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The Westerly is a landmark building providing better than market quality for a mixed-use, mixed-income, affordable housing development program in the heart of the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington DC. As a vibrant transit oriented development (TOD), the Westerly is located one block from Waterfront Station on the Metro’s Green Line and is the latest component of the District’s Waterfront Station Planned Unit Development (PUD). That PUD delivers the urban repair of the Urban Renewal era Waterside Mall development of the 1960’s and includes mixed-use municipal office, a large format grocer (Safeway), neighborhood scale retail, and mixed-income residential. 

The Westerly inhabits, shapes, and defines a unique urban site.  The geometry of the building responds to the predominant grid of the District’s Southwest quadrant and to the shifted alignment of 4th Street SW, a two-sided public retail street  To the north, a private drive creates a mid-block, east-west connection linking to the existing church to the north.  This private drive is designed as a woonerf, a shared space for pedestrians and cars that does not give primacy to the automobile but fosters a safe and secure mix of cars and people when vehicle access is necessary and can otherwise be closed off to create a purely pedestrian experience.  The retail program includes an exciting all-day restaurant concept at the corner of 4th and the pedestrian walkway.  The main residential entrance and early education center with playground also face the pedestrian walkway. AppleTree Public Charter School is a pre-kindergarten education staple of the Southwest neighborhood and a dedicated cultural space for the Westerly and the community. The play area serves the pre-school during school hours, while outside of school hours it is accessible to children from the larger community. These programming elements activate the urban public spaces and provide a seamless pedestrian experience for the mid-block connection and 4th Street.   Loading and parking are collected at the west, next to an already active loading zone for the building to the south, keeping the pedestrian and retail experience intact and clear of vehicular conflict.

The Westerly is a true TOD, mixed-use, mixed-income, mixed-finance affordable housing building of the highest quality.

Learning Objectives: 

• Describe the unique attributes of the urban site of the building and how it responds to the grid of DC's Southwest quadrant as well as the shifted alignment of 4th Street SW.
• Identify the effects of the Urban Renewal era on the Waterside Mall development of the 1960’s and efforts to repair damage from that era.
• Analyze the programming elements that activate the urban space and design decisions that impact the pedestrian experience and contribute to the well being of the community.
• Explore the use of balconies as a principal element of the Project’s architecture, function, and post-pandemic marketability.

Presented by:

Sarah Alexander
Senior Principal
Torti Gallas + Partners

Nesli Dogrusoz
Associate Principal
Torti Gallas + Partners