Capitol Crossing is one of the biggest city design efforts undertaken in the nation’s capital in decades. The 2.2 million square foot complex will restore three city blocks constructed in air rights space above Interstate 395 on a cutting edge sustainable platform. This major urban design, infrastructure, and economic development project will include offices, housing and 70,000 square feet of retail in five new mixed-use buildings three blocks from the US Capitol.
SOM’s significant leadership in master-planning, PUD entitlements, infrastructure planning, and urban design will have a profound impact in helping to reshape this part of the city. When complete, Capitol Crossing will reconnect the long-separated neighborhoods surrounding Capitol Hill and Union Station. It will reinstate the urban street grid, pedestrian corridors, viewsheds, rights-of-way, and cross-city connections envisioned in the L’Enfant Plan of 1791, Washington’s seminal city planning document.
The project is designed to meet the highest standards of sustainability, much of which is made possible through features integrated into the platform. SOM’s high-performance design solution goes beyond LEED criteria by incorporating district-wide energy cogeneration, a centralized water collection and reuse system that will treat more than 90 percent of stormwater runoff, and eco-chimneys that employ biofilters to clean exhaust and other toxins from the highway and integrated parking structure, returning clean air to the environment.
