Since it is subscriber content, the entire article is not provided here.
Real Estate Inc. Extra
The executive director of the D.C. Preservation League has set a
new tone for historic preservation in the District.
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Feb 5, 2016, 6:00am EST
Rebecca Miller’s reaction to one of D.C.’s most-talked-about
redevelopment proposals was swift and harsh.
It was October 2013, roughly seven months after developer Richard
Levy cast the winning, $19.5 million bid for the West Heating Plant in
Georgetown. He and his team said they wanted to tear down all but one wall of
the World War II-era building. And they wanted to replace it, to the same
110-foot height, with a luxury Four Seasons condo building with units topping
$1,400 per square foot.
That wasn’t supposed to be possible. Before putting the
decommissioned industrial plant on the auction block, the General Services
Administration placed a protective covenant on it, requiring any future
alterations to comply with the Interior Department’s standards for historic
sites. That condition was meant to protect the building from precisely the
kinds of changes Levy and his team proposed.
Within a month, Miller fired back. Her response: A detailed
45-page application that nominated the site for protective landmark status at
both the local and federal levels. It sounds bureaucratic, but that single move
tied Levy’s hands for the next 17 months.
Finally, this past April, a divided D.C. Historic Preservation
Review Board voted not to support the nomination. So Miller then appealed to
the National Register of Historic Places, which has since deemed the building
eligible for its federal listing, keeping open the prospect of another battle
to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment