At last week’s ANC meeting, it was announced that the city has identified a leading candidate to redevelop the Hurt Home into condos. The proposal comes from Argos Group. GM did a little digging to find out more about this entity.
The Argos Group apparently was founded by its President, Gilbertos Cardenas, in 2007. Mr. Cardenas gave the presentation to the ANC last week. Before he formed Argos Group, he was a Project Manager at Jair Lynch, working on such projects as Capitol Manor Cooperative in Columbia Heights.
The Argos Group’s portfolio is limited at this point. However the projects it is already working on are in line with the Hurt Home characteristics. They are redeveloping an old Police Station and an old Fire Station on Capitol Hill. Like the Hurt Home, both of these projects involve adapting an old and decrepit building into residential units.
Consistent with the city’s guidelines for surplusing property, each of the Capitol Hill projects will have half its apartments sold at below market rates. In fact, the city’s guidelines only called for 30% of the projects’ units to be affordable. Given his role in helping low-income renters turn their building into a coop at Capitol Manor Cooperative and his term on the Comprehensive Housing Strategy Task Force, it would appear that providing affordable housing is a strong interest of Cardenas. Mr. Cardenas made a point at the ANC meeting of saying that they intend to build family-sized apartments in the Hurt Home. Having more affordable family-sized apartments in Georgetown is needed, in GM’s opinion.
So while the Argos Group’s history is short, so far GM has not found any reason to be alarmed at the fact that they are the leading candidate to redevelop the Hurt Home.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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