From Washington Business Journal by Michael Neibauer
The former Fannie Mae headquarters will be renamed City Ridge as it undergoes a transformation into a mixed-use urban village, anchored by Wegmans’ first D.C. store.
Roadside Development and North American Sekisui House, which jointly acquired the 10-acre Fannie Mae campus at 3900 Wisconsin Ave. NW in 2016 for $85 million, revealed the name in advance of a Dec. 1 scheduled groundbreaking. The acquisition was named the Washington Business Journal's Best Real Estate Deal of 2016.
City Ridge — named for the site’s geography, on a ridgeline separating two stream valleys — will feature 687 residential units, 162,000 square feet of office, 153,000 square feet of retail, more than 750 parking spaces and a “significant amount of programmed open space.” The project totals about 1 million square feet.
Consuming 86,000 square feet, the urban-format Wegmans will sit on the lowest level of the 1958-era Colonial-style Fannie Mae building, which will be held up by micropiles while the existing basement is excavated 8 feet. D.C.-based Roadside has a history of adaptive reuse projects, most notably City Market at O in Shaw and Cityline at Tenley.
The overall $640 million project, designed by Shalom Baranes Associates, includes eight new buildings along with the repurposed Fannie Mae main building. The development team is expected to begin demo of the other existing campus buildings on Dec. 1. The City Ridge interior architects are listed as Cecconi Simone Inc. and Akseizer Design Group.
Fannie Mae has relocated to Carr Properties' Midtown Center, a new complex on the site of the former Washington Post headquarters at 1100 15th St. NW.