While most residents and observers have been eyeing DC Water's
operations site at 1st and O Streets, SE and wondering when Forest City's
movie theater/residential/retail project is going to get underway, details are now emerging on the other shiny new development in the works in that same general area: DC Water's plans to build a new headquarters building on top of the existing O Street Pumping Station just east of Nats Park.
A PUD application has now been filed with the Zoning Commission for the project, to be design/built by Skanska with architect
SmithGroupJJR as a "world-class headquarters that integrates efficient building systems with the [existing O Street Pumping Station] to create a dynamic workplace environment" that would be " a bold, innovative statement on the Anacostia River shoreline that reflects DC Water's mission to provide reliable and cost-effective water and wastewater services."
It would be designed as a LEED Platinum building, with stormwater retention, "heat recover and rejection systems" that will use the residual heat from the sewage that is pumped to Blue Plains, and low-impact development landscaping features by
OvS "such as bio-swales, pervious pavements, and native vegetation."
The proposed DC Water HQ, as seen from the Anacostia (left), the west looking east (center), and from the Yards Park looking west (right). Renderings from zoning filings. Click to enlarge; and compare to the current view from the river.
The O Street station would keep right on pumping during and after construction, and the HQ design, which encapsulates the pumping station on the south and east and so removes it from view from the river, will include a four-story 190-foot-long east-west truss that will support the new HQ without bearing on the existing pumping station.
As for the PUD itself, it proposes to rezone the site from W-2 to CG/CR, and to only include 21 parking spaces instead of the mandated 69 (yay, nearby transit!).
It also requests flexibility from public space requirements because the building is "deemed essential to supporting the United States government," and so it must "therefore incorporate certain security measures and access restrictions, which impact operation and design of the new building and surrounding area."
Here is DC Water's memo on this security topic.
This new headquarters will consolidate and relocate all of the agency's administrative personnel, and get non-essential types away from its currently overcapacity Blue Plains site.
The zoning filing says that this new building "will demonstrate that DC Water's mission is essential to every living organism," and will also "emphasize DC Water's historic role in serving the DC metropolitan area for over a century by providing scheduled educational programming inside the building."
Forest City's planned movie theater would be one block to the north of this site, with the two planned new residential buildings to its west, and a new "1 1/2 Street" would run just to its west (as seen in the left-most rendering of the group of three above).
This will come before ANC 6D for its support before getting to the Zoning Commission on some as-yet unannounced date in the future.
Records added or updated recently displayed here; click the "archive" links to see additional detail and older records. All data from DC Government databases and 
