909 at Capitol Yards Opens

While the Washington Post may be increasingly skeptical about the viability of Southeast's Capitol Riverfront as either a residential or commercial neighborhood, it is certainly a strategy that developer JPI has bet heavily on. Next month, the developer will open the doors on the 909 at Capitol Yards project - their 421-unit "boutique-hotel themed" apartment building and third entry under their greater Capitol Yards development. According to the Capitol Riverfront BID, tours of the WDG-designed complex have already begun for prospective residents and move-ins are scheduled to begin late this month. JPI is apparently targeting that hard to pin down 18-35 demographic the project with an advertising campaign that boasts of amenities like a two-story bar and lounge, yoga rooms, a “pub room” with shuffleboard (?!) and Nintendo Wiis, an in-house movie theater, a rooftop swimming pool for hosting “raucous barbeques,” and a Twitter ticker in every elevator tracking losses in the housing market (no, not really). Should you feel the need for something more “classic and traditional” or an apartment with a little “industrial style,” JPI is directing inquisitive renters in the market around the Ballpark to the first two buildings completed under their Capitol Yards banner: the Jefferson and Axiom. Their marketing whizzes have even gone so far as to whip up a “personality quiz” to help choose from among their properties (sample response: "Call up your fav five and hit Banana Cafe for pitchers of Caipirinhas"). Though JPI still has one project in the pipeline– a 419-unit apartment building with 15,000 square feet of retail at 23 Eye Street – completion of Capitol Yards could be viewed largely as the developer’s curtain call the DC area. The Texas-based company had once targeted DC, along with New York City, as hot spots for condo development. However, after completing projects like The Byron and Jenkins Row – the latter of which is still selling four years on – the market’s prospects seem now much dimmer than they did just a few years ago and JPI has yet to announce any new plans for follow-up developments. Correction: 909 at Capitol Yards was designed by the Preston Partnership, not WDG Architecture. WDG designed two other neighboring JPI projects, the Jefferson and Axiom at Capitol Yards.

Washington DC retail and commercial real estate news

JPI's First Ballpark Delivery

The first of JPI's four ballpark projects, The Jefferson at Capitol Yards will open its doors Monday. The 448-"luxury rental" building, formerly known as "70 I" boasts of granite tops, Moen pullout faucets, "regal baths", and GE appliances. Designed by WDG Architecture, the building and its 100 I Street counterpart combine glass and brick in their façades to create 12-story buildings that were designed to resemble the historic warehouses of the old Navy Yard area.

Residents in the Jefferson will have access to a resort-style swimming pool and rooftop terrace, a 24-hour fitness center, a movie theater with stadium seating, and a sports pub complete with traditional pub games, dart boards, pool tables, as well as the trendier Wii (ask your kids), Xbox, and Playstation systems to satisfy residents’ inner teenagers and keep their competitive spirits at bay between Nationals games.

The 246-unit rental apartment building, the Axiom at Capitol Yards at 100 I Street, won’t be too far behind with delivery scheduled for next month. Rounding out JPI’s $470 million ballpark empire are the “luxury” 237 and 421-unit 909 at Capitol Yards and Jefferson at Half Street. The 909 New Jersey Avenue development will open in May 2009 and the Silver LEED certified Jefferson at 999 Half Street will begin construction this fall with delivery in 2010.

The first floor and clubhouse of the Jefferson at Capitol Yards will be available for viewing on Monday. Nosey neighbors can also check out the company’s block party on June 28th before the Nationals-Oriole’s game.

Ballpark: Build It and They Will Come, They Might Even Stay

It's a good thing that the Nationals' standing as perhaps baseball's worst team ever will likely have no effect the residences of the surrounding neighborhood. The Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District (BID) has issued its second quarter residential statistics for 2009, showing how desirable the area is to reside in, and it looks like the cliched Costner-ism of "build it and they will come" is working...for some more than others. EYA's Capitol Quarter townhome development appears to be the leader of the pack of with "88 of 113 (market rate) units sold" - though sales began in the fall of 2006. With prices starting at $630,000, EYA can be content with its position as the only new single-family home project in the area, and their only competition in the area are the dreaded c-word – condominiums – and its Capitol Quarter has generated a slew of favorable media coverage for its tre trendy green construction practices and subsequent “LEED for Homes” certification. Proof positive that condos are indeed still on the sluggish side, Texas-based developer JPI’s pair of Capitol Riverfront condos. Or at least they were considered as condos before the Big Crash - The Axiom at Capitol Yards, The Jefferson at Capitol Yards and Faison's Onyx on First (pictured) – are now all renting as apartments. But according to the BID, the buildings have achieved 60% occupancy of their collective 960 units. That leaves approximately 384 empty units on the market, despite the fact the first completed building, The Jefferson opened its doors one year ago this month. It’s presumably that same dearth of buyers that made JPI go rental with their third area building, 909 at Capitol Yards; so far with less success than its predecessors. According to the BID report, only “25% of the 237 units” at 909 – but the project began renting only in the spring of this year. The developer has been trying to court the young, urbanista demographic for the building by advertising amenities like yoga studios, communal Nintendo Wiis and a residents-only bar/pub. JPI's tentative plans for a fifth and final 415-unit apartment building at 23 Eye Street still remain on the table, at least officially. Valhal Corporation’s Capitol Hill Tower Condo-op is still trudging along with "80% of 344 units sold." That would seem an admirable rate of occupancy had the building not opened early in 2006, with sales almost a year before that. Not mentioned in the BID stats is the Cohen Companies' Velocity condo project, the 200 unit condo nearing completion, but for which sales are reportedly not, well, high velocity. Nonetheless, the BID reports that, in total, there are now “an estimated 1,863 residents living in the Capitol Riverfront , with over 2,000 residents expected by the end of the year.” You could be one of the lucky 137 by year's end. Ghost town or boom town? You be the judge. 

