After years in development, plans for a luxury condominium project in Old Town North are heading to the Alexandria Board of Architectural Review.
The BAR will look over the concept review for the proposed The Whitley – Phase 2, a six-story residential development project at 802-808 N. Washington Street on Wednesday, Jan. 15.
That’s the former Olde Town Motel property, which has languished since before the 2020 pandemic.
The proposed concept includes an underground parking garage and a roof deck. The ground floor of the condo development also has a fitness room, mail room, a pet wash room, meeting rooms and an office for management.
Maryland-based PT Blooms is the applicant for the one-to-three-bedroom condos. PT Blooms also owns The Whitley at 805-823 N. Columbus Street, a 78-unit multifamily condo building in development on the same block.
The property at 802-808 N. Washington Street was sold to its new owner, 808 Washington LLC, for $6.3 million last October, according to city land use records.
According to the applicant:
In addition to general historic compatibility, the project is designed to be compatible with existing historic buildings on Washington Street itself, notably the Heron Hotel (George Mason Hotel) which has similar paired windows and base-middle-top cornice definition.
The facades are designed to be complementary to Washington Street buildings, in particular the existing historic townhouse that it part of the project (as it is the only historic building in the immediate vicinity).
Through facade treatments and small setbacks, the massing has been broken down so that the building appears smaller, specifically, broken to pieces smaller than 100′ by 80′, each of which has a directional orientation toward N. Washington Street.
The front plane is adjacent to the sidewalk, with entrances directly open to the sidewalk. The design fosters a sense of place, arrival, and community. Parking is underground (except for 2 surface spaces for the townhouse at its rear), and loading is in the rear off the private alley that is being created by this project and the adjacent 805 N. Columbus Street.
