In Naming Residences, Only the Hip Will Do

The developer was searching for a name for the new downtown condo building, something swank and high-tech to rope the young and thick-walleted set.

A plain address -- 1320 13th St. -- just would not do. Not enough futuristic, I'm-too-hip-to-help-myself buzz.

Then the name came like a caffeinated epiphany: The Icon.

"We wanted to be techie and modern. We wanted to attract a certain upscale profile," Pamela Bundy said. "When I heard 'The Icon,' that was it."

Ever since they first put hammer to nail, developers have tapped geography and even their own names to brand their buildings, whether it was The Cairo on Q Street or Trump Tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

But as ever-so-contemporary condominium buildings rise all over the District, a names race has broken out, as developers invoke the modern, the urban and the other-worldly to lure buyers. A few blocks from The Icon, construction has begun on The Matrix, meant to inspire reminders not of the sci-fi movie but "a forward feeling -- a fresh feel," said real estate marketer Ross McWilliams.

Then there's VISIO, on 10th Street NW. The developer had planned to name it The Bailey, for Pearl Bailey, once a regular performer on nearby U Street. But the retro touch was dropped when the building was designed with floor-to-ceiling windows and a sleek look. "It did not fit 'The Bailey,' " said Paul Robertson, the developer. "VISIO is crisp and very cool and very contemporary."

Eric Colbert, an architect whose projects include The Matrix, said the branding often is less about design than marketing. "It's about a lifestyle -- young, hip and urban," he said, the types who aren't "doing a lot of cooking at home. They're busy and traveling and going to South Beach on the weekends."

And it can work.

Radius, the name of a condominium building on 13th Street NW, helped hook Duane McKnight, 48, a general partner at an investment firm, when he shopped for a one-bedroom unit. "It's pretty cool," he said, walking outside one night last week, the building's name looming in blue-lit metal over the entrance. He was looking for a place that was "current, upscale contemporary, all the latest."

Not everyone is seduced. Ken Eggerl, 38, an events producer, doesn't like to tell people he lives at The Icon, if only so his friends won't tease him as "Fancy Pants."

"I thought the name was a little obnoxious, like you live in a building and you're above it all," he said.