UPDATE: Says Ted Skirbunt, Director of Research & Information Systems at the BID: "JPI’s buildings were always going to be rental from the beginning. The only building thus far to convert from condos to rental apartments is the Onyx."

Washington DC commercial retail and real estate news

JPI: "Luxury Rentals" Everywhere

JPI topped out on two of its four projects in southeast DC, the first set of residences that will be completed in the heavily-developing ballpark district. Both the Jefferson at Capitol Yards, a 448-unit luxury apartment building, and the Mercury at Capital Yards, a 246-unit "luxury" apartment building, are slated for completion next summer - not quite in time for the Nationals' season opener in their new home. WDG Architecture is behind the industrial design of the Jefferson and the "edgy" metallic design of the Mercury.

JPI still has two more projects coming into the home stretch; 909 at Capitol Yards (pictured) which will house 237 "luxury" rental units and 6,000 s.f. of retail and restaurant space, being delivered in mid-2009, and 23 Eye Street, a 419-unit (you guessed it) luxury rental building with 15,000 s.f. of retail space; JPI plans to break ground on this (anticipated) Silver LEED certified building in the fall of next year. In total, JPI will add more than 1,300 units to the ballpark district, accounting for 20% of the total number of new residences that are being built in close proximity to the new ballpark. The total cost of JPI's investment: $470 million - and they won't be selling a single square foot.

By the middle of 2009, JPI will have effectively gentrified a neighborhood in record time, pioneering the way for the near-dozen development companies that are currently building within the sector. The residential projects that will follow JPI's lead include: Capitol Quarter by EYA, Onyx on First by Faison/Canyon-Johnson, the massive Half Street development by Monument Realty, 1345 South Capitol Street by Camden Development, Velocity Condos by Cohen Companies and The Yards by Forest City. But wait, there's more. Together with the onslaught of residential developments set for the South Capitol Corridor, District residents will receive a slew of commercial space: SC1100 by Ruben Companies, 1111 New Jersey Ave by Donohoe and 1015 Half by Opus East, just to name a few.

According to our favorite chronicler of all things Southeast, blogger JD, "It is expected that in the next 15 years the "Capitol Riverfront" area covering both Near Southeast and Buzzards Point will include approximately 12 million square feet of office space, 9,000 new housing units, and 600,000 square feet of retail."

Industry Insight: Michael Stevens on the Capitol Riverfront

Two years ago, it occurred to Michael Stevens that the Southeast Riverfront could use a Business Improvement District of its own, rather than being lumped together with that of Capitol Hill. A consultant at the time, Stevens approached property owners, already considering joining the Capitol Hill BID, in what is now the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District and told them that the area surrounding the incoming Nationals Park had unique development needs.

With the stadium, Department of Transportation, and residential projects popping up around his 1100 New Jersey Avenue office, Stevens, the Capitol Riverfront BID Executive Director, agreed to sit down with DCMud to talk about what's new in Southeast. Stevens discussed how to bring development to a portion of DC formerly associated with housing projects and strip clubs, a river two tires and a soda can past picturesque, and why the Green Line is the new Red Line.

So what, exactly, do BIDs do?

It’s hard to say. They are management organizations that address issues of cleanliness, safety and cleanliness, development, advocacy, community building, infrastructure and transit access. Property owners vote taxes on themselves to get these extra services.

You seem to be in a unique position, as you had a hand in developing the BID. How did you get involved?

I was a consultant and I approached the property owners; they had been approached by the Capitol Hill BID, but the context of the mature Capitol Hill neighborhood was totally different. That is a mature townhouse neighborhood with commercial corridors. This is a twelve-story, high-density, mix of uses that’s going to have access to transportation, infrastructure, parking, and the new ballpark. I approached the property owners and said, “You need a BID here to deal with your very specific issues. You can’t bring the Clean and Safe from Capitol Hill and say, ‘here you’ve done it.’” I told them that this is literally going to be a twelve-story neighborhood versus the two and three stories of Capitol Hill. The freeway is also a very clear divider both physically and perceptively.

They agreed to that idea and hired me as a consultant over two years ago this month to start pulling together the nuts and bolts of a BID, to meet with property owners to understand the issues and the development dynamic, and that’s when we started understanding how special this place could be. You have a development dynamic that will lead to the creation of a new mixed-use downtown essentially, that many mid-sized cities in America would kill for.

