Demolition Marks Turning Point for Decommissioned Hospital Site
Former Walter Reed Army Medical Center will be replaced by mixed-use development
Six years after treating its last patients, the former Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., is on the verge of demolition to make way for a new 3.1-million sq ft mixed-use development.
Early next year, NorthStar Contracting Group, Baltimore, is scheduled to begin the year-long process of demolishing the 2.7 million sq ft hospital complex, the operations of which were consolidated with the National Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Md., under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure program.
In its place, a joint venture of Hines, Urban Atlantic, and Triden will begin a 10- to 15-year development program for 66 acres of the site, to be called Parks at Walter Reed. The first element to be built, beginning in 2019, will be a 360,000-sq ft building with 300 residential units and 60,000 sq ft of retail, constructed atop the former hospital's parking garage. Subsequent construction phases call for additional residential units, retail and office space, medical facilities to be managed by Howard University Hospital, and a 200-room hotel and conference center.
The District of Columbia, which acquired the property following the hospital's closure, selected the Hines/Urban Atlantic/Triden joint venture in 2013 to lead the redevelopment program following a competitive bid process.
Several smaller buildings at the former hospital's 110-acre campus have been retained for other uses. DC-based Children's National Health System will covert a 348,000-sq ft former laboratory into a new research facility, while a three-story, 170,000-sq ft 1970s-era building is being converted into residential units for homeless veterans.
