Fringe Lot Forever?

District residents are used to seeing empty pieces of land and learning of the plans that existed for them before, you know, the economy. Usually, with a few notable exceptions, they stalled out in the last crash, and started coming off the shelf again as D.C. emerged as an island of safety in [...]

Back in July, the president of the Catholic University of America, John Garvey, announced that the school would be departing its days of debauchery and sin by separating male and female students in residence halls (and so far, a threatened human rights lawsuit hasn't been filed). At least, it would have made it easier to [...]

The Zoning Commission has dispatched the University of the District of Columbia's campus plan, is almost through hearings on Georgetown and American University's plans, and will soon take up Howard's. Next up after that: Catholic University, which is now in the early stages of planning what it might look like a decade from now.
It's an [...]

Foggy Bottom: Home of the State Department, the Watergate, and...what else, really? The institutional-feeling neighborhood, carved up by freeways and uninspired green space, has some of the largest undeveloped chunks of land in the city.
Now, courtesy of the Catholic University Urban Institute Studio, there's at least a vision for what it could become–Professor Iris Miller [...]

Jim Abdo's big Brookland project, which will add some 825 new homes, "eclectic college town retail," and below-market-rate spaces for artists, got final approval from the D.C. Zoning Commission on Monday night, the Washington Post reports. (Click here for more renderings of the Abdo plan, and here for details of what's coming and location info.)
According [...]

One view of the Brookland project by Abdo Development
The gentrification wave's moving up and over to Northeast.
Earlier this week, the Zoning Commission granted preliminary approval to two huge projects that will transform Brookland and Fort Totten, the Washington Post reports. "To receive final approval, the groups behind the projects, the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation [...]

Catholic University of America is not known for its forward-thinking attitudes in some areas. But at least the school's taking a bold approach to solar power!
Catholic announced this morning that it is installing 1,000 solar panels total on four buildings across its Brookland campus. The panels will apparently be installed at no cost to CUA, [...]

In May 2008, Catholic University announced that it was partnering with Abdo Development to redevelop a nine acre site near the Brookland/CUA Metro station on Michigan Avenue.
Now the Washington Post is reporting that Abdo's plans will likely sail through the Zoning Commission process.