You may remember that back in April 2017, renderings for a new development, called Lamont 11, appeared on Facebook. Located at 3300 11th Street NW, this space once housed Grand China, a laundromat, and a Latin bakery.
The city initially issued a raze permit to remove the existing one-story building in February 2018. If you have passed by this address recently, you will have seen that the building is just now being demolished.
In January 2019, the developer submitted a building permit application to construct a 4-story building with ground level retail and 14 residential units on the upper floors. More than a year later, we still had not seen any progress toward the new development.
What’s the reason behind the delay?
The building permit application process hit a wall in June 2019 when a zoning review found that the submitted design plan did not meet the requirement for a 30-foot setback from Lamont Street.
To proceed with development, the applicant would need to either change the design plan or file a case with the Board of Zoning Adjustment to seek relief from the requirement.
Now that the building is actively under demolition, perhaps this means the plans will be revived and construction will finally move forward.
