Brookland's Monroe Street Market Breaks Ground

• November 9th 2011

by Shilpi Paul

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Abdo Development, The Bozzuto Group and Mayor Vincent Gray broke ground this morning at Monroe Street Market, a $200 million development that will bring residential, retail and artist studio space to Brookland.

Located on Catholic University’s south campus, the 8.9 acre plot, bounded on the north side by Michigan Avenue, will be located on five city blocks adjacent to the Brookland-CUA Metro. When complete, the community will consist of 718 residential units, 45 townhomes, 80,000 square feet of street-level retail, 15,000 square feet of artist studio space, a community arts center, and 850 underground parking spaces. The first phase of apartments by Bozzuto will total 562 units and are set to deliver by 2013.

At the groundbreaking, Abdo Development’s Jim Abdo spoke to the transformation that the development will bring to Brookland, Edgewood and the Catholic University community, creating a college town-style main street with restaurants, artist kiosks, walkways and a 1,000 square-foot public square.

“This will change the look of the University,” John Garvery, President of Catholic University, said. “It will increase the safety and aesthetics of the neighborhood, and be really important to our students. We have to worry about their access to retail and restaurants…all of that will be possible for the first time (with Monroe Street Market).”

Monroe Street Market will join other new developments in the area, including nearby Brookland Artspace Lofts and Dance Place. Like Artspace Lofts, which retains a majority of live-work studios for artists making less than 60 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI), a portion of Monroe Street Market’s residential units (8 percent) will be held as affordable housing for residents making 80 percent AMI.

Mayor Gray reminded all of the attendees about the plethora of planned projects across the city. “By 2015, we will have $11 billion of development underway in the District of Columbia.”

For a look at apartment and condo developments on the boards for the area, check out UrbanTurf’s Pipeline.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.production.logicbrush.com/articles/blog/monroe_street_market_breaks_ground/4542.