WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal office district south of the National Mall in Washington could be remade into three distinct neighborhoods under a master plan now taking shape at the National Capital Planning Commission.
Diane Sullivan, the commission’s acting executive director, outlined the early thinking Thursday at a downtown development event put on by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration. She said the 230-acre area is too big to become a single neighborhood and that a first version of the plan should be public in the first half of 2027.
The draft map splits the corridor three ways. The Tidal Basin Quarter on the west end would lean heavily residential, where office-to-apartment conversions are already underway at the Portals complex. A 10th Street cultural and entertainment district in the middle would gather museums, and a Capitol Triangle on the east end would cluster federal agencies nearer the Capitol.
Sullivan listed three guiding ideas: bring back the original L’Enfant street grid in place of the urban renewal layout, stretch the park network from the Washington Monument down to the Wharf, and build real neighborhoods.
The commission is working with the General Services Administration and the District on the effort, as the federal government shrinks its footprint and sheds buildings it no longer needs. The agency has already studied the Energy Department’s James V. Forrestal complex as a gateway linking the Mall to the Southwest Waterfront, and federal workers are moving out of that building now.
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