I worked in Memphis for four years, they have 6.5 million s.f. of office space, we will have 15 million, San Antonio is the seventh largest city in America, they have 5.5 million s.f. of office space. We’ll have 9,000 housing units, 800,000-900,000 s.f. of retail space, and 1,200 hotel rooms with four new parks and the Riverwalk Trail. So on 500 acres in this city, we’ll build almost ten percent of the existing office market. I had to start making points of comparison to understand how much stuff will be happening down here and how close it is.

That 15 million s.f. of office space means 95,000 daytime employees. 9,000 housing units means 15-16,000 residents. 900,000 s.f. of retail space is like a mid-sized regional mall, but it will be diffused through the neighborhood and in two mixed-use projects rather than in one building. The 1,200 hotel rooms are in six, 200-room hotels. We have the Marriott of 200 rooms which is already exceeding all of their sales expectations. In our efforts, we try to brand this as an office and business center, as an urban neighborhood, as a retail hotspot, as a tourism destination, and then as a great waterfront and parks environment. This will be a regional destination that embraces the river. We call it our front porch, rather than our back door so we have opportunity to engage and embrace and use river like it’s never been done before.

What is your view for the BID five years from now?

I think you’ll see a lot of the amenities that people are looking for start rolling off. Two parks will have opened, maybe a third, which starts to provide that open spaces system that builds community. You will see a number of restaurants which office tenants want, but that also serve residents. You will also see retail from the Forest City Project. You will see a lot of buildings that are coming out of the ground now, finish and start leasing up, which will add another layer of activity, and then people will start to understand that this is a new neighborhood emerging on the river that it’s not this far away place. In five years you will see a grocery store if not two, and very nice ones on the market, not Safeway or Giant – Whole Foods and Harris Teeter are looking at the area.

You seem to have a lot of green space and green buildings, has that become a branding thing for Southeast?

Oh yes, we have the largest green roof building system on the East Coast in the DOT building. The ballpark is the first LEED certified stadium in the country, we have special standards for tree wells, and they will catch storm water runoff and naturally filter it before going into the Anacostia River. Then Canal Park will be a model of environmental sustainability, it will catch storm water runoff from surrounding blocks, capture, filter, recycle, and reuse the water on sight. We are hoping to capture it on the rooftops of other buildings as well. A lot of that was planned before ballpark. I think the city should be very proud because they were very prescient about area. This is ten years of economic development positioning.

It started in 1998 when NAVSEA (Naval Sea Systems Command) consolidated all the regional operations to the Navy Yard campus and brought 14,000 employees and improvement to the Navy Yard, and that spurred five new buildings in the area to house contractors who worked as part of the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process. The federal government should be proud. Then you have Mayor Williams who was a visionary guy, then you have the federal government which said, “we want the DOT down here,” and that sent a certain signal and then GSA worked with Norton in the SE federal center and Forest City was awarded development rights to the area, so that was a huge perceptual change. People said, “if Forest City wants to be down here…” Then the Hope VI grant at the Capper Carrollsburg, then the ball park – we even say the ballpark, while catalytic, is just gasoline on the fire. The other major factor in all this, is downtown will be built in four years – Mount Vernon Triangle, NoMa, and us are in competition with each other to capture that growth.

Where Golden Triangle and NoMa have a lot of commercial tenants coming in, it seems that there are a lot of residential projects coming here, how does that affect the BID?

I want to clear that up. We’ve had a lot of tenants come here. We have the 2 million s.f. Department of Transportation with 6,000 employees. That is bigger than ATF. There are 14,000 employees in the Navy Yard campus and 12,000 contractors associated with the navy yard campus. Plus we have the William C. Smith Headquarters, Parsons Engineering is coming… So we have around 27,000 employees, I don’t think there are that many in NoMa. So we’ve done pretty well from an office tenant standpoint, and were much farther along in the development cycle for residential. It’s the proximity to the river, to Capitol Hill, to the ball park, and what’s in the pipeline here for new parks that will support a lot of community development. We definitely consider ourselves a mixed-use neighborhood. And Golden Triangle, downtown, Capitol Hill are mature districts compared to NoMa, Mount Vernon Triangle, and us. The younger BIDS confront similar challenges.

What kind of input do the current residents and all those future residents and companies have in the BID and what is their role?

There aren’t a lot of residents yet, there are about 1,000 in the BID’s area, with 2,000 units under construction. Some will roll off this summer. Over the period of a year, we met with the Capitol Hill Co-op, the DCHA that’s building on the old Capper Carrollsburg site, and we met with all property owners individually and collectively. We have quarterly meetings with owners to say, “Here are the issues, lets prioritize, and go over the BID tax leading up to filing.” We have had enormous public input and since then, we have created a Board of Directors of twenty-one voting members, of property owners, and five at-large non tax-paying community stake holders. We have an extensive committee structure that supports the actions of that board.

You mentioned the Capper Carrollsburg project. What are your expectations for that?

