In the next 24 months, virtually every block in a one-mile stretch of 14th is slated to gain a new or renovated building containing residential units and ground-floor retail space. When the dust clears, the strip will have more than 1,200 additional housing units and more than 85,000 square feet of additional retail space.

Few here are surprised. After all, the section of 14th Street from Rhode Island to Florida Avenues, about two miles north of the National Mall and near a major Metro station, has been undergoing redevelopment for years. But in 2008 financing for new projects stopped, and it did not start flowing again until 2010. Now the taps are fully open.

A few small condominium projects are in the mix, including PN Hoffman’s transformation of a Verizon building into 34 upscale units. But given Washington’s very tight rental housing market, developers’ main focus is on apartment buildings, most of them skewing toward the high end.

Perseus Realty and Jefferson Apartment Group are uniting to build 231 luxury apartments with more than 10,000 square feet of retail space. UDR, based in Denver, is working on a project at the northern end of the strip that will contain 255 units, a rooftop pool, and 16,000 square feet of retail space.

But the project that is attracting the most notice is Louis, by the JBG Companies, at 14th and U Streets. It will have 268 luxury apartments, 25,000 square feet of new retail space and a tiered roof deck.

“The area meets some of our key core principles: it’s near the central business district and is a transit corridor,” said Kai Reynolds, a principal of JBG who is overseeing the project.

Mr. Reynolds pointed to a Room & Board furniture store a block away, which opened in 2010 and is flourishing, as an example of the boulevard’s potential. “When you see a national retailer investing $15 million in that area, it shows it has that vibrancy,” he said

The stretch of 14th Street bridges Logan Circle and U Street, two of the city’s more fashionable neighborhoods. Early in the 20th century, the boulevard was lined with car dealerships, but the strip was hit hard by suburban flight, and the riots after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

By 1985, when Yemane Meresie bought Sav-On Liquors, the street was largely known for the prostitutes and drug dealers who frequented it. “It was a jungle,” he said.

Like many other longtime residents and business owners, Mr. Meresie traces the neighborhood’s growth through milestones like the 1987 expansion of Studio Theater at 14th and P Streets. But nothing matched the impact of the arrival of Whole Foods on P Street in 2000, a result of advocacy by residents who said they were convinced the store could thrive in their community.

They were right. “That was a revolutionary change,” Mr. Meresie said. Whole Foods drew businesses like Starbucks and Flow Yoga, and a swath of condo buildings.

At the same time to the north, condos and restaurants were rising around the busy intersection of 14th and U Streets.

But the 10-block stretch between the areas remained partly a throwback: sprinkled among new businesses were pawnshops, used furniture stores and takeout Chinese restaurants, even though the area was gaining a reputation for unusual restaurants like Richard Sandoval’s Masa 14 and locally owned spots like Cork Wine Bar.

Residents say that, given the area’s central location, low-rise buildings that could be expanded or replaced and vacant lots, the building boom is hardly surprising. But the form it will ultimately take is still hazy. Jared Meier, a retail strategist for StreetSense, said the corridor was still in transition from largely food-based tenants to merchandisers and predicted that the increased population would attract “junior box” stores like Petco, DSW or Urban Outfitters.

Greg Leisch, the chief executive of Delta Associates, a real estate consulting company in Alexandria, Va., said, “As an area becomes re-enlivened, there’s a natural cycle that retailers go through; they move from more mom-and-pop to less, and from less chain stores to more.” He cited Georgetown and Bethesda, Md., as having followed that path.

That shift has already begun. In the last year, 14th Street lost a number of small businesses. Ruff & Ready Furnishings and the jazz club HR-57 moved to cheaper neighborhoods, and Sam’s Pawnbrokers is for sale. The Central Union Mission, a 29-year neighborhood resident, will leave within the next year, its building becoming another residential complex, the developer, Jeffrey Schonberger, said. Those who remain know their stay is tenuous. Greg Link, a co-owner of Home Rule, said his 14-year-old housewares shop just had its highest-grossing February. Nonetheless, he predicted the future would bring more competition. “Someday there’ll be a big home store that’ll open here. That’s a big market, and it’s just begging for entry.”

