Conversion from townhome into 4-plex

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I am hoping some of the more experience BP members can help me out with what I want to do. I currently own a rowhouse in Washington, DC. It is in the Columbia Heights neighborhood which has lots of rental demand and lots of development coming in. What I would like to do is to dig out the basement an additional 2 feet. So, increase the ceiling height to 8 feet. I also have a parking pad in the back of the house. I would like to dig the parking pad out as well and extend the entire house and foundation to the property line in the back. This will add about 25 feet to the length of the house. And then I would like to turn the house into a "pop-top" and add a 3rd above-grade floor on to the existing structure. After doing this my goal would be to have four 2 bed/2 bath units of roughly 1,000 sq/ft each. 

My question is, what is the best way to go about doing this? I don't have really any construction skills so I would probably need to hire someone. Would people recommend hiring an architect? or a GC and having them lead the process. I have all the ideas for how i would like to incorporate the outside of the house to keep it looking uniform with the existing rowhouses. So I would like to get the best work done of the house but for the cheapest price (like everyone else in the world). Does anyone have any experience doing things like this in DC? Is it complicated to get the permits, etc. 

As a follow up how would people recommend going about getting financing for this. Can I get a loan from a bank? I probably only have about 25% equity in the house currently so I doubt I could get a home equity loan. 

Any guidance and advice would be greatly appreciated,

-Eric