Northeast corridor as a new hot spot for developers and residents.
This quote is from the Washington Business Journal (as is the picture below) in regards to the redevelopment prospects for Rhode Island Avenue NE!
What is the latest? 329 RIA is getting a face-lift.
Address not ringing a bell? Well, it is the dilapidated building that sits at the corner of RIA and 4th Street NE, across the intersection from the Sun Trust Bank near the Rhode Island Ave Metro station. You have probably driven by it a million times but it isn’t something that would catch your eye as a place you would expect a top notch condo developer to redevelop. 
PERS Development spent nearly a couple million dollars to purchase it and have plans to redevelop the building into 32-unit condos. They are describing the condos as “boutique”. This is a welcome change for this building and for the surrounding area. Along with the Rhode Island Ave Metro redevelopment and the coming Costco and Target project on the other end of RIA, we have good things to look forward to.
Here is a link to the WBJ article.
rhodeislandavene.com 
This building was recently occupied by the Urban Land Company. They had their real estate office on the ground floor and upscale condos/apartments on the higher levels. Urban Land Company has either gone out of business due to the economic downturn or greatly reduced its operations. Urban Land converted a building in Bloomingdale on RIA to an upscale condo. So, this is the 2nd attempt in the past 5 years to give 329 RIA a face-lift.
I also contacted Councilman Harry Thomas Jr.’s office on Target coming to Fort Lincoln and nobody seems to know anything about this. We’ve been waiting about 10 years for Costco and Shoppers to come to Fort Lincoln.
Not the Urban Land building. 329 RIA is the building on the other corner, which has been vacant since it burned in ’09. Nail salon on the ground floor corner. Glad to hear it is being brought back.
With all due respect, I think the photo is wrong here and on the DCMud site. UL has the building across the street. If I’m correct, 329 is the “burned” building across the street. Build on. I HATE vacant properties!
This IS the building…though it’s a side shot from 4th street. If you look closely at the bottom, you’ll notice the retail spaces where the nail salon is.
I admit, the picture seems off somehow to me, though I think it is the right building (the lower level looks familiar), I just can’t picture what angle they’re coming from. I jog by that building a few times a week and have visions of becoming a multi-million dollar developer and turning that into a great space – I’m glad someone else saw the potential. These old buildings (I live in one further up RIA) are beautiful, and renovating them rather than tearing them down is the way to go.
I think the photo contains the correct building (329 RI Ave, the one that caught fire). The photo is taken from fourth street one block south of RI Ave.
The building that had Urban Land in the ground level is occupied by residents. If you look closely, you can see that building in the right side of the picture.
This shot is from the corner of 4th street and W st. NE. It is the right building. 329 will be one of many nice additions to the community. The large apartment building development with 70,000 sf of retail recently broke ground right at the Rhode Island avenue station, whihc is about .5 miles or less up the road from 329. If you go about .5 miles up 4th street NE towards Catholic university, you will find a sign for townhomes from EYA. The first townhomes should hit the market in spring 2011.
Hopefully, someone will buy the shopping strip across 4th St from this building and get rid of the barbed wire and run down shops (except the salon which looks nice) to bridge this new condo development to the RIA station development.