Dear PoP – What is this Building?

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by Prince Of Petworth — July 7, 2010 at 2:30 pm 7 Comments

“Dear PoP,

I was walking by Dogs by Day the other day and there is a brick building to the right of Dogs by Day. I think the address is 1728th 14th ST NW, but I could be off +-2. The building hardly has any windows, and the few windows that it does have are long but narrow. There is also a security camera out front. There is no identification of a business or even address. Do you have any idea of what this building is? Looks kind of mysterious.”

Great question! Anyone have a clue?

Anonymous

Large, nondescript buildings like this are often a utility property like a telephone company or an electric power company property.

I’ve seen it and often wondered myself what it is, so I looked it up.

This one is indeed 1728 14th Street, NW, with 8,400 square feet of land, and faces an assessed value hike (for city real estate taxes) of over $1 million from $1,917,700 in 2010 to $2,980,900 in 2011.

Privately owned by Clark Associates of Bethesda, Maryland, they have the burden of finding revenues to pay a $60,000 real estate tax bill to the city a year.
Josh

This particular one appears to be used by/have been used by the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers. Masonry and such.
Emil

Looks like from 2000-2002 the building housed KOZMO.com for general sales but listed the details as cigarette sales. Kozmo was an online delivery service that failed. The building was constructed in 1988 and has been with the same owners for at least 10 years. Behind the metal roll down gate is a glass door.
- french streeter
  
  I couldn’t remember the name of that company – they delivered pints of ice cream and videos to your house, if I remember correctly.
  - DT
    
    on scooters no less
jcd

Thanks–I’ve long wondered what this building is, too. Given the improvement in the surroundings in the past few decades, I wish the building could be remodeled to be more welcoming to the neighborhood
IMGoph

clearly, this is post-riot construction. it should be torn down and replaced with something more appropriate for the street. it’ll happen once all the other vacant space on the street is used up.

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