Georgetown Park was a shopping mall and condominium complex in the Georgetown historic district of Washington, D.C. The Shops at Georgetown Park are located at 3222 M Street, NW.HistoryThe first phase of the complex opened in 1981. Parts of the structure predate 1838 when it was used as a tobacco warehouse that opened up directly onto the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. In the 1850s, the building was purchased by John E. Reeside and Gilbert Vanderwerken and converted into stables for their omnibus line. The building continued to be used as stables for the first horsecar line, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad. It was later converted into a machine shop for streetcars. The parts of the building that face the canal and the facade of the M Street entrance remain from those earlier periods. After the demise of Washington's streetcars in 1962, the building served as the United States Defense Communications Annex E before being converted to its current use.The Shops at Georgetown ParkIn 1975, Donohue Construction Co., in partnership with Western Development Corp., acquired the historic site to develop as a combined shopping and housing complex. One engineering magazine called it the most complicated construction job on the East Coast. The project involved preserving the 100-plus year old facade on Wisconsin Avenue; building a 300-space underground parking garage into solid rock; and adding superstructure to the 10ft thick, 35ft high canal wall. Upscale features of the building included wood-floored hallways, a block-long skylight with cast-iron braces, brass and glass elevators, and hand-built oak kiosks. Construction costs came to $50 million for the retail center, $25 million for the condominiums, and $20 million for store interiors and fixtures.
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