Early sketch shows how NPR HQ could look

Hickok Cole, the architect hired by NPR to design its new headquarters, sketched this look for the tough task of combining a new office tower with the old concrete phone company building that must be preserved at least in part under the city's historic landmark rules. An earlier version of this item mistakenly indicated that this rendering—labeled as a "preliminary" drawing on the DC Metrocentric blog—represents NPR's plan. NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm says that plan is months away. Rehm has no complaint, however, about last week's Washington Business Journal article naming NPR's HQ land deals (with its big tax incentive to stay in D.C.) as 2008's "best land deal" in Washington real estate. Construction won't begin soon. When the development deal was announced more than a year ago, plans called for NPR to move into the new building in 2012.