UDC’s Building 41 in October 2024.
As we noted in a June ANC 3F update, work toward the eventual demolition of UDC’s tallest building ground to a halt more than a year ago, around the same time Mayor Muriel Bowser released a fiscal 2026 budget proposal that reversed plans for a new DC Archives building at the site.
The DC Council went on to reverse the reversal, but the project languished, at least in public, and archives project manager Brad King stopped providing updates at ANC 3F’s monthly meetings.
King returned to the ANC on June 30 to explain the archives project didn’t fully stop during that time — it just moved below the surface.
Structural deficiencies were discovered during the hiatus in the garage underneath Building 41 — the structure set for demolition for the archives — and an adjacent university building.
“And that inhibited us from starting demolition of the existing Building 41 until we could upgrade those structural issues in the below-grade parking garage,” King said.
The Department of General Services worked with UDC to create a memorandum of understanding that let them work jointly on the garage, “and DGS was able to move ahead with the portion that’s under Building 41,” he said.
“That work is supposed to finish up by the end of the summer, so towards the end of August, and that will allow us to start our demolition of existing Building 41. So we’re looking at, hopefully, a beginning of September start date for demolition,” King said, and an early February end date.
DGS has permits for the demolition, he said, and is preparing to apply for the full building permit.
King described the demolition itself as a “selective demo.”
“It’s precast panel construction. If anybody knows, that really means that we’re able to take those panels off the building, and not just knock them off,” he said.
“Not an implosion at Las Vegas,” ANC 3F chair Courtney Carlson said.
“No, as fun as that may sound, we’re not going that route,” King said.
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