It will be an instant neighborhood over the next five years. It was such a transformation of this area when they tore down the really bad public housing. It was a perceptual and physical change that was instantaneous, our crime rates went way down, the bad housing was eliminated, and people started to see what could happen with rebuilding. We will double the number of housing units to 1,550. What’s also good is that it introduces, instead of just having a consolidation of affordable or low income families in one complex, this will be a blended income strategy that introduces different economic levels, home ownership versus leasing, and the 350 townhouses will be fantastic. We are creating higher density units.

Do you think there will be a time when, after a baseball game, you will say, “Hey kids, want to go hang out by the Anacostia waterfront”?

Absolutely – next season, next spring. The bike trail has come to the 11th Street Bridge. We will bring it under the bridge to tie it into the already built Navy Yard section. Next year the Riverfront Park will be done. In fall 2009, Yards Park opens, and that will be five acres, then Diamond Teague Park will open that spring.

How do you think that infrastructure will continue to evolve? It seems that now the Capital Waterfront area is a place to which you take the metro to the ballpark for a few hours and then leave, but that kind of transit puts a strain on infrastructure in terms of driving and the Metro.

I’d say sixty-five percent of ballpark patrons are Metro-riders. I think it has worked fairly well, I know that people have said they have waited for two and three trains, but I think Metro is learning and that they add more cars and increase frequency. The parking lots have only been half and a quarter full – that’s fantastic!

How do the BIDs work together, what is the communication between them?

We have a BID council that meets every six weeks, there are eight bids, we are newest. We’ve been up and running for almost a year. NoMa preceded us by about 3 months and Liz (Price) has done a great job. We all collaborate because we have issues of commonality, infrastructure, and transit accessibility. We think there might be maybe one central employment pool for all of the BID Clean and Safe teams, that we will purchase goods together, but for now, we advocate together, do strategic planning together, and look at how we can do things better. We share what we are doing. It’s very good company.

How does the budget work?

Our budget is about $1.4 million and it’s all through BID tax, although we do accept contributions or sponsorships. We have a several-layer BID tax. There is a formula all the way down, first we tax unimproved land, or buildings under 15,000 s.f. It’s twelve cents per $100 dollars of value, ... Then we realized that there were land uses that didn’t put as much demand on service – public storage, industrial uses, so that is also taxed differently.

Can you explain the Clean and Safe idea you have been mentioning?

BIDs were started forty years ago when downtowns across America were experiencing declines and were dirty and dangerous and experiencing an exodus of retail and office to the suburbs. BIDs were created as management organizations to provide additional services to what municipalities were willing to do in the financially strained time. Property owners essentially voted taxes upon themselves, beyond what the city does. They taxed to get a pool of money to improve geographic area.

One of the first things to come out of that was Clean and Safe teams. They are men and women in uniform with pans and broom, power washers, and street sweeps who work to make the areas as clean as possible. It is streetscape improvement. The safe part consists of Hospitality Safety Ambassadors, men and women in uniform on patrol at street corners, by Metro stations, handing out information, and answering questions, so visitors have someone to talk to. They can also intercede in aggressive panhandling and notify the appropriate service.

We’ll expand to weekend service, now they work from about 7:30 am to 4:30 in the afternoon. We want the most impactful services on employment days. As we add more residential units, we will add weekend services. One-third of our budget goes to the clean and safe teams.

You’ve had a big year with the Nationals Park opening, how has it been working with the Lerners and the sports industry?

The ballpark has run very smoothly, each game is an opportunity for 20,000 -40,000 fans to come and see a new neighborhood being built on the river, the Lerners have been good partners with us. They are on our board of directors, the Sports Commission is on board as an at-large member (not voting). They run a thirty second video on our BID before every home game. That clip really starts to position in peoples’ minds that this is the Capitol Riverfront and that it’s a new neighborhood being built around the new ball park. People are astounded when they come down here – its fifty years of overlooking an area of the city that has now caught fire and is, we think, farther along in its development cycle than Penn Quarter was when the MCI Arena opened. We think the ballpark will have a similar catalytic effect.

With all of these deliveries approaching and all of the development going on, what has been your greatest accomplishment?

I would say getting a BID started with a board of directors and staff and the Clean and Safe Team, also, one of the first big accomplishments as a BID was getting a special assessment district created in concert with the Deputy Mayor. We realized that this development could not be supported by the current infrastructure and so we had to rebuild it all in concert with the DOT five-street reconstruction.

How would you change the overall development process of DC?

I think I’d streamline the development review process to make it more predictable and less time consuming. I don’t think its predictable, I think it takes much longer than developers anticipate, so they incur enormous interim financing costs. What would take three years in another city could take nine here. The city also needs to fix infrastructure – across the board in the United States, we are facing massive infrastructure issues – we have realized how woefully underfunded our infrastructure is in cities across the country. We need to improve mass transit, water, and sewer. Those are the huge pieces. Here we are trying to create mass transit options beyond what we have. We are thinking about streetcars and light rails, we were predicted to have street car across the 11th Street Bridge that would tie into M Street and connect Southeast and Southwest and then head up 7th Street to downtown.

Is there a timeline or is it just an idea?

I think it is conceptual because there isn’t funding for it yet. All of this is driven by funding. We could see the light rail, best case scenario, in five to seven years, worst case, ten to fifteen years. Its more than just funding though, its engineering, acquisitions, relocating utilities, then building.

