February 28, 2020
The US State Department has kicked off a $2.5 million renovation of the former Iranian ambassador’s residence in Washington, DC, hoping to rent it out to someone who will actually pay the rent, unlike the last time it was rented.
Representatives for the federal agency first submitted plans in April to renovate 3003 Massachusetts Ave., NW, prior to the current flare-up between the US and Iran, according to permit data filed with the DC Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA). The Washington Business Journal reported DCRA approved the work in October.
The roughly 18,000-square-foot (1,600 square meters) Georgian-style building is still owned by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The US State Department took custody of it, however, after the US severed diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980.
As its official custodian, the State Department is charged with looking after the residence and Iran’s former chancery building next door under authority of the Foreign Missions Act (FMA) and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, according to a State Department spokesman.
In Iran, the US embassy was taken over by the Pasdaran, which uses part of it as a school and part as a museum of anti-Americanism.
The State Department’s Office of Foreign Missions plans to use any rental revenue to pay for the property’s upkeep, as it is required to do under the FMA and Vienna Convention.
Work is slated to include renovations to all four levels of the house, including its kitchen and bathrooms, upgrades to its lighting, HVAC and plumbing, and repairs to its wall and ceiling plaster and flooring.
It’s not the first time the property will be offered up for rent. Roughly 15 years after Iran moved out, the State Department rented it to Ruth Schofield for about $15,000 a month. In 2002, after amassing $750,000 in unpaid rent over the course of four years, the State Department had US Marshals evict Schofield “pursuant to a court order,” according to a State Department statement at the time.
The State Department has had a similar problem with unpaid rent on the old Iranian consulate in San Francisco.
The Washington Post described the Washington home in 2002 as having 46 rooms, 14 fireplaces, terraced gardens and a swimming pool.
Since then, the property has fallen into disrepair. A 2008 survey from the State Department’s Bureau of Administration found the property needed more than $1.17 million in renovations. That report also referenced a survey of the chancery building next door and found that the 37,000-square-foot building, constructed around 1959 and used after the revolution as the office where foreign diplomats in Washington got their automobile license plates, was in need of between $10 million and $14 million in renovations. OFM decided to mothball the embassy properties instead.