DC by Design

A 225-year-old city plan binds past to present to tell the unique story of our nation’s capital.

Words: Shaun Courtney
Illustration: Paul Vlachou

In 1791, at the bidding of George Washington, the artist and engineer Pierre L’Enfant designed our nation’s fledgling capital with tidy, gridded streets and sweeping, diagonal avenues, punctuated by manicured parks and grand gathering spaces. Modeled on European cities, but adapted to reflect America’s leading-edge egalitarian ideal, the city plan was at once practical and inspired. More than 200 years later, DC’s historic underpinning — from its vistas of epic, tourist-flocked monuments to its pockets of green where locals connect — still influences the city’s growth.

Proprietary data collected from Compass’s in-house research analysts and bolstered by the collective knowledge of our DC team tells the story of Washington as a city of old and new in harmony. Where L’Enfant planned open space, there are new urban farms, and beneath his iconic circles, art shines a fresh light. The Anacostia and Potomac Rivers served as natural bookends for L’Enfant’s manmade boulevards, but today some of the city’s most ambitious endeavors originate from the waterside.

As a city conceived as the nation’s power-center, Washington cedes 18 of its 60 square miles to federal government control. So DC thrives where it can, boasting one of the country’s greatest population increases of late. Between 2010 and 2014, 57,000 newcomers came through its storied corridors, a wave second only to North Dakota’s.

“For the first time in generations DC is experiencing population growth and with it a renewed urban vibrancy,” notes Holly Worthington, managing broker of Compass DC and 30-year veteran of the capital’s residential real estate market.

“Contemporary condos rise on historic, tree-lined streets, while creative people open small businesses on reinvigorated commercial corridors. And as realtors, we not only witness, but also contribute to Washington’s changing character, welcoming diverse newcomers looking to make DC their home.”

Washington continues to be shaped by its grid — its collective compass — showing us where we came from, where we are, and where we’re headed next.

A Numeric Narrative

While the sale of one home may not be a story, when one house becomes 100, then 1,000, the data turns the page on DC’s 21st-century chapter.

17 | Number of DC neighborhoods where the median days on market is a week or less. U STREET CORRIDOR homes sell fastest, at just five days.

41 | Percentage of CAPITOL RIVERFRONT residents considered millennials. This up-and-coming neighborhood accounts for more than half of the city’s permitted housing in 2014.

880 | Yards from a Metro station that 80% of housing was built within between 2010 and 2012. NOMA — an area whose residential population was zero prior to the train’s arrival in 2004 — now boasts 5,000+ residents and the system’s largest ridership increase.

3.7k | Discrepancy between the average asking and sale price for SOUTHWEST WATERFRONT homes. These predictable transactions will soon be upended when a $2-billion, 3-million-square-foot development transforms the sleepy quadrant along the Potomac River

A New Dynamic

The changing DC landscape is a product of both innovation and adaptation, an interplay of culture and construction.

Road Tests

3 | Distance in football fields of the nascent Rem Koolhaas-designed 11th Street Bridge Park. By 2019, the overpass will feature an amphitheater, café, and boat launch, connecting Capitol Hill and the burgeoning Anacostia area.

7 | Acres of mixed-use construction rising overtop a highway by 2020. Capitol Crossing is literally creating an East End neighborhood out of thin air, constructing 2.2 million square feet of residential, commercial, and retail space above DC’s main artery, Interstate 395.

Green Governance

450k | Square feet of lush gardens atop the recently opened US Coast Guard HQ on the eastern banks of the Anacostia River. The 1.2 million-square-foot LEED Gold-certified structure blends so well with its surroundings that deer have been known to graze on the compound’s roof.

4 | Years that DC has held the title of North American city with the most square feet of vegetated rooftops. Come 2030, the city will get even greener as the federal government completes a SW Waterfront Ecodistrict — a necklace of public parks and rain gardens that will transform 15 blocks of concrete between the National Mall and Washington Channel.

Food Networks

40 | Acres purchased by wholesalers and farmers in 1928 to accommodate Union Terminal Market, the predecessor to Union Market.The gourmet grocer reopened in 2012 and now hosts more than 100 artisanal purveyors and has single-handedly created a new neighborhood at the crossroads of Gallaudet, NoMa, and Trinidad.

3 | Acres occupied by the East Capitol Urban Farm, making it the largest agricultural expanse within the city’s boundaries. Part greenmarket, part community garden, it opened in September 2015, and by next growing season will bring fresh produce to the previously underserved community of Capitol Heights.

Transit Transformed
18 | Shipping containers repurposed in 2014 by Georgetown firm Travis Price Architects for the SeaUA apartments in the Brookland neighborhood. Corrugated steel punctured by floor-to-ceiling windows flood the sustainably engineered wood interiors with natural light.

75k | Square feet of streetcar tunnels beneath Dupont Circle — unused since 1962 — that will house a new multimedia arts space aptly called The Dupont Underground.

Explore DC’s ever-evolving neighborhoods with our regional guides.