Details are still hazy, but a developer confirms that another live-work concept is coming to Northern Virginia soon.
Robert Seldin, CEO of Novus Residences, a subsidiary of Cafritz Interests, couldn't share much about the
company's "E-lofts" concept, other than that "it is a proprietary live-work concept that we are in the process of creating and looking to roll out here...in Alexandria, in other places in the D.C. area, and around the country."
Live-work spaces have been receiving tremendous interest in the D.C. area ever since Vornado and coworking space
WeWork announced plans for "WeLive," a 12-story "micro-unit" apartment building at 2221 S Clark Street in Crystal City, currently a vacant office building. Ten of the floors would contain 216 residential units,
many 360 square feet or less, with shared living and kitchen spaces (the individual units won't have stoves or ovens). Two of the 12 floors would be coworking spaces, for the world's shortest commute.
Arlington County has yet to approve the WeLive building (it approved a previous version of the project, which offered 12 floors of micro-apartments without any office space,
in 2014), which could happen as soon as July. It may be the first WeLive in the nation.
Meanwhile, Novus is working on its own concept which, as we say, details are still spotty on, though Seldin confirmed that the company is looking at Alexandria for its project. The developer describes E-lofts on its website this way:
E-Lofts brings new life to abandoned office spaces, creating a one-of-a-kind live/work community that offers modern and spacious workshop-apartments brimming with intelligently shared amenities and services. Completely flexible in design and use, you can create a place to simply live, a place to simply work, or a place where living and working seamlessly coexist. In a world where the line between business and leisure has become blurred, E-Lofts creates the perfect work-life balance.
"We're very excited about it and we think it will be very cool," Seldin says.
More information on this development as it comes in.