IN THE NEWS | District Dig: Giving Up The Ghost by Jeffrey Anderson

April 8, 2021 The Advoc8te

One of the District’s longest-running and scandalous housing controversies is heading towards a resolution, District Dig has learned. Through a court mediation, tenants of the 1309 Alabama Avenue Congress Heights Tenants Association, 1331-1333 Alabama Ave Congress Heights Tenants Association, and 3210 13th Street Congress Heights Tenants Association have identified a third party developer who has agreed with Geoffrey Griffis and his firm CityPartners to a purchase of three lots with four vacant brick apartment buildings near 13th Street and Alabama Avenue in Southeast, at the Congress Heights Metro Station. According to documents filed this week in D.C. Superior Court, Griffis also has agreed to assign a purchase and sale agreement with the Washington Metro Area Transit Authority that will allow the new developer to acquire three adjacent undeveloped lots that are part of a larger assemblage of parcels Griffis has labored to develop for more than a decade. A separate lot, the subject of a District Dig expose last October, at the corner of 13th and Alabama, is to be acquired from city contractor Monica Ray, a proxy for Griffis in his pursuit of a Planned Unit Development (“PUD”), which includes the lot. Griffis acquired the dilapidated apartment buildings on December 27, 2017, from his then-partner A. Carter Nowell of Sanford Capital. Soon thereafter, the tenants sued CityPartners and Sanford–which was collapsing into bankruptcy–alleging a breach of their statutory rights to purchase the buildings. Now the tenants, who have been relocated for years, have partnered with a group led by a subsidiary of Trammel Crow Company that is poised to obtain the properties. Altogether, the land acquisition the parties have agreed upon totals 82,045 square feet–not including the corner lot–across the street from The Entertainment and Sports Arena, located on the St. Elizabeths East Campus, which also is being redeveloped. The intention of the developers, according to a letter of intent dated February 11, is construction of a mixed-use, multifamily rental community with commercial office and retail space.

Jeffrey Anderson/District Dig/April 2, 2021