Two Howard University properties once envisioned as the Howard Town Center site are being offered up for development again after the university prevailed in a lawsuit against the previous developers. But those previous developers are not giving up their four-year legal battle.
The university has released a request for qualifications for the historic Bond Bread Factory, at 2146 Georgia Ave. NW, and the historic Washington Railway and Electric Co. maintenance garage, at 2112 Georgia Ave. NW. The 2.2-acre site is immediately south of Howard’s campus. Howard aims for a mixed-use project that will create “an animated gateway between the vibrant U Street corridor and Howard’s campus.”
The RFQ says the highest and best use of the properties would be a “24-hour work-shop-eat-live-play” project with a vibrant ground-floor use, citing Philadelphia’s Reading Market and Chicago’s Fulton Market as examples.
It has had that same goal for many years.
The university twice had deals crumble before partnering in 2010 with Howard Town Center Developer LLC, a subsidiary of Cohen Siegel Investors — formerly the Rockville-based Cohen Cos. — to develop a $143 million residential and retail project on the site at the northwest corner of Georgia Avenue and V Street NW.