Flavortown!

Extra flavor, limited quality.

One of my favorite examples of this is the Waldorf mall, referred to as the “St. Charles Towne Center”. I find it funny they add the “E” to give it some sort of vaguely British-ish charm yet proceeds to use the American way of spelling “Center”.

🤣

Have you been to the Wharf? No new rowhouses there…

Those were new like 20 years ago. Long before the warf redevelopment.

When I worked a L'Enfant Plaza, years ago, I saw new nice townhouses built around um, 7th Street SW? Showed them to my wife one time, we dreamed what must it be like to have that much money.

Then again, our first house, a 50's era rowhouse just north of Baltimore, cost us $67,500. Loved that house, brick and block, slate roof. You could walk standing up in the attic.

They're nice in their own way, but they definitely don't have the same feel. I describe them as, "If Disney added a Washington, DC section to Epcot Center's World Showcase, it would look like this."

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So here’s the thing, SE or EOTR gets a bad rap, some of it is warranted, but some of it is not. I have no idea for this particular block, maybe someone else can chime in. The thing about EOTR, though, is it lacks a lot of amenities. People are willing to put up with more violent neighborhoods in NW or NE but they have access to [whatever]. It’s not the same in that part of SE.

There's a serious lack of adequate grocery stores (there are only 4 and one doesn't even sell produce) and medical care available in ward 7 and 8. Things are changing as gentrification moves EOTR though.

It's affordable for a reason. Gunshots are a daily routine. Wouldn't raise my kids there.

On the other hand, I'm sure builders in the 1920s cared immensely about quality when they were trying to pack as many Irish Catholics into Brookland as they legally could.

I assume it depends on the detail. Minimum frontage set backs require the home to start x feet from the street. Most people don’t want to lose a little space in the “pop front” so the rest of the home is extended back a couple feet. I have no idea how this all pencils out but it does cost something. Same with adding a turret or other ornamental details. If you know which blocks to look for, you can see homes get simpler and simpler until they are square brick blocks with flat roofs (like Riggs Park).

I work in construction for a general contractor, and yes it does cost more and developers in major cities skimp out on this. It’s called ‘value engineering’ — essentially how can we achieve the same goal for cheaper or how do we just get rid of it all together by changing the design. Most of the time it’s by doing the latter. This can happen not only with aesthetic design but also HVAC systems, electrical systems, etc.

The material to add details like this isn’t necessarily the most expensive part, its the labor to do it if you want it done right and not cheaply. We’re at a time where skilled trades are already struggling to find people and to keep/pay people is very hard. Big trends in design/construction are a factor of a lot of things all at once.

You probably already figured it out, but it means "East of the River," which is to say the part of the city that is on the other side of the Anacostia river from the majority of the city. People use it different ways; the city itself uses it to refer to that portion of the city in connection with efforts to improve the lot of the people who live there. But many others use it as a byword for the Part of the City Where White People Don't Live. Not accusing anyone here of that, just FYI. But you should be sensitive to the use of the phrase and think about what it symbolizes when deciding whether to use it.

Yeah that's the main spot they are zoned for to be built from my understanding https://dcgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=ae5830535a384a7f9ae40527f607b32e&section=3

Only if the developers can con the DC Govt to allow a “private community” (= small streets = HOA Fees). Those are bullshit and often rife with us vs them issues in the neighborhood.

Facts

Lol modern/contemporary homes are more expensive to build not less: https://nehomemag.com/the-cost-to-build-a-contemporary-home-why-its-higher-than-a-traditional-one/

And if it’s “just the market,” why are developments like this built at all: https://www.chevychaselake.com?

The reality is that a lot of it has to do with the imposition of top-down elitist architectural tastes which abhors all traditional design out of some egotistical pretentiousness.

I would pay premium for ornate exterior detailing. When I bought, I made sure to replace oak with oak when replacing damaged trim and the things that mostly had to be replaced were the cheap windows and shingles that had been added in the meantime. I dream of those rowhouses in Bloomingdale on Rhode Island with the awesome lintels/keystones over their entryways, and those seem relatively simple compared to some of the brickwork in Dupont. I think they're cast, so it shouldn't be all that expensive if a builder/supplier already had the molds.

It was improperly priced and so the seller has had to play catch up with the market. Not a good selling strategy.

In most R zones rowhouse setback (space from sidewalk to front door) is too small, floor area ratio (ratio of built house:property size) is too high, don't have the required offstreet parking space, minimum lot size is too small (single rowhouse lots are under the required property lot sizes in many cases), or just you can't built undetatched housing that shares an outside wall because the only allowed building is a detatched single family home.

Not enough space dedicated to cars.

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I’m guessing you haven’t had knees very long.