The Fannie Mae headquarters at 3900 Wisconsin Avenue NW. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

When Fannie Mae consolidates its offices at Midtown Center next summer, it leaves behind nearly 10 acres of property and a 248,000 square foot brick building on Wisconsin Avenue.

In late November, Roadside Development and North America Sekisui House announced they purchased the site for just under $90 million.

And now, the developers are reaching out to the community for ideas about what to do with the property, including launching a website and scheduling meetings with stakeholders like local ANCs, Sidwell Friends School, McLean Gardens, and more.

“It’s a big, important piece of property,” says Richard Lake, a founding partner of Roadside Development. “I don’t want to shortchange the process.”

The colonial building, constructed in 1958 to resemble the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, has an interior that “is non-memorable, basically rows of cubicles and offices,” Lake says.

“I don’t think we come in with a plan just yet,” he adds. “One of the problems when you come in with your preconceived notions is you shut down the input that could make the project that much better. We’d prefer to hear the ideas and take a step back.”

While the 3900 Wisconsin website has gotten some attention, the company hasn’t received a significant amount of feedback yet. The dozen or so comments thus far are advocating for a mixed-use project. Lake expects that more of the nitty-gritty will come out during in-person meetings, which are planned for January.

“We still want to introduce ourselves to everyone and get general ideas,” he says. “And we’ll hopefully be able to narrow it down by the first quarter” of 2017, followed by “a good year to get through the process with the city.”

When Fannie Mae moved into the four-story building in the 1970s, a senior official with the Department of Housing and Urban development said that it was “what Versailles would have looked like if the French king had more money.”

For now, Fannie Mae is still using the facility. The association will move to Midtown Center, an office building currently in construction at the site of the former Washington Post headquarters, when it is completed in the summer of 2018.