What is the timeline on Florida Rock?

It was just in the paper last week that they their PUD has been approved and they are waiting on architectural approvals, but now they are talking about whether they want to build or just sell the land.







How does their decision and development affect the BID?

If they build, the quicker they do, the quicker revenue goes up for us, it is a key piece of waterfront linkage but also the front yard to the ballpark. A lot of people don’t like it, it doesn’t bother me, it’s the industrial heritage of the area.

How are some of the other developments in the area coming along like Half Street and JPI’s three buildings?

For Half Street, Monument and Akridge are going to negotiate before court, so someone will be made whole and we hope that happens over the summer. JPI’s 70 I Street opens this month, 100 I Street will open in July, 909 New Jersey will open in summer 2009. Those are said to be the fastest selling projects in DC. Then, Velocity Condos open in spring 2009, Faison’s 265 units open this summer as well, in August. 100 M, which is adjacent to Faison, will finish in September, Parsons Engineering in January, and 1015 Half Street is their second building and I hope the Department of Agriculture will choose that as their new site.

William C. Smith has two tracts here and we pitched to NPR to come too, but they chose NoMa because it’s on the Red Line. We said, “you have 175,000 cars on a daily basis, unimpeded views of the Capitol, and you’re in the Riverfront district!” There is such urban walkability here.

How many people do you have on staff?

In terms of staff, there are three of us with a fourth coming later this month. We are fairly small, but growing.

How do you guys go about getting your message out?

We’ve had numerous articles in the press over the past year: NY Times, Washington Times, Washington Post, On Site Magazine for The Washington Business Journal, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Luxury Condo, DC Modern Luxury, Washingtonian.

We like to say, “NoMa’s had a good month of publicity; we’ve had ten years of publicity.” We use our website; we’ve done forty to fifty presentations on the BID to the public. You’re going to have ups and downs of media coverage. Our property’s owners aren’t as aggressive in shouting that they have a Harris Teeter coming as other places. It’s about tours to the brokerage, public presentations, media coverage, website, publications, and community events. We were part of a boat tour with 430 Brokers, we went by riverfront sites and each of us got a chance to talk about our sites. We are on the Real Tour on the 19th.

JPI Announces New Residential Project for Ballpark Area

Just when you thought every available scrap of land had already been claimed around the new Nationals Ballpark area in Southeast DC, they find a new patch on which to plan another project. According to a press release just issued by developer JPI, the company is planning to build a fourth residential tower in the Ballpark zone (joining the 674-unit 70 and 100 I Street project buildings, and the 237-unit 909 New Jersey Avenue complex (pictured), which just broke ground this week). The new development – 23 Eye Street SE (on the south side of I Street, between South Capitol Street and Half Street SE) – will be a $150 million project and feature 421 residential units, plus up to 35,000 sf of retail space. Construction is expected to start in 2008. These new projects fall within what JPI is now referring to as the "Capitol Yards" neighborhood, north of the Ballpark and south of the US Capitol, below the Southwest-Southeast Freeway. 70 and 100 I Street are scheduled to be finished at the end of 2008, with 909 New Jersey Avenue set to deliver in mid-2009.

Ft. Totten: Hanging Tough, or Just Hanging?

Being on top of a Metro station means that real estate development and rising property values are a given; or so goes the axiom. More so if that Metro line is vermilion and close to downtown. Ft. Totten is proving the exception, with neighborhood-transforming projects sidelined, and now a distressed apartment sale shows why developers have held off.

Despite Ft. Totten's 3 Metro lines (Green, Yellow, Red), its bike trail, its local parks, its juxtaposition at several major traffic arteries and ample developable land, developers have balked at building out what seems on paper to be a model of transit-oriented, mixed-use development.

Clark Realty Capital, the only developer to have built on the site, demonstrated the hazards of pioneering, having recently lost its 5.6 acre property in a distress sale to Greystar, which paid $55m for Fort Totten Station (Greystar also snapped up 909, Axiom, Jefferson at Capitol Yards, all near the ballpark, and Jefferson at Thomas Circle.) Clark had completed the project in late 2007 after obtaining a $47m financing loan in 2006 plus a ground lease from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, but had gotten several foreclosure notices late last year. At the time, Clark called the project "the anchor for a comprehensive revitalization plan for the Fort Totten Metro site...the first of several developments planned for the Fort Totten neighborhood," but hedged its bets with little retail space and low budget architecture.

Clark's vision might still come true, but not soon. The few single family homes in the area sell (after a while) for around $200,000, and commerce is all but forgotten. The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation and Lowe Enterprises, the two biggest private landowners in the area, have both iced plans for development. Representatives of Cafritz refused to speak about their project, and a representative of Lowe would say only that the project has been "put to the back burner." An Urban Land Institute (ULI) study in 2009 (sponsored by WMATA) noted that the project is "a mere 3.5 miles from the U.S. Capitol" but that "the Fort Totten market will support calls for smaller, more affordable units, and basically allow only for wood-frame construction."

