1980s where townhouses once stood before being destroyed in the 1968 riots, according to the Washington Business Journal. Now Rappaport is working with developer WC Smith to completely reconfigure the land—building up eight stories in a mixed-use project.

During her speech, Mayor Bowser touted her administration’s opening of the D.C. Streetcar, which is “outperforming our wildest expectations,” she said. Building off the streetcar’s momentum, Bowser continued, the new development will have more than 400 residential units. “We’re welcoming more Washingtonians, more shoppers, more restaurant goers, more people to go to our schools, and indeed, more taxpayers here on H Street Northeast.”

Forty of those units, or 8 percent, will be priced below market rate under the District’s inclusionary zoning program, according to Joaquin McPeek from the mayor’s office. “While we are all excited about the growing prosperity of Washington, we all have to be focused on how more Washingtonians can participate in that prosperity,” Bowser said, adding that her administration has pledged $100 million a year into a trust for affordable housing, which is good, “but could be better.”

About a dozen people showed up to protest over concerns about the project, Borderstan reported.

The development will span two blocks between 8th and 10th Streets NE. With nine distinct facades, the structure will have a rooftop pool and gardens, and several terraces and balconies, according to a release by developers Rappaport and WC Smith.

It will also feature 44,300 square feet of retail space—leasees for the spaces haven’t been nailed down, Anne-Marie Bairstow of WC Smith told DCist. The project will also have 435 parking spaces for consumers and renters. The developers will begin work this fall and the project is slated to be completed by the end of 2019.

Filed Under: development, h street, h street connection, h street NE, Northeast, strip mall,