Planned Poplar Point redevelopment increases retail, pedestrian-friendliness

At Poplar Point, between South Capitol Street SE and I-295, there are plans for a brand new five-building, mixed-use development. Currently, the site is largely unused, save for a few facilities managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Park Police.

The new project is planned to bring 700 to 800 residential units (10 percent designated for affordable housing) to the area along with over 1.6 million square feet of office, roughly 50,000 square feet of retail, and 562 vehicular parking spaces and 672 bicycle parking spaces, according to UrbanTurf.

With new renderings recently released, UrbanTurf further reported that there were some revisions made to the development in order to make it more pedestrian-friendly. These revisions included increasing retail along Howard Road SE by 1,270 square feet, removing some street parking, and moving a bridge between two of the office buildings to 41 feet high, improving sight lines towards the Anacostia River.

The developer also hopes to make several improvements to the Anacostia Metro station. A public pocket park will be created by the station entrance, while the roads, sidewalks, and pathways from Howard Road SE will be upgraded. The Kiss and Ride parking lot will also be relocated, the entrance plaza will be redesigned, and the vehicular ramp to the upper parking deck will be demolished.

The developer behind the project is Redbrick Partners, while the architecture firm is HOK.

There is no set timeline yet for the project.

• More Retail and Metro Improvements For Massive Poplar Point Redevelopment [UrbanTurf]

• Massive Poplar Point project revised with ground-floor retail, no ‘glass wall’ [Curbed DC]

• Plans for Poplar Point advancing, though slowly [Curbed DC]