COLUMBIA HEIGHTS

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REAL ESTATE

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    As of September 30, 2008, 105 single-family homes were for sale in Columbia Heights with 31 homes under contract. In the third quarter of 2008, 40 homes were sold.

     In the first half of 2008, 49 single-family homes sold in Columbia Heights. In 2007, there were 195 sales, while 201 homes sold in 2006. The average sale price in the first half of 2008 was $360,617. This compares to $499,504 and $498,019 in 2007 and 2006, respectively. The average list price was $369,559 in the first half of 2008, $513,195 in 2007, and $509,439 in 2006. Listed below are the sales by price range.

    The number of condominiums and cooperatives that sold in the third quarter of 2008 totaled 39, with 35 under contract. There were 88 condos and coops for sale as of September 30, 2008. For the first half of 2008, 66 condos/coops sold, 174 for the year 2007, and 182 in 2006. The average sales price was $311,263 in the first half of 2008, $366,159 in 2007, and $373,100 in 2006.

     Many of the homes built in Columbia Heights during the first building boom of the 1880s are still standing. Rows and rows of Victorian two- and three-storied townhouses with varying architectural ornamentation fill the streets of Columbia Heights. These homes and recently constructed condominiums are largely being purchased by new residents to the neighborhood.

     The popularity of Columbia Heights zoomed earlier in the decade. Owners of rental units were offered cash payments between $10,000 and $15,000 to make way for more condominiums.

HIGHLIGHTS

     Using the current vernacular, Columbia Heights was hot earlier in the decade but has slowed over the last few years.  Revitalization of Columbia Heights has been particularly noticeable on 14th Street near Park Road and Irving Street, the location of the Columbia Heights Metro station. The Columbia Heights Community Marketplace is held on Saturdays between May and October at 14th and Irving Streets. The Tivoli Theater, which closed in the late 1970s, is one of Washington's few grand movie houses still standing. It has reopened as the GALA Hispanic Theatre, retails shops, and 40 condominiums. It, too, is located on 14th Street which is home to small shops and nonprofits which created new housing, renovated housing, and recreational facilities. Columbia Heights' commercial district which was devastated during the riots of 1968 is making a significant comeback. A large retail center includes the city's first Target store, a Marshalls,  Bed Bath and Beyond,  Washington Sports Club gym which will include an indoor pool and basketball court, and several other national retail stores.

     Over 30,000 live in Columbia Heights. The community's amenities are diverse and plentiful, especially schools and churches. Part of the campus of Howard University lies within Columbia Heights. Two multicultural schools, Bell Multicultural and Lincoln Middle School, are located in the neighborhood along with Tubman, Meyer, Bruce, and Raymond Elementary Schools, and Cardozo Senior School. Public charter schools include Capital City, E. L. Haynes, and Meridian which are preschool to kindergarten, the Howard University Public Charter Middle School of Mathematics and Science (MS)2, and the high schools of Carlos Rosario International and Youth Build Public Charter School. The Little Flower Montessori School is located on 16th Street. There are innumerable churches, particularly on 16th Street, gaining it the moniker, "Avenue of Churches." ."

     Meridian Hill Park, also known as Malcolm X Park, is a French/Italian formal garden with fountains, pools, and statuary. The park has been restored in recent years by a cooperative effort from the neighborhood organization, Friends of Meridian Hill, and the National Park Service. Lincoln Field was replaced by a local landscape firm and is utilized by neighborhood soccer teams.  The Girard and Banneker recreation centers with swimming pool and tennis courts are also in Columbia Heights.

HISTORY

     Columbia Heights was part of the Pleasant Plains estate owned by Robert Peter in the mid 1700s (see history of Mount Pleasant). When the city of Washington was laid out in the 1790s, Columbia Heights was heavily wooded. Areas that were not swampland were designated farmland until the late 19th Century with the northern section remaining agricultural until World War I. John Holmead, the son of Anthony Holmead (see history of Kalorama), owned 46 acres west of 14th Street that stretched from Florida Avenue on the south to Columbia Road to the north. His mansion was called Meridian Hill. (The name "Meridian" came from an ill-fated meridian surveyed from the White House up 16th Street which was to mark the zero meridian for American navigation after the burning of Washington by the British.) In the 1820s, the site of John Holmead's home became the location of Columbia College, the predecessor of George Washington University.  His son, John, inherited the estate and built Holmead Manor, known for horse racing and gambling after the turn of the century. Until 1840 the Jockey Club had its famous racetrack at 14th and Irving Streets. 

     During the Civil War, Union soldiers camped along 14th Street, and Mount Pleasant Army Hospital was situated where the Tivoli Theatre building now stands. After the Civil War, the Holmeads began to sell their land as did Columbia College. The college's land was divided into three plots. Streets were named for scholars, colleges, and universities, and some of them, for instance, Harvard, still exist. Mrs. Mary D. Biddle of Philadelphia bought the north plot for just over $49,000. William Dunn bought the central plot for $87,500. William Hill bought the Dunn's plot three weeks later for over $142,000. 42,000.

    Much of the development in the neighborhood began in the 1880s.  Ohio Senator John Sherman built the first large development between Florida Avenue and Park Road and between 11th and 14th Streets, calling it Columbian Heights. His associate, Amzi L. Barber, built a Queen Anne mansion he named Belmont above Florida Avenue between 13th and 14th Street. Sherman included legal covenants to control development and prohibited the erection of commercial buildings or a commercial business district in his community. 

     At the turn of the century, a few citizens in the burgeoning neighborhood began to seek a weighty prestige for their community. For thirty years Meridian Hill Park was the home of the American Baptist Home Missionary Society which trained black clergy and teachers, and it remained until 1900 when the buildings were razed by Mrs. John Henderson, wife of the Missouri senator who drafted the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Mrs. Henderson wanted to make 16th Street and the area around her mansion, Henderson Castle, the Avenue of the Presidents and a new embassy row. The Columbia Heights Citizens Association failed in their effort to convince the government to purchase a site between Florida Avenue and Clifton Street for a new Executive Mansion.

     Harry Wardman, the famous Washington builder, erected 300 Colonial revival homes in the former Holmead Manor grounds between 1909 and 1911. He bought Barber's Belmont mansion in 1913, and while he assisted in a neighborhood effort to save the mansion, the house was demolished in 1914. The Wardman Court apartment project replaced the mansion. The four street car lines that served the area to downtown by 1914 increased the neighborhood's desirability for upper level government workers, Supreme Court justices, and military officers, and saw the construction of several large apartment buildings.  In 1923, the Mount Pleasant Citizens' Association named 16th Street as its eastern boundary, and at the same time Columbia Heights claimed 16th Street as its western boundary. In the 1950s, the name Cardozo was designated to the area to honor the African-American educator Francis K. Cardozo.

ADJACENT NEIGHBORHOODS

NEIGHBORHOOD BOUNDARIES

NEIGHBORHOOD LINKS

Columbia Heights
Development Corporation of Columbia Heights

Map of Columbia Heights

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