On the site of a shuttered Burger King in a long-neglected Northeast neighborhood, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser donned a hard hat and dug a shiny shovel into a pile of dirt. It was a groundbreaking for a luxury apartment — made possible by $27 million in foreign investment.
Bowser, bundled in a black overcoat, touted her trade mission to China, where city officials and developers had invited wealthy Chinese to invest half a million dollars each in D.C. building projects in exchange for U.S. residency.
“That mission has resulted in the type of investment that will allow this project to go forward,” Bowser said that February day at the Highline, a 12-story apartment and retail complex going up in a rapidly gentrifying slice of NoMa where cranes now crowd the skyline.