Town Square Tower

Southwest Waterfront is the residential heart of Southwest DC: the area south of I-395 between the Washington Channel and South Capitol Street, reaching down to Fort McNair and the Anacostia. It is one of the city’s most distinctive neighborhoods, rebuilt almost entirely during urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s and then transformed again by The Wharf.

The housing is a textbook of mid-century modernism. River Park (1962), designed by Charles Goodman, Tiber Island (1965), and Harbour Square pair high-rise buildings with low townhouses around landscaped courts, and many of them are cooperatives. Potomac Place Tower (1959) at 800 4th Street SW and Town Square Tower (1967) at 700 7th Street SW are among the larger condominiums, and newer buildings at The Wharf, such as Amaris (2022), add contemporary options on the water. A few 18th-century houses, including Wheat Row (1793), survive among them.

The Wharf, which opened its first phase in 2017, lines the Washington Channel with restaurants, music venues, piers, and a marina, alongside the long-running Maine Avenue Fish Market. Arena Stage anchors the arts scene, a Safeway sits at Waterfront Station, and the rebuilt Southwest Library opened in 2021. Parks and green courtyards run through most of the residential superblocks.

Waterfront station on the Green Line opened in 1991 at 4th and M Streets, and L’Enfant Plaza, with five Metro lines and VRE, is a short walk north. Water taxis from The Wharf connect to Georgetown, Old Town Alexandria, and National Harbor.

I enjoy showing Southwest Waterfront because it offers architect-designed mid-century homes, often at lower prices per square foot than nearby neighborhoods, with the river and The Wharf at the doorstep.