The development that is now an empty field across M Street, will have a great positive impact on Julius Hobson Plaza Condominiums.
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D.C.’s Sursum Corda community has a buyer, setting stage for massive redevelopment
Washington Business Journal, March 9, 2018
Sursum Corda is now a Toll Brothers property.
An affiliate of Horsham, Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers Apartment Living this week acquired the Northwest D.C. neighborhood from the Sursum Corda Cooperative Association for $60 million, in addition to the neighboring 76 M St. NW in a separate buy for $3.5 million.
The transactions set the stage for a multiphase, multiyear redevelopment of the 6.7-acre site generally bounded by M Street NW to the north, L Street to the south, First Street to the west and First Place to the east — a block west of North Capitol Street.
“Toll Brothers Apartment Living has acquired the Sursum Corda Cooperative,” the company said in a statement. “We are excited to work with the City and community on this project. The development allows us to expand our D.C. footprint and build connections between the dynamic Mount Vernon Triangle and NoMa neighborhoods. We look forward to sharing more information as it becomes available in the coming months.”
The Sursum Corda overhaul is the subject of a first-stage planned-unit development approved in early 2016 that calls for more than 1,100 residential units (199 affordable, including 136 set aside for current Sursum Corda residents) and 41,000 square feet of retail across five buildings. It was always contemplated that a more detailed, second-stage PUD would be filed by whatever company purchases the property — in this case, the Toll Brothers affiliate.
Toll Brothers has agreed to file raze permits for the south parcel by July and to file a stage two PUD application within a year. Work on the initial building must begin within six months of the PUD approval, according to an 86-page covenant between Toll and the co-op recorded with the city.
As we reported last year, the proposed Sursum Corda redevelopment stalled after at least two deals to buy the site fell apart. A Savills Studley team including Vernon Knarr, Parker Lange, Bill Quinby and Stephanie Lynch ultimately brokered the deal with Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL).
Lonnie Durren, chair of the board of the Sursum Corda Cooperative Association, signed over the co-op’s property in a deal recorded Thursday.
Boston-based WinnCompanies shepherded the initial PUD application through the zoning process, but Winn, the largest manager of affordable housing in the United States, was never the project’s long-term developer. Rather, it served as the co-op’s “entitlement partner.”
“Our two-year joint venture with the Cooperative has set the stage for an important mixed-use, mixed-income development that not only guarantees modern homes that the members can return to, but also will contribute to vital economic growth in the NoMa area,” Gibert Winn, CEO of WinnCompanies, said in a statement. “We’re glad Toll Brothers recognized the potential of this transformative project.”
Sursum Corda and its 199 townhouse units opened in 1968. The community faced dark times in the 1980s and ’90s, fueled by open-air drug markets and drug-related violence. The District aggressively pursued a redevelopment program for Sursum Corda and neighboring properties, including Temple Courts and Golden Rule, following the 2004 murder of 14-year-old Jahkema “Princess” Hansen.
In a related transaction also recorded this week, the District turned over a pair of vacant parcels adjacent to Sursum Corda to the co-op, making the site whole. The disposition was ordered by the D.C. Council via legislation adopted in 2016 that will also shutter public streets through Sursum Corda, clearing way for the redevelopment.