As Forest City Washington’s latest plans for Capitol Riverfront wind through the District’s zoning approval process, we’re getting the best images so far of the developer’s eye-popping designs.
The project, an extension of The Yards immediately east of Nationals Park, will include three buildings — a 95,000-square-foot, 16-screen, 2,500-seat Showplace Icon movie theater with 331 parking spaces and 2,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, and two mixed-use buildings with roughly 600 units and 35,000 square feet of retail between them.
Forest City also has proposed a retail or cultural area on the Anacostia riverfront featuring a 15,000-square-foot pavilion, and it has agreed to expand Diamond Teague Park to include a dedicated playground.
The project has the support of the D.C. Office of Planning, the local advisory neighborhood commission (conditionally) and D.C. Water. The development will eventually displace most D.C. Water operations near Nationals Park — sewer services, maintenance services and fleet maintenance — though to where remains in flux.
The D.C. Zoning Commission held a hearing on the project Sept. 19 and offered its tentative support, with a final vote expected in December. Forest City has agreed to study how to tweak its design for the theater to make its ambience more “warm,” at the request of the ANC.
Even with the commission’s eventual approval, construction on the project’s first phase, the theater, could not begin until D.C. Water moves its programs off site.
Check out the slideshow to the right for the latest images.
