Planners elevated public space, often an afterthought, to the defining element of Columbia Heights

A historic, ethnically and socially diverse neighborhood left in near ruin by the 1968 riots, Columbia Heights today shines as a lively and accessible place to live, work, shop and play. The community benefits tremendously from the Green Line metro station that opened in 1999, as well as bus and bicycle routes.

Yet, even with the cachet that has accompanied the redevelopment of what is now clearly a hip neighborhood, Columbia Heights serves as a model for providing affordable housing, filling a need that is often overlooked in similar projects.

Columbia Heights’ integration of housing, retail, offices and the arts creates a solid foundation for a vibrant community, one made even more interesting and diverse thanks to a blend of national and local retailers and affordable and market-rate dwellings. This mix of uses provides people with places to go on foot, but additional design features elevate Columbia Heights from a series of mixed-use development projects near a metro station to a remarkable, cohesive urban space.

Recognizing the opportunity to capitalize on the newly opened Columbia Heights metro station​ with new transit-oriented development, the Washington, D.C., Office of Planning (DCOP) worked in partnership with the Department of Transportation, Office of Economic Development, National Capital Revitalization Corporation, Arts and Humanities Commission, artists and an advisory committee to craft the 2004 Columbia Heights Public Realm Framework Plan. With this plan, DCOP elevated public space, often an afterthought, to the defining element of Columbia Heights. As a result, the public space today serves as the heart of the community, creates value for surrounding real estate, provides an amenity for the residents and has become an economic driver that invites people to patronize nearby businesses.

Columbia Heights boasts two well-defined and popular public plazas, as well as wide sidewalks lined by shops and restaurants. Even subtle details, like the way the building façades provide a distinct edge to the street, make a huge difference in how people experience the space. In Columbia Heights, the plazas feel more like fun outdoor rooms than empty voids. When people care about a place, as many Columbia Heights residents, business owners, employees and visitors do, they help keep it safe and clean, contributing to a sense of pride in the community.

Columbia Heights big box retailers have gone vertical with structured parking invisible to the streetscape

In many transit-oriented developments, accommodating parking and large retailers often poses a challenge. Parking and large footprint buildings, unless lined by smaller storefronts, can interrupt the urban fabric with blank walls and single purpose uses, making it less likely that people will walk – and, therefore, use transit. While Columbia Heights accommodates big box stores and plenty of parking (though at a ratio less than typically required by national retailers), it does so without sacrificing its cool urban ambiance and walkability. People who arrive by car park underground or in garages hidden behind buildings, and retailers have fit their big box stores into multiple stories.

Since 2000, developers have built hundreds of apartments and condominiums, hundreds of thousands of square feet of retail and office space, and restored a historic theater. The new development, despite having a density greater than the surrounding historic neighborhoods, blends in well with its surroundings in part due to the human scale and massing of the buildings and in part to the buildings’ timeless architecture, which takes its cues from historic buildings in the neighborhood.