Washington DC is full of obsolete government buildings. See how one is being transformed into hundreds of luxury apartments.
In December, the first residents will move into a rental complex built out of a former federal structure used to inspect cotton in the 1950s and '60s.
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GSA, Courtesy of Annex on 12th
- Washington, DC, leads the nation in office-to-apartment conversions, with 5,820 planned for 2024.
- The Cotton Annex, a landmarked federal building, is one of the latest to be transformed.
- It is now a luxury rental building called Annex on 12th, and residents move in next month. Take a look.
Washington DC leads the US in planned office-to-apartment conversion, with 5,820 developments planned in 2024 — an 88% increase over the previous year, according to apartment-search website RentCafe.
The Cotton Annex building, built in 1937 just half a mile from the Washington Monument, is one of them. Its original and only tenant, the US Department of Agriculture, left the building in the early 2000s.
The US government has an independent agency, the Public Buildings Reform Board, that sells valuable but underutilized buildings, like the Cotton Annex. "The status quo of nearly empty federal buildings is not financially or politically sustainable," the board wrote in a March 24 report to Congress.
The government auctioned off the Cotton Annex in 2017. In 2021, developer Carmel Partners bought it from that buyer for $45 million. Now, after a three-year renovation that converted the space into 562 residential units starting at $1,637 a month in rent, it's a place Washingtonians can call home.
The revamped building, called Annex on 12th, has the amenities typical for a luxury rental, like a rooftop lounge and a dedicated yoga space and spin studio. It also reinvented some features of the original building for a modern audience: The building's residents-only speakeasy features the original skylight once used to inspect cotton.
Read on to see how the Cotton Annex was built and how it's being transformed.
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The building is less than a mile away from the National Mall in Washington DC.
The federal building was designed by Louis A. Simon, an American architect who was, at the time, the supervising architect of the Department of the Treasury.
Library of Congress, 1936-1940
After World War I, the US created the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, to create more jobs for Americans. This created more construction jobs, so federal buildings, national parks, and bridges could be built quickly.
Library of Congress, 1936-1940
"Ultimately, with the US ramping up to enter World War II, all federal construction in DC really shifted only toward the Pentagon — which was also rapidly, rapidly built," Kim Daileader, the director of technical preservation services at EHT Traceries, a firm that specializes in history and historic preservation and consulted with developers on the Cotton Annex conversion, told Business Insider.
Patrick Donovan/Getty Images
After WWII, cotton production expanded across the US, and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics needed to standardize it.
"The building was used to test cotton and collect samples from all over the south of who was producing cotton," Daileader said. "Then they used means and methods in order to stabilize pricing, which helped the economy, and ultimately, they were influential internationally in the cotton exchange and economy across the world."
DC Preservation
According to Daileader, the tobacco division that replaced cotton moved most of its operations to North Carolina. The Cotton Annex building was mainly used to temporarily house other USDA employees while their offices were being renovated.
"Once they finished the renovations of those buildings, the office space was really no longer needed by the General Services Administration," Daileader said.
There were offices and laboratories in the building as well, but those had been altered by the 1980s.
DC Preservation
It officially sold in 2017 for about $30 million to DC-based development firm Douglas Development Corp.
Annex on 12th
The developers of Annex on the 12th added a new building beside the Cotton Annex building, completing the original plan of a doughnut shape.
The lower part of the new 13-story building mirrors the facade of the original building, with vertical columns of windows.
Annex on 12th
There are 562 residential units ranging from studios to two-bedroom units starting at $1,637 and going up to $4,617, according to the building's website.
Annex on 12th
The courtyard has seating around a fire pit and a BBQ grill.
Annex on 12th
For example, residents have access to a private media lounge with a kitchen.
Annex on 12th
There are three different "finishing schemes," according to the website, with different appliance packages, countertops, and more.
Annex on 12th
Other amenities include a coworking lounge with conference rooms.
Annex on 12th
"The skylight on the sixth floor is a significant piece of the architecture because it was designed specifically for the inspection of cotton," Daileader said. "And there are also large windows on the fifth floor where the cotton laboratories used to be, which was also an intentional design feature."
Annex on 12th
"Carmel really went with what we call contemporary but compatible, taking design keys and elements from the historic building and incorporating them in a compatible, contemporary way on the new construction," Daileader said.
