Gables Union Market is located in the heart of the Union Market District, adjacent to the district’s centerpiece, Union Market. The neighborhood has a unique character in in the city of Washington DC, having operated as a rugged and bustling wholesale market district for much of the past century. In recent years, it has undergone deliberate re-development which retains the use, texture and vitality of the historic district, while carefully adding density and integrating a wide variety of new uses. The careful blend of old and new preserves the neighborhood’s authenticity, while expanding its diverse and vital character. G.U.M. takes this rich cultural and physical texture as its starting point. Bound to the existing Union Market by a common alley/ plaza, the ground floor of the new project is primarily retail that fronts on the entire plaza to the south as well as both 5th and 6th streets to the west and east. Access to the underground parking and service is located on the narrow 6th street edge, while the residential lobby is located on the 5th street edge, an active market and retail street.

The massing of the building is broken into two primary components: a masonry mass that nods to the existing historic architecture through its light-colored brick architecture, and a floating volume clad in a dark metal, evoking the metal sheds, dock doors and transportation elements that live within and alongside the masonry facades of the district. The lighter metal volume floats above the masonry retail base to create generous outdoor terraces related to residential amenities such as shared workspace and units at this level, contributing to the active street and plaza, as well as relating to the scale and use of the occupied rooftops that have come to be a signature feature of the historic market buildings in the adjacent blocks.

The high-rise residential tower creates a shallow courtyard to the north and has a generous program of indoor and outdoor amenities on the roof that include maker space, a morning room, as well as fitness, pet, pool and clubroom uses.

The project’s architectural design and detailing are a contemporary interpretation of Union Market’s gritty mercantile heritage. The façades of the building recall the geometry, materiality, and texture of the warehouses emblematic of the Union Market District, and interpret them with a creative application of modern massing, materials and articulation to create a signature new identity for this central square of the burgeoning neighborhood.

Details:
300 units
22,700 sf of Retail Space
279 Parking Spaces
144 Bicycle Spaces