1218 9th Street: Zoning Relief for Future Home of Celebrity Chef Jeremiah Langhorne

At a November 19 meeting, a committee of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F/Logan Circle voted unanimously to endorse zoning relief for Jemal's 9th Street Gang of 3, LLC, and Douglas Development, developers of 1218 9th Street NW. The building in question will be the future home of the Dabney, a new restaurant from celebrity chef Jeremiah Langhorne, as well as The Columbia Room, an "award-winning" cocktail bar migrating from a nearby Blagden Alley location.

What the finished project might look like (credit below)

The developers appeared before the Community Development Committee (CDC) of ANC2F to tell how changing plans for their development have dictated a mid-development application for zoning relief. Previously, the project had been "by right" (meaning, not requiring zoning relief).

If the third floor were to be residential space, no zoning relief would be required. However, since the developers are now planning office space, and have rejiggered the design to add 4,000 square feet of space, the number of parking spaces the developer is required to provide on-site has increased from zero to 14. There is clearly no room on site for 14 parking spaces.

One member of the committee asked the developers to explore offering parking mitigations (e.g., bike/car share memberships) to tenants. Aside from that, there was no objection from the committee.

One member of the audience, a frequent attendee at ANC meetings, remarked that ANC2F had at their previous meeting endorsed a request by a neighboring building for the relief of the requirement to supply 66 parking spaces for over 130 residential units. In comparison to that request, the audience member said, this request was very reasonable, and he agreed with it.

The ANC's endorsement of the developers request also includes endorsement of zoning relief for floor-to-area ratio (FAR). (See an explanation of FAR here.) The maximum allowed now is 1.5 FAR. The developers seek 2.07 FAR.

In April 2013, the developers successfully sought endorsement for its plans from the CDC prior to petitioning DC's Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB). The project was required to go through HPRB because it is located within the boundaries of two separate historic districts -- the Shaw Historic District and the Blagden Alley/Naylor Court Historic District.

The documents related to the request for zoning relief can be seen by going to DC's Interactive Zoning Information System and entering case number 18905 into the search bar.

See a Douglas Development webpage advertising the development here and a flyer here.

See a June 2014 post about this property from the blog DC Vacant Properties here.

(Photo credit: detail of artist's rendering of finished project from publicly-available documents of the Office of Planning.)