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Exterior of the building that now contains
e-lofts in Alexandria.
Photo © David Madison Photography
Project: e-lofts,
4501 Ford Avenue, Alexandria, VA
Architects: Lord, Aeck & Sargent, Inc.
Interior Designers/Visioning: Gensler
Corridor Designers: Carlyn and Company Interiors + Design
Landscape Architects: Landworks Studio
Structural Engineers: Ellinwood + Machado
Mechanical/Plumbing Engineers: Hurst Engineers
Electrical Engineers: Cherry Lane
Civil Engineers: VIKA
Fire Protection Consultants: Freedom Fire Protection
Contractor: Paradigm Contractors
e-lofts in Alexandria
Washington isn’t the only local jurisdiction facing a problem
of vacant office buildings—as of mid-2016, about 150
buildings in Northern Virginia had vacancies of at least
50,000 square feet each. Searching for ways to make better
use of these buildings, two local developers—Conrad
Cafritz, the chairman and chief executive of Cafritz
Interests, and Robert Seldin, CEO of Novus Residences,
a subsidiary of Cafritz Interests—decided to convert a
vacant office building in Alexandria into a new kind of live/
work structure, dubbed e-lofts, that consists of flexible-use
units that can be furnished and used as either apartment
residences, office spaces, or combination live/work
spaces, as renters may desire.
The 12-story building, located at 4501 Ford Avenue,
near Shirlington and the King Street exit off Interstate
395, is a glass-box office building originally built in 1987.
A persistently soft market for office space had kept it
vacant since 2008.
To design the conversion, Cafritz engaged Lord
Aeck Sargent (LAS), an Atlanta-based architecture and
design firm with five other U.S. locations, including a
Washington-area office at Tysons Corner, and Gensler, an
architecture, design, planning and consulting firm with
45 locations in the United States and other countries,
including an office in downtown Washington.
“Lord Aeck Sargent has specialized in renovating
and converting buildings since our firm was founded
more than 70 years ago,” said Warren L. Williams, AIA,
director of LAS’s DC office and the principal in charge of
the e-lofts project. “However, as far as we know, e-lofts is
a completely new concept and the first of its kind.”
In contrast to the Leo and Lex project, the conversion
of Ford Avenue building left the building’s exterior
unchanged. “The existing commercial building didn’t
have operable windows, which isn’t a big deal if the user
is a business,” said Joanna Ha Yean Shin, a designer at
Gensler who was involved throughout the project. “But
in order to be conscious of the intended new residents,
we collaborated early in the project with the client and
the mechanical team to introduce greater fresh air intake
that is then pumped throughout the building.”
On the inside, only the building’s stairs, common-use
bathrooms, and elevator banks were retained. Snaking
the new plumbing lines that were needed to support 200
units with kitchens and bathrooms around steel reinforcing
bars and tensioned cables in the concrete slabs was a major
challenge. Ground-penetrating radar technology helped
find safe locations for drilling more than 3,400 holes.
The building now includes a mix of one- and two-
bedroom units ranging in size from 632 square feet to
1,150 square feet. They are designed to appeal to childless
couples, people who work at home, and small businesses.
(Research showed that about three-quarters of U.S.
businesses have 10 or fewer people and can be housed in
about 1,000 square feet.) Raw concrete ceilings and
structural columns and exposed overhead air conduits
give the units an industrial loft feel.
CONVERTIBLE LIVING 85