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When Jim Abdo was 22, he used to shower in cold water on a public beach during the dead of winter, because he didn’t have any other place to bathe. These days, at 44, he’s being showered in warm praise for developing distressed old areas of Washington into viable new neighborhoods.
Abdo, president and chief executive officer of Abdo Development, has earned rave reviews and honors for his work. In 2004, for instance, he won the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation for Bryan School Lofts, a 98-year-old schoolhouse on Capitol Hill that he converted into condos. Plus he’s been invited onto the boards of the DC Preservation League, Washington Convention Center Authority, and DC Building Industry Association. Abdo lives with his wife Mai, 34, daughter Sophie, 21 months, and son Griffin James, 3 months, in a former ambassador’s home that he renovated in Massachusetts’s Heights near Embassy Row.
Abdo has a track record of going into transitional corridors of the city, buying up assemblages of buildings and restoring them a half a block at a time. Abdo is largely credited with turning 14th Street and Logan Circle from a place for pimps, prostitutes and crack houses into the cool, cosmopolitan area that it is today.
“Since the riots of the ’60s, the importance of 14th Street was largely overlooked. It used to be a main trolley line connecting the neighborhoods to the city. It’s a major transportation corridor leading directly to the halls of power on K Street,” Abdo says, seated in the conference room in his 14th Street office. “But there weren’t enough permanent residents in this neighborhood. Apartment buildings and office buildings don’t bring change to a neighborhood. Those occupants don’t confront the crack house on the corner. We needed new resident owners with a vested interest.”
Abdo’s approach of developing clusters of buildings rather than buying a single building to stand as an island in the middle of a distressed area helps him act as a catalyst for change. He brought dramatic improvements to 14th Street, NW, and is poised to repeat his success on H Street, NE.
It Started With Pizza
Abdo, the third of four children, worked his way through The College of Wooster in Ohio and graduated in 1982.
“When I graduated, the country was in the worst recession since the Great Depression. Interest rates were 20 percent, and the national economy was quite stagnant,” he says. When Abdo went with a girlfriend to Hilton Head, SC, to visit her family, he was struck by what he found — an enclave with an economy that was moving forward. He knew he had to start there.
“I didn’t have a clue of what I was going to do, but I just needed to be in an environment where there was a thriving economy and I knew I’d figure it out.”
At the tender age of 22, a combination of being hungry and Abdo’s natural entrepreneurial skills led to success. When the sociology major couldn’t find a tasty piece of pizza on the island, he got a $10,000 loan, leased a 650-square-foot retail space, and using scrap construction material personally outfitted the space. But every cent went into the pizza shop and nothing was left for an apartment, so Abdo found himself sleeping in the back of the pizza shop and showering daily on a public beach in front of the Holiday Inn for four months one winter. His sacrifice paid off, however, as one successful Sharky’s pizza shop eventually led to four, a few built within historic buildings.
This experience boosted Abdo’s company and confidence, but he missed the diversity, culture and change of seasons that living farther north offered. So in 1991, he sold his company and headed to DC.
“Washington spoke to me. It had tremendous diversity, great culture, the perfect change of seasons, and a stock of historic distressed buildings,” says Abdo, who has built his company one brick at a time since arriving. He started with a row house that he personally renovated, followed by a four-unit condo building where he was the general contractor. After renovating one project after another, he’d reinvest and now heads a company that projects $140 million in gross revenue for 2006.
“This is the nation’s capital, one of the most important cities in the world. We need to realign people’s thinking about living in the city,” says Abdo, who is disturbed by the mindset of Americans who live in the suburbs and work in the city. “They’re driving one hour to work and one hour home. They could recapture two hours of their day living where they work while rejuvenating the urban core.”
He’s troubled by what new development in the suburbs and beyond is doing, too.
“It decimates wetlands and green space and does horrible things to our air quality.” Abdo prefers to renovate old buildings. “The key is to make sure it happens without displacement.”
Adaptive Reuse
“Many times, we take buildings that were never designed for people to live in and turn them into wonderful living spaces,” he says. “Our approach is to do something completely over the top. We design and build and do it to the nines.” He also makes sure that public transportation is easily accessible.
The Bryan School on Capitol Hill that Abdo converted into 20 luxury lofts last year is a case in point. This school had been vacant for five years before he bought the rundown building and turned it into handsome lofts. Following the Abdo philosophy, it’s located within six blocks of multiple Metro stations including Eastern Market and the RFK Metro stop. If one of the penthouse lofts were for sale, Abdo estimates it would fetch $1.6 million.
Three New Projects
Abdo expects the three big projects that are currently in his pipeline to sell on average for $550 to $600 per square foot. Some penthouses may command as much as $800 per square foot.
Last year, he purchased a distressed 140-year-old building that was originally built by the Little Sisters of the Poor to care for indigent elderly and that had been home for the last 30 years to the Capital Children’s Museum. (The museum will reopen closer to the Mall.) Abdo plans to convert the mammoth old NE edifice, which is four blocks from the Senate Building and two blocks from Union Station, into historic loft condos. He expects to be done within two years.
“We believe this is one of the best examples of smart growth anywhere in the city. We’ll have 500 residents right over Union Station. We’re bringing people directly to a major transportation hub.” They’re also preserving an historic building, and encouraging a housing renaissance along the H Street corridor.
“This is ideal for someone who works in town or does business in Boston, New York or Baltimore. You can commute from here without even owning a car,” says Abdo, who expects to start the renovation this spring and complete it within 18 months.
New Lofts With Old World Elements
He’s also currently constructing two new condominium buildings on Clarendon Boulevard in Arlington between the Rosslyn and Court House Metro stations. The Wooster Lofts and the Mercer Lofts will be connected by an expansive courtyard, a 50-foot pool and old growth trees. And while the construction is new, Abdo will integrate 130-year-old bricks that he saved from the interior demolition of other buildings. These lofts will include open, dramatic floor plans that, in the case of the penthouse, will include soaring 22-foot-high ceilings. Gas lamps, a signature on Abdo buildings, will also grace these two new structures.
Views of the Capitol
Penn Tower is yet another Abdo Development project underway. What’s quirky and different about this project is that it’s on a postage stamp size piece of property. The total land area is 9,000 square feet at 730 3rd Street and Massachusetts Avenue.
Despite the small footprint, Abdo has big plans. He’s going to build a 130-foot-tall building in this space with only four condo units on each floor. Elevators will provide access to each unit, which will have big, open floor plans with floor-to-ceiling windows.
Looking Forward
In the future, Abdo plans to develop a boutique hotel in an historic building in Washington. He’s not at liberty to disclose the location yet, but says it will be a 50-room, all suite boutique hotel. “I’ve always loved hotels, and this offers a new challenge,” he adds.
Does Abdo see housing growth continuing in the DC area?
“Look at job growth figures extending out 10 years and you’ll see tremendous pressure for housing. Are we at the top of the market? There are tremendous pressures for the foreseeable future that are going to be on this region,” Abdo says. “I continue to feel bullish.”
