A New Neighborhood Is Growing At The Old Walter Reed Army Medical Center In D.C.

by Martin Austermuhle, DCist

Earlier this summer, a surprising sound punctuated the air at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Butternut Street NW: children laughing.

The sound emanated from a new playground on the southeastern edge of the old Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the 110-acre military campus that closed its doors a decade ago and moved operations to Bethesda. Now, after years of significant demolition and construction, a 66-acre portion of the campus is slowly coming to life as a mixed-used development emerges.

Known as The Parks at Walter Reed, the project is turning the once-cloistered site into a neighborhood for thousands of residents. A large part of the campus — which D.C. acquired from the federal government for $22 million in 2016 — was opened to the public last year for the first time in decades. Three residential buildings have been finished so far: The Brooks, an 89-unit condo building, opened earlier this year and now 60% sold, while The Vale, a neighboring apartment building with 301 units, is starting to lease up this month; a separate building was converted in 2019 to 77 units of housing for veterans experiencing homelessness.

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