After years of false starts, a new project to replace the former Department of Community and Human Services building in Del Ray with a short-term rental building with a daycare and retail is heading to the Alexandria Planning Commission.
The two-story, 30,000 square-foot DCHS building property at 2525 Mount Vernon Avenue was constructed in 1985 and has been vacant for years. In 2022, the site’s previous owner, Bonaventure, cited economic viability issues and backed out of plans to redevelop the property into a four-story mixed-use apartment complex. Bonaventure bought the property in 2019, but the proposal was met by pushback from neighbors who complained that it added to parking congestion and took away from the character of Del Ray.
Now, Ganges Property Group LLC. wants to replace the building with a two-story building containing 10,900 square feet for a ground-floor daycare, 8,300 square feet of ground-floor retail, and 30 multi-unit (six one-bedroom and four two-bedroom) apartments. The developer is waiting for city approval before buying the former DCHS building at 2525 Mount Vernon Avenue and 2411-2419 Mount Vernon Avenue from Bonaventure.
The proposal heads to the Planning Commission on May 6.
According to land use attorney Cathy Puskar, who represents Ganges Property Group and Bonaventure, the developer wants to reduce the 35 required parking spaces, meaning that zero spaces would be provided for residential and retail/restaurant uses.
Puskar gave the Del Ray Citizens Association a sneak peek of the project at their monthly meeting on Tuesday night (March 25).
“It’s now been a couple of years, and I have a client who is preparing and proposing to reuse the building,” Puskar said. “One client of mine owns two blocks today, and the proposed contract purchaser will own two blocks tomorrow. It’s a package deal.”
Puskar continued, “We will have retail or restaurant on the ground floor with a residential lobby, and then we’ll have a daycare around the corner, which will take up the Mount Ida side of the building.”
Ganges Property Group lists multiple projects with The Learning Experience daycare on its website. One of the renderings is of a yet-to-be-constructed building in Alexandria.
Puskar said a six-foot-tall board-by-board fence would separate the daycare from neighbors. She said the neighborhood is used to short-term residential rental units, and the developer is also operating 17 such units just a block away above Cheesetique (2411 Mount Vernon Avenue).
However, former New Orleans Deputy Mayor Ryan Berni lives down the street from the building and said the building above Cheesetique isn’t a problem because it doesn’t abut residential properties.
“That development does not abut residential properties,” Berni said. “I did the short-term rental zoning and regulations in New Orleans. I was deputy mayor. I lived this for five years. The reason why it’s relevant is because there are residential properties that abut it (the 2525 Mount Vernon Avenue property).”
According to the Special Use Permit application:
With the proposed conversion, the building will contain approximately 10,855 SF for daycare use, approximately 8,318 SF for retail and/or restaurant uses on the ground floor and thirty (30) multi -unit dwellings on the second floor, including 26 one-bedroom and 4 two-bedroom units.
The Applicant requests an SUP for a reduction in the required parking spaces for the retail/restaurant and multi-unit dwelling uses. Pursuant to the Zoning Ordinance, a minimum of 26 parking spaces are required to be provided for the proposed multi-unit dwelling use and a minimum of 9 parking spaces are required for the restaurant/retail uses (the higher restaurant parking ratio has been used given that the tenants are to be determined, for a total of a minimum of 25 required parking spaces for the proposed uses. Given that the Applicant intends to retain the existing building and provide an off-street loading space on Stewart Avenue, there are no parking spaces on site. There is an adjacent parking lot located at 208 E. Mt Ida Ave., which is not part of this Application, that will be removed to accommodate play equipment accessory to the day care use, so long as the day care is a tenant of the building. There is also a parking lot across E. Mt. Ida Ave in the 2400 block of Mt. Vernon Avenue.
Dedicated parking spaces for the day care use will be provided in this lot, as permitted by the Zoning Ordinance, given the fact that many individuals drop off and pick up children via single occupancy vehicles. However, the Applicant does not intend to dedicate parking spaces for the proposed retail/restaurant uses or multi-unit dwelling in the 2400 lot, given the walkability of the neighborhood and the fact that, given the smaller size of the units and the flexibility for the multi-unit dwelling to be for typical rentals or short term residential rentals, there will either be renters who are carless by choice or who will access the property via other transit modes such as uber, taxi, metro, bus, walking or biking.
While there will not be any dedicated spaces for the multi-unit dwelling or restaurant/retail uses in the 2400 lot, spaces will be available in the lot, for a fee, for those who need them. In addition, there will be short term parking spaces dedicated on E. Mt Ida for pick up/drop off and deliveries. Given that there is on-street public parking adjacent to the building and available parking in the neighboring lot, there will be no negative impact on the neighborhood from the parking reduction.
