CityVista to begin selling, leasing

Owners of the CityVista project in the District plan to begin leasing retail space and selling condominiums next month at the $210 million complex at Mount Vernon Triangle.

CityVista is an 843,000-square-foot development on the site of the former D.C. Wax Museum at 5th and K streets Northwest that combines retail space, condominiums and apartments one-third of a mile from the new Washington Convention Center.

“We have an opportunity to create a whole new neighborhood,” said Marc Dubick, project executive for Lowe Enterprises, a developer of CityVista.

CityVista joins Mount Vernon Place, a 2.2 million-square-foot, mixed-use project, as major redevelopment projects near the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood.

Until the projects moved in, “It was very much an edge location,” Mr. Dubick said yesterday at a meeting of Commercial Real Estate Women.

The neighborhood still contains parking lots and abandoned buildings.

Mount Vernon Place, which is half residential and half commercial, is 10 percent completed and is only two blocks from CityVista. The 11-building complex covering six city blocks is scheduled for completion in 2015.

Both projects are public-private ventures that represent an aggressive move by Washington’s National Capital Revitalization Corp. to redevelop inner-city neighborhoods close to downtown.

City planners “got the right zoning, the right market timing and the right people in place in terms of capable developers,” said Jeffrey Tanck, spokesman for Mount Vernon Place.

Private developers of Mount Vernon Place are Quadrangle Development Corp. and the Wilkes Co., both based in D.C.

The developers said Washington’s planning office acted as the catalyst for the deal after previous large-scale development efforts in the neighborhood failed.

“They’re doing it the right way,” Mr. Tanck said. “They have a comprehensive master plan that makes sense.”

Condo prices at Mount Vernon Place begin in the low $300,000s. No commercial tenants have signed leases.

The prices are comparable to costs per unit planned for CityVista, which will have 117,000 square feet of commercial space and 685 residences in three buildings. Safeway has signed a lease for a 57,000-square-foot store.

Construction began on CityVista in December and is scheduled to be completed in about 2 years.

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