Luxury Comes to 14th and U

Twenty years ago, you'd be hard pressed to find developers willing to take a risk building along the 14th or U Street corridors. Yesterday, a ultra-high-end project got underway.

At the corner of 14th and U, we snapped brothers Barry and Sia Madani of Madison Investments with Hoar Construction's Mike Sloan. The group had just broken ground on Elysium Fourteen, a 56-unit luxury apartment building around the corner. Sia and Barry believe both the 14th and U Street Corridors are ready for luxury residential, which is why they're going all out with the finishes at Elysium, including large unit sizes (average of 750 SF) and real-time public transit monitors in the lobby. (Nothing says "I'm luxurious" like not running after a train.) They'll go for LEED cert when construction wraps in late 2015.

Here's the PGN Architects design of Elysium. Madison will construct the building around and over two older buildings that'll be renovated and restored. Those buildings will also be part of Elysium's ground-floor retail mix, and Sia tells us Madison is in discussions with "a fantastic international tenant" to take most of that space. Though the Elysium units will be high-end, amenities will not be plentiful because Madison believes the neighborhood is an amenity unto itself. You might know Madison from its other boutique residential projects like Trevelyan House in Columbia Heights and 1020 Monroe on 11th Street.

It's Madison's biggest project to date and Hoar's first project in the District. And residents won't have to go far to get what they need—across the street is a Trader Joe's on the ground floor of the Louis at 14th apartment building (on the right). Sia tells us nearby apartment projects like Louis and The District raise the bar for Elysium. Oh, and we asked Barry what the name Elysium was all about, and he says it's about keeping the residents happy: "It means a state or place of ideal happiness."