
It is
being announced today that the
National Association of Broadcasters will be moving to the neighborhood, the "culmination of a rigorous search for a location with easier access to Capitol Hill that will allow NAB to improve its advocacy efforts."
I
wrote about this site a few weeks ago when Monument went before ANC 6D to give a heads up on their plans to build both a 120,000-square-foot office building and a 175ish-unit residential building there, and that they already had a "user" (not a tenant) that they "felt pretty good about."
And now we know why the word "user" was chosen: upon the completion of the new headquarters (expected to be in the fall of 2018), NAB will be buying the building.
"Among the features in the new 10-story building will be a curved facade facing M Street, a rooftop terrace with a view of the Capitol, along with a 100-seat theater. Both the rooftop terrace and theater will be used for receptions and special events."
There is also a
quote from Gordon Smith, the president and CEO of NAB, that this new building "will be a showcase venue for radio and television stations across America and will send a strong message to public policymakers on the vibrant future of local broadcasting."
Look for this revised project to pop up in front of the zoning commission for a Capitol Gateway Overlay Review soon. The announcement says that it's expected that construction will begin in the spring of 2016.
UPDATE: Monument Realty has passed along the above rendering of the NAB portion of the project--with a ghostly placeholder for where they are proposing an additional 180,000-square-foot residential building, which the comapny says will be built at the same time as the NAB HQ. The NAB building was designed by HOK; the residential building is being designed by Gensler.