MLK Gateway II

MLK Gateway II is a 5-story Core & Shell building with office and retail spaces. The public-private partnership behind this project aimed to transform the neighborhood to serve as a center of commerce for the Historic Anacostia area. This project, spearheaded by the developer Menkiti Group and designed by STUDIOS Architecture, will support the local economy by fostering job creation and investment opportunities in a part of Washington, D.C. that has experienced decades of disinvestment. Preservation of the existing historic building maintains a connection to the neighborhood's past while looking to the future by providing new economic opportunities and job prospects. The project team’s triple bottom line approach demonstrates that green building design can simultaneously achieve positive social and economic impact.

The key goals for MLK Gateway II included preserving the existing historic building to blend with the local cityscape, reducing the total carbon footprint, adopting a comprehensive stormwater management strategy, reducing the heat island effect, and optimizing indoor air quality. For the first goal, the team committed to preserving the existing building to maintain its visual representation "Gateway" from downtown D.C. into the historic Anacostia neighborhood, while incorporating modern and sustainable design features to mitigate environmental impact and meet the needs of the future building occupants. The team devised innovative strategies around the unique site characteristics, such as irregularly shaped parcels and restrictive property lines, to achieve the sustainability goals for this project.

Thoughtful design resulted in a building with impressive sustainability features and performance. Project highlights and key sustainability features include:

• Historic building reuse
• On-site rainwater management that exceeds the 90th-percentile storm event using green roof and cisterns
• Heat island reduction through highly reflective pavers and roofing system
• 100% outdoor water use reduction by incorporating native & drought-tolerant plants, no irrigation strategy, and rainwater cisterns
• 37% indoor water use reduction by incorporating low-flow, WaterSense-labeled plumbing fixtures
• 8.3% energy cost reduction by utilizing highly efficient HVAC and lighting systems
• Low-impact refrigerants
• Brownfield remediation of previously contaminated soil on-site
• Incorporation of building materials with low-emitting certificates and transparency documentation

 

The MLK Gateway II project is important to the community because it created a new space for commercial and retail businesses. Building tenants include D.C.'s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), which has selected this space as their new headquarters; Grounded, a local plant shop, cafe, and wellness center; and Keller Williams Capital Properties (KWCP) Office which will establish a training center for local residents interested in real estate career opportunities. These businesses will increase foot traffic and create new job opportunities, boosting the local economy.

Additionally, this project is significant to the community because it signals to other developers and businesses that there is a strong appetite for economic revitalization in Ward 8. This will have a positive effect on the local economy, which will begin to see more development in the coming years thanks to the success of this project. This project demonstrated the success of a triple bottom line approach, reaffirming that establishing a goal of creating lasting, positive social impact can happen simultaneously while creating economic impact.