If anyone sees opportunity in Fort Totten, it is WMATA. The publicly chartered organization still owns 9.3 acres around the Metro station (on top of the 5.6 it leased to Clark), and can't afford the pessimism of a private developer. The transit agency has been pushing for the past several years for Ft. Totten to be a different kind of example, one that showcases revised concepts of transportation planning, and has been working to corral developers to integrate plans, so that the individual pieces are built in some semblance of an organized whole.

Foremost among those pieces are Cafritz's Art Place and Shops at Fort Totten, 2 million s.f. with a mixture of community-serving retail, residential (over 1200 units) and arts and cultural space to house arts promoters like The Washington National Opera. Cafritz expected to begin construction in the first half of 2010.

The Lowe team (with partners Jack Sophie Development and City Partners Development, and now JBG too) was to include 898 residential units on 9 acres of land (see rendering below right), and was to have preceded Cafritz. Together the projects would have added more than 200,000 s.f. of retail space. But if its clear that projects need to be coordinated, its also clear that the area cannot yet support that much development, at least to its financiers.

Laura Cole, an executive with RCLCO and formerly head of ULI when it issued its Fort Totten study, says that there's a gap between what a financier would typically support and what might work for the area. Cole notes that a financial institution will require traditional parking-to-apartment ratios, a model that is simply too expensive for a neighborhood like Fort Totten, and sites the DC USA site as a model of overbuilt parking requirements.

WMATA is attempting to change that philosophy, and followed up with another study in 2010 with urban development planner Parsons Brinckerhoff. Nat Bottigheimer, Assistant General Manager for Planning at WMATA, seconds Cole's assessment of the financial inviability of traditional notions of housing development, but is also keen to change the way planners see parking in general. Bottigheimer's vision for the undeveloped site is a communal approach to parking, where evening uses (for residents) piggyback on daytime uses (office and retail). "We should experiment with a kind of residential building that doesn't reserve spaces for cars, the building might provide 50 or 75 shared spaces instead of 150 dedicated parking spaces...[y]ou don't want to be just doing standard models, you also want to push the envelope as a public agency to promote the achievement of these public goals that we're in business to support." Hence the ULI report.

"We don't want to find out that we've built adequate parking, and others have developed theirs, and together we all contribute more than the necessary amount of parking...but that requires alot of coordination with other property owners to come up with an overall development plan." Bottigheimer pleads the case for a concept he admits is an "untested product in this market," but points out that "it costs $40,000 per space to build...more than a vehicle. Most of these are just car storage spaces, there's got to be an efficiency to provide a better system than we have now."

While WMATA has no specific plans for its own property, and can't force other developers to abide, it still has an influential voice at the District's Office of Planning. "We will collaborate with the District to get the kind of development that makes sense for the area" says Bottigheimer...we need to do more research with the development community to see how this could work." Admirable as that may be, it still requires developers to invest in an area that now is 0 for 1. At least WMATA seems intent to keep trying. Says Bottigheimer, "all options are open."

Washington D.C. retail and commercial real estate news

DCMud's 2009 Year in Review

DCMud looks back on 2009 by presenting the real estate year in review. In what might go down as "The year nothing got built," officials and builders at least found time set up the pins for 2010. And while 2009 is a year most real estate professionals would like to pretend never happened, it did.  Here's the best and the worst: 

Howard Theater Plans Approved (Jan 1) - The District approved plans to turn historic but dilapidated Howard Theater into an arts venue. Ellis Development expected work to begin by summer, but financing obstacles have left the building unmolested. 

Hilton Gets OK'd (Jan 2) - Lowe Enterprises received approval by the HPRB to renovate the "Hinkley" Hilton hotel and add a large residential tower on the site of its outdoor pool.  Renovation work got underway in the spring, closing the pool, but the condo tower appears far off. 

Work Begins on East-West Apartment Project (Jan 6) Post Properties began work on their 364 apartments in Hyattsville, MD. 

DC's Southwest Fish Market Loses Shacks (Jan 8) Several fish shacks on the waterfront were ordered razed as part of the plans for PN Hoffman to build its massive mixed-use waterfront community nearby, but the project remains a long way off. 

Ft. Totten Promises Development (Jan 14) Mayor Fenty joined Lowe Enterprises to announce the sale of 9 acres at Ft. Totten that will house nearly 900 new apartments, but work is not anticipated in the near future. 

Eckington Convent Gets Moving (Jan 15) In a literal push for affordable housing, Northstar Development tugged a historic convent to a new site to make way for a large, low-income housing project. Neighbors were less than thrilled about yet more affordable housing in the area. 

Montgomery County Votes to Endorse Purple Line (Jan 21) Amid copious argument, county planners said yes to adding a light rail line to the bike trail, enabling construction of the Purple Line from Bethesda to New Carrollton. 

Developers Propose Razing Meads Row (Jan 21) Owners of historic rowhouses on the 1300 block of H Street proposed knocking down the old beauty queens to replace them with a parking lot. Neighbors did not love the idea.

McMillan Sand Filtration Plans Get First Details (Jan 24) Developers chosen to build the crumbling McMillan site showed the public initial designs and ideas they hope will turn the vacant patch into a thriving town center.

