Last month, Forest City filed plans with the Zoning Commission for a design review of
Yards Parcel G, currently home to the Trapeze School and now expected to be the new headquarters for
Chemonics International, a USAID contractor.
Note that when the news first broke, it was said that this building would be at New Jersey and M, but that's incorrect--it is planned for the northwest corner of New Jersey and N and/or Tingey and/or the proposed Tingey Square, as seen in this rendering, which helpfully provides Nats Park and the DC Water headquarters building as reference points. (And directly across N from Chemonics HQ is the planned residential building on Parcel I, which you can read about
here.)
This would be a 290,000-square-foot, 11-story-plus-penthouse building, with about 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and about 165 below-grade parking spaces. The zoning filing says that approximately 1,200 employees would be expected to move to the building when it opens. There will also be an at-grade bicycle lobby for building users.
This building's west side will face 1 1/2 Street, Yards West's planned pedestrian-oriented-but-not-pedestrian-only "
spine," and to the north it will be bounded by the planned Quander Street that is to be (re-)built at the spot where the currently huge empty block is bisected by an east-west sidewalk.
Here's a trip around three of the building's corners, starting at its northwest corner where 1 1/2 and Quander Streets will meet, then at Quander and New Jersey, and then at New Jersey and N/Tingey/Tingey Square:
For those of you concerned for the fate of the trapezers, the zoning filing says that the school would be moved to Parcel E, which is the site of
Building 202, and which apparently will soon be its own design review application. (Hmmmmm.....)
I threw together a quick
Parcel G page, which will jog longtime residents' memories of Spooky Building 213, which occupied this parcel along with Parcels A and F for 50 years or so.
The zoning design review hearing is scheduled for April.
(See, I do still know how to blog. I may found out this weekend if I still know how to take pictures.)