20 Mass

Massachusetts Avenue has been a prominent piece of Washington, D.C.’s city landscape since the conception of the nation’s capital urban masterplan.

The RMR Group commissioned LEO A DALY to reinvent and redevelop the site into an innovative, urban mixed-use development. The revitalized building will be demolished to the structure and will maximize the site’s floor-area-ratio by adding two floors and a penthouse, expand the footprint of the overall building and completely rehaul the exterior and ground plane. The new development, called 20 Mass, will combine ground-floor retail and restaurants to create a vibrant streetscape with an inviting entrance and pedestrian experience, a four-star hotel and Class-A office space with shared amenities between users, a penthouse ballroom and executive suite, and an extensive green roof.

The architecture will carefully balance the functional hierarchy of the vertically stacked building uses, respectively retail, hotel and office. By utilizing sculptural massing clarity, the design enhances signature historic views along Massachusetts Avenue and respective views from Union Station to the southwest and west.