Bethesda Post Office To Turn into Mixed-Use Project (Jan 27) The Post Office at 7001 Arlington Road received approval to turn it into a mixed-use development with 105 residences, thanks to Arlington-based Keating Development and KGD Architects, work has not yet begun. 

Eisenhower Ave Towers Approved (Jan 25) Lane Development's 22-story, 4-building complex on Eisenhower Avenue received initial design approval. The county voted June 13th in favor of the project. Much work remains before towers stand alongside the beltway. 

Alexandria Goes Green (Jan 26) - A working group adopted a LEED-certified plan for all buildings in Alexandria requiring special approval. The recommended standards are not binding. 

Auctioning Babe's (Jan 30) - Having kicked out rent-paying tenant Babe's Billiards, Clemens Construction was unable to get support for its years of effort to build a condo, and having paid $7.4m for the site, the wait couldn't last forever. The property was foreclosed, and Douglas Development added the real estate to its portfolio, intending retail, but the space remains vacant. 

Poplar Point Development Abandoned (Jan 31) - The District government and Clark Realty decided developing the 110-acre parcel of prime waterfront space wasn't such a good idea after all, calling the whole thing off.

Institute of Peace Gets Underway on the Mall (Feb 2) The five-story building, now nearly complete, took the place of a parking lot near the Lincoln Memorial. The building was designed by Moshe Safie and Associates, in the hopes of fostering world peace. Meanwhile, world strife continued. 

Kettler Produces Another Crystal City Project (Feb 3) Kettler began the third phase of its 10-building, 8-phase Metropolitan Park Development with a 411-unit apartment building designed by Dorsky Hodgson Parrish Yue. 

Fitz Condos in Rockville Auctions Remaining Units (Feb 10) Condo developer Elad ended nearly 5 years of marketing on the Fitz condos and sent the remaining 40 units of the 221-unit building to auction. In October, Elad did the same for the Colonnade, its Gaithersburg condo project. 

Metro station at Potomac Yards (Feb 11) Alexandria formally established a working group to explore the technical and practical viability of a metro station at the Yards, in preparation for further real estate development that does not choke area roads. 

Del Ray Apartments Roll Out (Feb 13) Work began turning vacant storefronts into 141 apartment units in the Del Ray section of Alexandria. 

Mixed-Use in College Park (Feb 24) The Mark Vogel Companies got the go-ahead for the Varsity, a 258-unit mixed-use apartment building in College Park. 

JBG Gets OK for Whitman Walker condos (Feb 25) After getting bashed by grumpy neighbors, the ANC, and HPRB for designs that seemed to please no one, JBG Companies and architect Shalom Baranes tweaked the designs to get the green light to build condos on the site of the Whitman Walker clinic on 14th Street.

JBG Plans 4-Star Hotel for U Street (March 2) JBG began plans to build a 250-bed luxury hotel in place of the Rite Aid, on a strip once known for its destruction in the '68 riots. 

Riverfront's Canal Park Steps Forward (March 25) Canal Park, a 3-block park through southeast's Capitol Riverfront, moved closer to reality when OLIN was named as the landscape architect for the project.

DCMud Chosen as Best Real Estate Blog (March 26) CityPaper selects this real estate journal in its annual "Best of DC."  Thank you, and thank you to our readers for all your feedback. 

Smithsonian Designs New Museum (March 30) The Smithsonian unveiled designs for its museum of African American History at 15th and Constitution on the National Mall. The Institute also said its costs had nearly doubled, to $500m. The following month, the Smithsonian announced that the Freelon Group, Adjaye Associates and Davis Brody Bond in association with SmithGroup were chosen to carry out the design. 

Frank Ghery Selected to Design Eisenhower Memorial (April 3) The memorial to the General and President will be built on Independence Avenue, between 4th and 5th Streets. 

District Selects Team to Redevelop SW Site (April 6) DC Selects Potomac Investment Properties, City Partners and Adams Investment Group to build half a million square feet of office and retail, and replace the fire station. 

Towers on the Way for New York Avenue (April 7) Bozzuto said it would soon begin building a 13-story residential building at 460 New York Avenue, and possibly makeover the abandoned warehouse too.

Donohoe Unveils Big Plans for Bethesda (April 16) The developer will build 81,000 s.f. of office, 457 residential units, and retail, on two sites in the Woodmont Triangle of Bethesda. 

Social Safeway Says Goodbye (April 20) The preeminent Georgetown grocer announced it would shut its doors and rebuild from ground up, but will it still be "social"? 

JPI unveils southeast DC apartments (April 22) JPI completed the 421-unit 909 at Capitol Yards, as well as the Axiom and Jefferson, a threesome of large apartment buildings near the new ballpark, bringing life to the "Capitol Riverfront" neighborhood. 

Arlington's First Platinum Residences (April 28) Erkiletion Development won approval from Arlington for a LEED Gold, 16-story apartment building in Courthouse, a 254-unit apartment designed by the Lessard Group. (see picture at right)

JBG wins approval for Bethesda Row centerpiece (May 5) The Planning Board said yes to Woodmont East, a 250-unit residence and separate office building built around the bike trail. 

