Story

Upton Place is a two-tower, adaptive reuse project in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, DC that is comprised of 689 multifamily residences, including 65 affordably priced apartments. The transformation of the building was conceived through razing the existing office building down to grade, while retaining most of the existing below grade parking garage. The new residential development was built on top of the remaining garage, reimagined as a series of facades and streetscapes that create variety, transition of scale, and enhance the public realm. Within Upton Place, the six-story East Tower provides 455 apartment homes, and the eight-story West Tower provides 234 luxury residences. Both buildings boast a unique identity: the East tower that faces the urban bustle of Wisconsin Avenue is called “4K Wisconsin”, while the West tower that looks over the serenity of Glover Park is aptly named “The Parc”. The terracotta-clad residences sit atop 100,000 square feet of retail space, including a 55,000 square foot fitness gym, a 30,000 square foot grocery store, and the restored 800-space below-grade parking garage. The adaptation of the pre-existing office building to create Upton Place involved complex design, selective demolition, construction, and extensive coordination. Adaptive re-use was a critical component in making Upton Place work on the development side, but this same feature presented challenges in the design and construction phase. The design called for re-use of five levels of existing post-tensioned concrete decks poured more than 35 years ago, so the utmost care was taken during the remedial work required for design implementation. Incorporating the existing garage meant the existing structure had to be strengthened, adding new and supplemental steel structure to merge the new with the old. Due to the size of the project, crew flow on site fluctuated from 300 to more than 500 at times, making communication and coordination paramount. The largest crews were present when two tower cranes were functioning simultaneously, one feeding wood framing components to the East Tower while the other aided in completion of the West Tower’s concrete structure. Bound on the East by Wisconsin Avenue, on the West by National Park space and on the South by an adjacent development’s shoring line, a single lane of Upton Street serviced the entire site. These logistical issues required the design and construction teams to continuously adapt and coordinate throughout the duration of the project, even as some team members retired. A core group of existing team members then stepped up and carried the Upton Place project to completion. Upton Place at 4000 Wisconsin Avenue represents the incredible opportunity to transform a recently vacated office building, located in a thriving residential neighborhood, into a vibrant mixed-use residential and retail development. After 34 months of construction, community engagement, and collaboration, Upton Place opened its doors to its first residents on November 1, 2023.