Longtime residents say they worry the changes will bring an influx of short-term renters, question whether the number of restaurants will rise to a level that could threaten the character of the neighborhood, and fear losing parking spaces. But most are excited about the growth.

One, Tim Christensen, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1989 and is president of the Logan Circle Community Association, wondered about the cost.

“I’ve said before that when the last pawnshop and the last storefront deli leaves 14th Street, I will leave,” he said. “It’s that mixture of the gritty and the upscale that gives the neighborhood a unique character. If one day it’s all gone, I think we will feel a sense of loss.”

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Not on Roosevelt Island — at least, not if they can help it. Residents do just 12 percent of their shopping on the island, according to a survey by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation two-and-a-half years ago.

“I make it my business to shop elsewhere,” said Janet Falk, a public-relations consultant and four-year resident who drives to supermarkets in nearby Queens. “I’ve seen my neighbors at Costco, and they hire a local taxi service to take them home with their items.”

The Queens supermarkets “deliver for free if you spend $50, and that’s not very hard,” added Judith Berdy, the president of the Roosevelt Island Historical Society. She has lived on the island for 34 years.

The 14,000 residents of Roosevelt Island, the skinny land mass in the East River between Queens and the island of Manhattan, reached by a distinctive red tram, have groused for years about the Main Street retail corridor, bedraggled and unappealing. They were heartened last August when two private developers, the Hudson Companies and the Related Companies, took over management of the strip, with its 100,000 square feet of retail space.

Now, several new shopkeepers have been lined up. New arrivals along Main Street will include a food market called Wholesome Direct and a wine and liquor store called Island Spirits. Also arriving will be a Subway sandwich shop and a Europan Bakery Cafe, with its assortment of pastries, snacks and meals.

The new retail rents in Roosevelt Island are around $40 to $50 a square foot, which is exceedingly low for Manhattan, said David Kramer, a principal of the Hudson Companies.

Residents, developers and retailers are expecting a surge in activity on the island in coming years, with the completion of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on the island’s southern tip and the planned Cornell technical campus.

In the last dozen years, the Hudson-Related partnership has built the Riverwalk community of six residential buildings, with three more planned. Riverwalk includes several stores, including a Duane Reade with a large grocery section, a Starbucks, a deli and some restaurants. Those stores have been successful, Mr. Kramer said, belying the myth that “Roosevelt Island just plain wasn’t going to have successful retail.”

“Success begets success, and lack of success reinforces more inactivity,” he added. “If anything, retail should be stronger on Roosevelt Island because you have a captive audience. There is a need that is clearly not being met by what is there now.”

The Main Street retail strip was formerly run by the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation, or R.I.O.C., the state agency that manages the island. “As a government entity, R.I.O.C. was constrained by the laws that require the R.F.P. process in order to rent any space,” said Leslie Torres, the president of the corporation, referring to a request for proposal.

She added: “You have to publicize the bid, people have a certain amount of time to respond, the bids have to be reviewed, it has to go before a board.. It’s a lot of steps. Democracy takes time. It is not the normal course of how business is run — it is how governments run business. Not everyone opening a small mom-and-pop store wants go through that sort of process, I would assume.”

Some prospective merchants would follow up, she added, and some would not. But with so many vacant storefronts, “clearly things were not going as well as we wanted,” she said. “It wasn’t a vibrant Main Street. I was excited to enter into a partnership with Hudson-Related to manage our commercial space because they have the expertise to do it.”

The retail corridor will be spruced up with new signage, street furniture, lighting and what Mr. Kramer calls “way-finding elements,” including digital kiosks with you-are-here maps.

Several nonretailing tenants also have new leases. The Child School, for students with special needs, will take a second-floor space for its arts center. Gallery Rivaa, an art gallery, had not been paying rent, but now has a three-year lease at a below-market rate. The New York Public Library might expand its Roosevelt Island branch, depending on financing.

An additional eight leases are expected to be signed within the next six months, Mr. Kramer said. These might include ethnic restaurants, a bakery, a pet store, a florist and a shoe-repair shop.

What will not be coming, however, are national chains like McDonald’s or Burger King. “The traffic doesn’t warrant it,” said Hal Shapiro, a managing director of Winick Realty Group, which does retail leasing.

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