From the Hilton development team.

Constructed, as it was, during an era of pedestrian-unfriendly designs and intended to flank a planned freeway, the Washington Hilton at Connecticut Avenue and Columbia Road is one of DC’s most suburban buildings. The HPO staff report writes,

The Hilton was … built at a time when concerns of automobile travel were paramount and attention to the amenities of traditional city streets and pedestrian-oriented urbanism were on the wane. The hotel floats above the created landscape of an artificial platform, seeming separate and aloof from the city around it.

The high earthen berm along T Street and Florida Avenue … rises from a substantial retaining wall along the sidewalk to the surface of the recreational terrace 20 feet above. The result is a meager and unfriendly pedestrian environment devoid of much visual interest or activity. Pedestrian access from Connecticut Avenue is similarly unwelcoming, and there is an unresolved architectural ambiguity about which entrance the unfamiliar pedestrian should aim for.

The logical solution would be to construct buildings right along the Florida Avenue and T Street edges of the Hilton, with windows and entrances along the sidewalk and perhaps a few stores or cafes nearer the commercial Connecticut Avenue end. Unfortunately, there are already levels of “underground” parking behind the berm, leaving insufficient space to build at ground level.

The existing design exploits a loophole in the zoning rules, allowing the parking above the street level but below the landscaped ground surface to be considered “underground” and thus not part of the building’s FAR or lot coverage. The parking and its covering berm even protrude beyond the property line in some places. Unfortunately, because the 40-year-old building was able to build what amounts to an above-ground parking garage obscured by some dirt and scrub growth, it’s impossible to now construct a more urbanist addition.

The Hilton’s design makes a few small advances in this area. The plan moves the swimming pool from the center of the courtyard (where the tower would go) to the southeast corner. They propose replacing the sloped berm with a windowed entrance to the health club directly off the street, surrounded by a “green wall” that will also “soften the appearance of the loading docks.”

Left: the current corner of 19th and Florida. Right: Proposed new health club entrance and

“green wall”. Click for larger versions.

The new addition will also break the berm along T Street with a pedestrian entrance to the residential building atop an existing vehicular ramp down to the garage. Unfortunately, the pedestrian-unfriendly driveway and porte-cochère along T Street will remain as is, and may even become more traffic-choked than they already are: cars will access the new apartment parking from that driveway loop, and Hilton officials say they hope to offer 100% valet parking for apartment dwellers.

100% valet parking is actually a space-saving measure, since valet parking can pack vehicles more tightly and offer the one space per unit the Hilton intends in fewer square feet. Still, for condos intended to sell for $1.2 million apiece, “floating” above the landscape, with everyone getting a parking space and valet service 24 hours a day, it’s hard not to wonder how often the residents will really use the pedestrian entrance at all.

Blue lines are pedestrian access, red lines vehicular access. Click to enlarge.

HPO staff recommend a few further improvements, writing, “Discussions with the applicant included ideas about a more sculptural, functional treatment of the berm that might be both more conducive to a livelier streetscape and provide more of a visual focal point from Connecticut Avenue.” I’m curious what specific “functional” elements they mean. Benches? Fountains?

HPO also praises the new pedestrian stairway from Connecticut Avenue (left side of the image above), but recommends modifying it to better direct pedestrians to the sidewalk instead of the middle of the driveway oval. They also suggest another driveway along the southern side of the oval.

Every edge of the Hilton’s design reflects the mid-century thought process about public space: the street level is for cars, and people should only walk from the building to their cars in the driveway. Unfortunately, this design, whether truly the only practical one or not, preserves most of that feel. The Hilton will remain an oasis of suburbia amid, above, and aloof from some of DC’s most lively, walkable, and vibrant neighborhoods.