Chris Donatelli, a DC real estate developer, dead at 58

Park Place, Petworth.  I do think the Metro entrance could have been better integrated, or paired with a cafe and the space could have been utilized also to provide high quality secure bicyclye parking.  

All in all, it's a nice looking building that brought new residents and other developments to the area, helping to stabilize a somewhat still lagging community--covid hurt badly, with work from home, people didn't walk to and from the Metro to work.  

And those walks to transit fostered the development of new businesses that the new residents patronized or created.  But covid crushed many.  And the Georgia Avenue Metro Station there continues to be a center for crime and nuisance problems.  Maybe if the site would have been developed a little better--embedding the station in the drug store that had been there instead of tearing it down, there would have been a different outcome.

Park Place was built by Chris Donatelli ("Chris Donatelli, whose real estate projects reshaped D.C., dies at 58," Washington Post).

Ellington Apartments on U Street were built on what had been Metrorail owned property.  I think it was one of the earliest transit agency's "joint development" projects.  

It's noteworthy because it was open the year after the agreement.  

I know of one project site owned by WMATA that's had a development agreement since 2000, and is still undeveloped.

There are lots of developers in DC.  I never met him or dealt with projects by Chris Donatelli of Donatelli Development, but I always admired his work.

He stood out for two reasons.  First, he was a first mover into neighborhoods like U Street, Columbia Heights, and Petworth before more traditional financial calculations said it was profitable to do so.

Second, hHis buildings are decently designed.  

That stands out because so many developers are committed to the modern "ersatz" cookie cutter style.  They say their market research says that's the design potential tenants want.  I think that most of the tenants don't know any better.

By doing anchor projects in those neighborhoods, others were in turn attracted to building there as well, creating a critical mass of new buildings, adding significant numbers of new residents, with higher incomes, able to support more locally based retail especially at-night entertainment districts like U Street.

The Highland Park Apartments flank the north entrance to the Columbia Heights Metrorail station (and I don't know why WMATA never leased out air rights over their stations in situations like this, although it provides better views for tenants and a lot more light.  Photo by Alice Crain.

Being known for one of those results would be a big deal.  

Having done both puts him in a small set of city developers (Jemal, Donatelli, EYA, Abdo Development) that were early or second phase builders while the city suffered from the overhang of Marion Barry even though he was no longer mayor.

However, he had warts.  As covid depressed his business, he secured loans by forging the signatures of his father and ex-wife.  And the Post did an investigative story on how one of his projects in Northeast DC--another area that still lags the development energy present elsewhere in the city--received extranormally high grants and rents from city-operated programs ("How D.C. developers made big money on a taxpayer-funded housing project").

So he fell from grace.

In short Chris Donatelli and his development company was key to the city's resurgence and population growth in the period from say 1998 to 2019.  All of us who care about the city owe him a lot.