Aug 06, 2004  |  By: Bryan Anderton  | COMMENTS     

MOST PEOPLE WOULDN’T look at an auto body shop and see the potential for designer loft apartments. But that’s exactly what Robert Montagne Jr. saw when he looked at the Rainbow Auto Body Shop in the 1400 block of Church Street in Northwest D.C.

“I just thought this would be really cool condominiums. We needed to put that space to use,” says Montagne, the founder of Walnut Street Development Co., and the developer of the Rainbow Lofts. “Everyone thought I was crazy, but that’s what we did.”

With the Rainbow Lofts, Montagne has taken an existing historic space and created a true loft atmosphere with an industrial-hip feel.

Montagne first noticed the building while working on another project in a nearby neighborhood. But there was one problem: The building was still being used as an auto body shop. Motorists would drive their cars into the garage on the bottom floor, and have them lifted via elevator to various other floors, depending on the work that needed to be done to it.

Montagne spoke with the owners of the shop and persuaded them to sell the space. Then, he and architect Steve Dickens got to work figuring out how to use the building’s existing framework to create the new apartments.

“The existing building was an extremely simple building,” Dickens says. “It was never cut up into rooms; it was just a very simple building with a very masculine exposed structure everywhere.”

The developers kept the industrial nature of the building intact to create an urban loft atmosphere. Because the building was built in the 1920s and is considered historic, the brick framework remains mostly untouched. Many of the lofts feature the original exposed brick walls, as well as exposed steel air conditioning vents, sliding steel bedroom/closet doors, 13-foot concrete ceilings and hardwood floors.

The industrial concept is complemented by some of the more modern touches, such as stainless steel appliances and built-in fireplaces.

“It’s a very hip space,” Dickens says. “It’s very much a loft in the New York, raw sense of the term.”

BUT EVEN THOUGH the development team couldn’t drastically alter the building’s existing framework, they were able to add onto it. In addition to creating a fourth floor for penthouses (one of which was bought by Dickens and his partner), they were also able to build an adjoining building with a much more modern feel.

“The architectural concept here is to play up the distinction that the existing building is kind of dark and rough, but the new addition is very refined and smooth,” Dickens says.

The developers have created 21 apartments, each with its own distinct layout and design. The lofts, which are scheduled to be ready by early September, run 820 to 1,250 square feet, and were on the market for $400,000 to $500,000 each.

The apartments have all been sold, and, according to Montagne, the “Rainbow” name may have come in handy because more than half of the lofts will be gay-owned.

“We knew the demographic for this project would not be Auntie Esther coming down from the suburbs,” Montagne says. “We knew it was going to be a younger, hipper crowd.”