The old Way of the Cross Church of Christ on Capitol Hill has been under construction for about a year. The Rubin Group led a development team that bought the 119-year-old building from the Pentecostal church when its congregants sought a location with more space for parking in Prince George’s County. The project, called The Sanctuary, is not the only church-conversion underway in the District: A vacant church at 13th and H streets, NE, for instance, is slated to become nine condos, and the Rubin Group is actually working on a second one in Southeast DC. But opportunities to repurpose a church with such historic architecture don’t come around often.
Anyone who’s meandered the streets around Stanton Park is surely familiar with the dramatic building occupying the corner of 9th and D streets, NE, with a bell tower that dwarfs the surrounding rowhouses. Bonstra Haresign architects was tapped to help transform it into 3o condos, including townhouse-style units in two adjoining 19th century houses that the church used as office space. The church itself has been divided into units ranging from small one-bedrooms in the $300,000s, to a massive penthouse that will list for $1.7 million. Original brick, woodwork, stained-glass windows, chandeliers, and even pews are getting incorporated into the modern design.
Andrew Rubin, principal of the Rubin Group, gave us a sneak peak inside the construction zone. Several of the units have already pre-sold; Rubin expects the building will be ready for occupants come fall.
Marisa M. Kashino joined Washingtonian in 2009 as a staff writer, and became a senior editor in 2014. She was previously a reporter for Legal Times and the National Law Journal. She has recently written about the Marriott family’s civil war and the 50-year rebirth of 14th Street, and reported the definitive oral history of the Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt case. She lives in Northeast DC with her husband, two dogs, and two cats.