High-rise Planned for Downtown Bethesda (May 23) The Clarrett Group announced plans to build an office building on the site of the McDonalds and its parking lot. 

Noma Gets its First Hotel (June 3) The Finvarb Companies and Marriott joined for a new hotel, one of many new Marriotts in the DC area, but the first place to sleep in Noma. 

Floridian Goes South (June 9) Sales at Kady Development's condo project, a bit of South Beach on Florida Ave., were stopped by the bank. 

Room and Board Picks 14th St. for DC (June 10) The retailer added to the growing 14th Street retail corridor. The store should open in the 2nd half of 2010. 

Founders Square Begins Demolition Work in Ballston (June 17) Work begins on the WMATA site that Shooshan will turn into two office towers and a sizable residential building. 

W Comes to DC (June 24) After a few changes in ownership, the Starwood Capital Group purchased the fading Hotel Washington, making it hip once again. 

Eastern Market Reopens (June 25) After a fire gutted the beloved market, the city had a new one built, with improvements to boot. 

JBG Gets Approval for Massive Twinbrook Project (June 29) The developer plans for Twinbrook Station, a 2.2 million square foot complex at the Twinbrook Metro. 

Florida Avenue Gets Jazzed (July 7) Banneker Ventures promised it was partnering with Bank of America to get going on the Florida Avenue project it won from WMATA more than a year ago, but which had not gotten underway; work has not yet begun. 

DC Passes Bill for Convention Center Hotel (July 14) Quadrangle Development is to build the 1100 room Marriott, but JBG protests the selection process, and the site remains a parking lot. 

DC Seeks to Finish Off West End (July 15) The District sought a developer for 3 low-density parcels, anomalies in the now-dense neighborhood. 

Curtain Call for Takoma Theater (Aug 1) Owners of the Takoma Theater promised to bring down the house, literally, to make way for an office building, then a theater, but the community is calling for an encore. 

Penn Quarter Gets Luxury Apartment Building (Aug 4) Hanover Co. opened its first DC-area project at Judiciary Square (see picture at right), while building another in Falls Church. 

District Cancels Lincoln Theater Development (Aug 6) Quietly, the District government withdrew its plans to redevelop the back lot, a scheme that would have helped fund the struggling theater.

Arbor Place Returns (Aug 7) Scrapping plans to build as many as 3500 market-rate residential units on outer New York Avenue, Abdo shifts in favor of less than half as many subsidized homes. 

DC Mandates Subsidized Housing (Aug 11) After the Executive Branch slowed the process, the Council finally got its way and forced builders to provide the city with cheap housing for the poor. 

Columbia Pike Lurches Ahead (Aug 20) After seceding from Virginia (bureaucratically), the Pike gets 325 new residences underway at Penrose Square. 

Southwest Towers Foreclosed (Aug 21) Fairfield Residential loses its grasp on The View, a refurbished apartment building in southwest DC, in another foreclosure statistic for the real estate market. 

Montgomery County Gets Taller (Aug 21) JBG caps its 24-story residential tower on Rockville Pike, making it the new tallest residence in Montgomery County. 

St. Elizabeths Team Chosen (Aug 28) The GSA selected Clark, WDG, and HOK to build out the new landlocked Coast Guard Headquarters, in what will be one of the largest construction sites in the District of Columbia. Less than a month later, the Feds broke ground on the site.

NoMa Caps Largest Mixed-Use Building (Sept 1) Soon residents will outnumber construction workers in Noma, as StonebridgeCarras and SK&I Architects finish 440 apartments and a hotel, possibly in early 2010. (see picture at left)

A Giant Delay (Oct 1) Street-Works vision for a large mixed-use replacement for the forlorn low-rise Giant on Wisconsin seemed to please no one, but developer Bozzuto plows ahead and discussions move forward. 

Park Morton Team Moves Forward? (Oct 7) Washington DC officials picked the team to build the capacious Georgia Avenue project - now with the Central Union Mission site included. Probably. Someday.

Clarendon's Affordable Housing Breaks Ground (Oct 15) The Views at Clarendon starts work on 116 mixed-income units after a long zoning dispute, going up to the Supreme Court, gets resolved. 

Northwest One Team Selected (Oct 27) The massive project that could transform the area close to the Capitol Building is set in motion, but the Mayor's choice of real estate developer raises eyebrows on the Council. 

Silver Spring Designs Downtown Library (Oct 29) The county releases its plans for the urban repository; the new building will straddle the new Purple Line, someday, when further details are worked out. 

Capitol Hill's Big Dig (Nov 15) CSX says it needs to tear up Virginia Avenue to rebuild the train tracks, just when residents of southeast DC thought construction in the neighborhood was nearly complete.

Bethesda's Parking Quagmire (Dec 2) Montgomery County wants PN Hoffman and Stonebridge to build 1100 parking spaces below Bethesda Row, but the $80,000-per-space sticker gives some locals road rage. (rendering at right)

Street Cars are Here (Dec 16) At long last, H Street's public transport arrives from Europe, but DC officials say that getting them running in Northeast is another matter.