Located in the heart of our Nation’s capital, the Washington Design Center is the mid-Atlantic region’s largest single resource for high-end home furnishings and décor, frequented by many interior designers, architects and retailers from across the region, comprising more than 55,000 visitors annually.

The Center features 400,000 square feet of space (original masonry building gut-renovation plus steel and glass addition with masonry base) and 55 showrooms on seven floors in a building that was  formerly an historic refrigerated brick warehouse constructed in the 1920’s, then expanded and repurposed in the 1980’s to present use. 

Vornado Realty Trust, the developers of the property, added the Washington Office Center building (at left in photo above) several years later, and the two connected buildings sit directly on the Federal Center SW Metrorail station and occupy the entire triangular-shaped block bounded by Virginia Avenue, 3rd, 4th, and D Streets, SW. At 811,122 combined square feet, the complex is at the  very heart of the Southwest DC federal enclave and completely surrounded by properties that are either leased to, or owned by, the US Government, which should enhance its long term leasing success.

The two buildings together are a fascinating amalgam of old and new, artsy and mundane, core and opportunity. The Office Center is a modern, all-glass office building that pairs nicely with the retrofitted brick and glass curtainwall  mass of the  redeveloped Design Center (top photo above). 

The Washington Business Journal reported 4/26/13 that Vornado has sold both buildings as a package deal to affiliates of Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. (Oklahoma’s Green family) for $250 million. 

Keyes Condon Florance Architects produced the concept design and Bryant and Bryant Architects and Planners PC (Architect of Record) developed the construction documents for the Design Center.  As an Intern Architect and production team member, I was tasked with field survey and developing demolition, design development and construction documents.