1109.1 In the NMU-5A/PAE zone, the following design requirements shall apply to a new building or addition on any lot fronting onto Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.:

(a) No part of the building, including the penthouse or rooftop structure, shall project above a plane drawn at a forty-five-degree (45°) angle from a line located twenty-five feet (25 ft.) directly above a rear property line that abuts an alley, or zone boundary line with an R or RF zone;

(b) Buildings shall be designed and built so that not less than seventy-five percent (75%) of the street wall(s) at the street level shall be constructed to the property line abutting the street right-of-way, not including permitted projections into public space;

(c) Buildings on corner lots shall be constructed to all property lines abutting public streets;

(d) Buildings shall be designed so as not to preclude a commercial entrance every forty feet (40 ft.) on average for the linear frontage of the building;

(e) Not less than fifty percent (50%) of the surface area of the street wall at the ground level of each building shall be devoted to display windows having clear or clear/low emissivity glass and to entrances to commercial uses or to the building;

(f) Security grilles shall have no less than seventy percent (70%) transparency;

(g) The ground floor level of each new building or building addition with a commercial use on the ground floor shall have a minimum clear floor-to-ceiling height of fifteen feet;

(h) The depth of new retail spaces along a building frontage shall be a minimum of fifty feet (50 ft.);

(i) Each space devoted to a designated use with frontage on Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. shall have an individual public entrance directly at grade with the public sidewalk along Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E.;

(j) On a corner lot that fronts onto both Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. and a side street, any entrance to residential portions of the building shall be located

on the side street;

(k) Vehicle parking, loading and trash collection shall be accessed from the alley where an alley of exists. Trash and recycling rooms shall be located internal to the building, and located at-grade level of the building; and

(l) Vehicle parking spaces shall be located below or at grade. If at grade, no portion of the parking shall be within twenty feet (20 ft.) of the Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. right of way and shall be screened along Pennsylvania Avenue, S.E. with designated uses.

1109.2 The Board of Zoning Adjustment may grant as a special exception pursuant to Subtitle X, Chapter 9 and Subtitle H, Chapter 52, relief from the design requirements of Subtitle H § 1109.1.

SOURCE: Final Rulemaking published at 63 DCR 2447, 2987 (March 4, 2016 – Part 2); as amended by Final Rulemaking published at 66 DCR 12137 (September 13, 2019); as amended by Final Rulemaking published at 70 DCR 011297 (August 25, 2023); as amended by Final Rulemaking published at 73 DCR 000506 (January 16, 2026).