The District of Columbia Office of Planning engaged ESI, in partnership with Jon Stover & Associates and SmithGroup, to conduct a comprehensive planning study for the Rhode Island Avenue NE corridor. This historic L’Enfant axial street, spanning from 12th Street NE to Eastern Avenue, serves multiple functions as a high-capacity transit corridor, commercial district, and residential neighborhood. The study aimed to assess market opportunities, public realm conditions, and land use potential to support a vibrant and resilient corridor that serves residents, workers, shoppers, diners, and commuters. ESI provided market opportunity analysis, accompanied by numerous pro forma analyses, to determine feasibility of various types of private development within designated nodes of interest.
ESI employed quantitative market analysis to assess economic and real estate development conditions along the Rhode Island Avenue NE corridor. The methodology included a detailed real estate market assessment inventorying existing commercial, residential, and institutional properties using CoStar data and DC Open Data CAMA records; pro forma financial modeling for four building typologies across three catalytic nodes to evaluate development feasibility; and retail capacity modeling to estimate supportable retail square footage based on household spending patterns and local capture rates.
The study revealed that Rhode Island Avenue NE is well-positioned for near-term residential development. The retail market analysis identified three distinct customer bases serving the corridor—local residents, destination visitors from DC and Prince George’s County, and commuters primarily from Maryland. The pro forma analysis revealed that large mixed-use developments face significant financial challenges due to high structured parking costs and ground-floor retail requirements, while reducing parking minimums and providing flexible, convertible ground-floor space can substantially improve project viability. The study also documented an emerging arts and cultural cluster between 20th and 24th Streets NE, providing the Office of Planning with evidence-based recommendations for land use policy decisions including where ground-floor retail should be mandated, strategies to support creative uses and small-scale manufacturing, optimal locations for missing middle residential development, and approaches to leverage anchor institutions for corridor revitalization.