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Who’s on F1RST?
Who’s on F1RST?

Hickok Cole, That’s Who by Ronald O’Rourke

For a mid-block site just north of Nationals Park, in the heart of the 30,000-square-foot commercial base on which they sit, but also
Washington’s booming Anacostia riverfront area, the architecture and by their similar, aluminum-toned window frames. Apart from that,
design firm Hickok Cole has designed a new mixed-use project however, the two buildings retain distinct architectural identities,
that includes a 325-unit luxury apartment building and a 170-room with the apartment building featuring balconies, strong horizontal
hotel. The adjoining towers rise up from a shared street-level lines, blue paneling, and white railings, while the hotel is free of
commercial space housing an exercise studio and a collection of balconies, composed with more vertical lines, and sheathed mostly
restaurants and fast-casual eateries. The project also includes a in beige brick.
two-level, below-grade garage with more than 200 parking spaces. In designing a new building, architects often look to the
Dubbed F1RST in reference to its location on the 1200 block surrounding context for potential design cues. For an area like the
of First Street, SE, the project is one of many recently completed Anacostia riverfront, using that approach can be complicated, since
or pending developments that are rapidly transforming this part much of the surrounding land area is vacant or under construction.
of Washington, making it reputedly the city’s fastest-growing Even so, there were at least three elements of the local context that
residential neighborhood. Fifty of the apartment building’s units Hickok Cole could work off of: the modernist aesthetic shared
are set aside for renters earning up to 80% of the area’s median by most of the area’s recently completed buildings,
income. The project has been awarded LEED Silver certification. the project’s location near the river, and the
The 13-story, 300,000-square-foot apartment building (called completed corner buildings that bookend
F1RST Residences) and the 12-story, 126,000-square-foot hotel (a the project’s mid-block site.
Residence Inn by Marriott) are tied together visually not only by

The F1RST Residences at left center and
the Residence Inn at right.

38 WHO’S ON F1RST?