One recent example of the office-to-residential trend is a building that will bring new apartment residents to Alexandria’s King Street.
ALEXANDRIA, VA — There have been numerous examples of commercial buildings being converted to residential units in Alexandria. The lesser demand for office space and continued demand for new housing continues even five years past the COVID-19 pandemic. That has driven new developments like the CityHouse Old Town.
CityHouse Old Town is an upcoming 199-unit luxury residential development from American Real Estate Partners at 1101 King Street. Mark Taylor, managing director of residential at Tysons-based American Real Estate Partners, said the project is an “adaptive reuse” of an existing building. While the developer has done new projects like CityHouse Ashburn, Taylor said current interest rates are making new builds challenging.
Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor said the office market was collapsing in the urban core of the DC area. That led American Real Estate Partners to look for opportunities in markets like Alexandria, Bethesda and Falls Church.
“We came across this building. It was a failed office condo,” said Taylor. “We thought that we could buy all the condo owners and buy out the tenants, which we were successful in doing, and then went through the process that entitled it to be converted to apartments.”
Although Alexandria has multiple office-to-residential conversions in progress or planned, not every location is viable. Taylor says office-to-residential projects are more complex, expensive and more time-consuming. Residential projects must also be built in places where people want to live.
“You’re doing these as a way to get into a market with a high barrier to entry,” said Taylor. “You’re not doing it as a lower cost way to deliver housing,” said Taylor. “What you’re probably going to start seeing, or probably we’re already seeing is economically obsolete, class B, C office buildings…demolished and new residential built on top of their parking structures, because they’re just not a viable asset class anymore.”
But the 1100 King Street location was one location where a conversion was viable. Converting the 1983 building at 1001 King Street had the benefit of keeping the existing building height. According to Taylor, the seven-story was built before the existing height restrictions took effect in the Old Town historic district.
The conversion of the space retained the original structure while adding luxury features inspired by the Soho House membership club hotel brand. Rebecca Jones, founder and principal of RD Jones + Associates, who worked on the design, said the building had “good bones” and a higher-than-average number of terraces for an apartment building. Most of the 199 units have outdoor terraces, and 106 unique floor plans are offered.
Future residents will have access to amenities like a second-floor atrium outdoor area with fire pits and water features, fourth-floor club lounge with a kitchen and rooftop terrace and skyline views, 24-hour fitness studio with instructor-led classes and coworking space with semi-private pods and a conference room. Design elements incorporated into the building include funky twists on George and Martha Washington art in the lobby, incorporation of the exterior brick’s look inside, and art in the mailroom using doorknob designs from all of Alexandria’s brownstone townhouses.
“To really invigorate this the space was something unique, different from King Street, but high style, casual, comfortable but really had major attitude,” said Jones.
The design of the new apartment community was intentional for two reasons — the historical district standards that must be approved by the Board of Architectural Review and the clientele the units are marketed toward. Taylor says the units will appeal to renters by choice, including new arrivals to the transient D.C. region and people who may downsize from larger homes.
“It appeals more to a tastemaker. Where they live is a statement about who they are,”
said Taylor. “It’s integral to their brand. They will respond to high style, high concept, and they will pay for it.”
“Elevating anyone’s living environment is very appealing to a resident, that they feel that they’re special, unique, and I think that’s what we’ve tried to create here,” added Jones. “It is not the typical design that you’re going to find around King Street or Alexandria. It’s really fresh, hot and new but very sophisticated.”
The location is also a desirable spot for renters between the King Street Metro and the waterfront in Old Town.
“You walk out the front door, and you fall into 50 restaurants, bars, everything like that,” said Taylor. “For apartments, location is an amenity, and it doesn’t get much better than this. You look at new employers coming into the area, your four metro stops, you can go door to door on the Metro to HQ2 for Amazon in 20 minutes, as well as everything else in National Landing.”
According to American Real Estate Partners, CityHouse Old Town will deliver in fall 2025. The first move-ins are schedule for mid-November, when five of the seven floors are delivered. Delivery of the remaining two floors will be staggered over the following months. Taylor says over 600 people were signed up on CityHouse Old Town’s interest list before pre-leasing started, and 13 units were leased in the first week of pre-leasing.