AvalonBay's "Hipster" Apartment Building Aims for December Move-In

AvalonBay's latest real estate development, the "AVA H Street" apartment building (which is not technically on H Street - it's at 318 I Street, NE) is set to go vertical any day now, a critical milestone for one of the more unique projects in the booming H Street corridor.

"All the dirt's out of the hole, and they're pouring slabs," said Jeff Wood, development manager at AvalonBay. "We're on schedule for first occupancy in December of this year." The building will be entirely residential, with no ground floor retail.

AVA H Street will offer 140 rental units of "pretty sick apartments," according to the project's Facebook page. Jonathan B. Cox, Senior Vice President of Development at AvalonBay, previously told DCMud the building would be "more contemporary and a more unique architectural style than what's now on the market." Though he was coy at the time about the architect behind the building, it's since emerged that KTGY Group is spearheading the design, and the latest renderings, with their colorful facades and prominent branding, do indeed look more unique that most of what's on the market right now. Blake Dickson represented Avalon in the purchase.

AvalonBay acquired 318 I Street through a lender sale, after original owner Broadway Development lost the property (as well as the adjacent Senate Square) through foreclosure in 2009. AvalonBay, a Ballston-based real estate investment trust (REIT), has posted huge profits in recent quarters by taking advantage of depressed property values to accumulate parcels, and by catering to a rental market that remains strong due to the flagging economy. A recent Wall Street Journal story described AvalonBay's strategy as "hipsters and suburbia" - and if the H Street NE address wasn't a giveaway, AVA's Facebook postings ("so rad!" "awesome!" "sick!") make it eminently clear that this building targets the former group.

AvalonBay had planned to build two more apartment buildings near the future Tysons West metro station, but that project ground to a halt after county officials' request for transportation improvement funds were deemed too high by AvalonBay management. (They did proceed with another Tysons project, the 354-unit Avalon Park Crest.)

AVA H Street broke ground back in November, and is just one of a dizzying number of projects in the immediate area, the biggest of which is the Steuart Investments mixed-use behemoth. It's hard to believe, when you see the flurry of construction on H Street today, that just a handful of years ago over twenty percent of H Street storefronts were vacant - a rate that has been reduced nearly to zero in less than a decade. And when the long-discussed streetcar is up and running, the boom will kick into another, even higher, gear.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

AvalonBay Plans Apartment Building Near H Street Corridor

AvalonBay, a Ballston based corporation that as been augmenting its apartment portfolio throughout the greater Washington DC area, is under contract to purchase and develop nearly a full block just off the H Street corridor. Jonathan B. Cox, Senior Vice President of Development of AvalonBay, confirms that 318 I Street, NE, is currently under contract with the plan of building 140 rental apartments, with ambitions to break ground by the year's end. The site is just one block north of the spot where Steuart Investment Co. has announced plans to build a Giant grocery store and 215 apartments.
Although the size is modest, paired with Steuart's building the added density could help develop viable retail for H Street's western end, which has been stagnant compared to the Atlast District at the opposite end. "We really like the H Street Market," said Cox. "We are investing in it because we think its unique enough to separate from NoMa." The space will only house residential space. "We don't believe retail is viable in this location on I Street," said Cox.

The developer has chosen an architect but remains mum about the plans for now. What we do know: "It's not a typical D.C. architect," said Cox. "I think it'll be more contemporary and a more unique architectural style than what's now on the market." AvalonBay has also been buying and building, including the Avalon Park Crest, a 354-unit building planned for Tysons with construction to start later this year.

318 I Street NE, which AvalonBay will acquire by a lender sale, had been owned by Broadway Development, but had gone into foreclosure in 2009, around the same time Broadway lost Senate Square next door. The lender acquired the property in July of 2009 for $1.69 million. The space currently houses the vacant site of Uptown Baker, eight underground gasoline storage tanks were removed from the property in 2005.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

Construction on Tysons Corner Apartment Building to Start Next Month

Tysons has it good these days. What was just a few years ago a distant, forgettable suburb with prohibitively wide streets that looked nothing like its urban neighbor to the east, now has the hope of a new comprehensive urban plan, a foursome of Metro stations on the way, and developers queuing up to build. The latest is AvalonBay, which paid the Penrose Group $13.3 million for just 2.64 acres of land on Westpark Drive and plans to start construction of a 354-unit apartment building next month.

The new Avalon Park Crest, as it will be called, follows on the heels of Capital One's application to create a gridded street system and multi-phase development on 23 acres at the Tysons Metro stations. With construction already approved by the county and designed by the Lessard Group of Tysons, the units are expected to be occupied in early 2012. Arlington- based AvalonBay will build, own, and operate the apartment building. AvalonBay will not seek LEED certification, but will incorporate "numerous" green features.

The site is now within Park Crest development that currently includes condos, apartments and a Harris Teeter grocery store, and already includes the 558-unit Avalon Crescent. Despite being an aggressive investor with 171 buildings and more than 50,000 units to its name, this is the first new community AvalonBay has built in the mid-Atlantic since 2005, though it has been planning another new community in Wheaton.

The building will hold a 2-1/2 level underground parking garage, wifi lounge, "ample" bicycle storage, and two private one-quarter acre courtyards with a pool, and outdoor cooking.

McLean, Virginia real estate development news

Wheaton Plans Rearranged

Ask anyone involved in Montgomery County's Wheaton Redevelopment Program (WRP) and you will hear how the new Wheaton Safeway will lie at the heart of the County's pedestrian-friendly, retail-oriented vision. And it will, though the original plans to include it in the AvalonBay development are now defunct with Safeway opting to renovate the current location and add up to 18 stories of residential. More of a challenge than the developers of Avalon at Wheaton were bargaining for, the project is now on hold, much to the surprise of county officials. Just when Wheaton's development was at risk of becoming ho-hum, the county has stepped in with its own share of development melodrama rife with project delays, excess residential units and a fickle Safeway.

Having cornered the market on apartment complexes from Bethesda to McLean, the Alexandria-based AvalonBay developers set their sights on a new Wheaton community. With County approval, the $100 million, mixed-use Avalon at Wheaton community at the corner of Blueridge and Georgia Avenue, the site of the former BB&T building, was to include the newly revamped, state-of-the-art Safeway. The residential portion of the Avalon project is designed by SK&I. That was before Safeway began working with developer Patriot Realty. Now, the Wheaton Safeway, a joint venture between Patriot and Safeway, will more than double its 23,000 s.f. store while remaining at the same 11201 Georgia Avenue spot.

According to Steven A. Robins, Patriot Realty’s attorney from Bethesda- based law firm Lerch Early & Brewer, keeping the Safeway in its original location made good sense as “Safeway already owns the land.” And because the current Safeway is situated across from the Wheaton Metro at what Robins describes as “the Ground Zero so to speak [of the Wheaton Redevelopment Plan],” it will be conveniently incorporated into the new pedestrian-friendly promenades designated in the WRP's plans. The group is looking for approvals as soon as possible for their Safeway project. “We’d like to be under construction within the next 18 months,” Robins tells DCMud.

Robins explained that Patriot's newly developed Safeway will be LEED certified in accordance with Montgomery County standards, and will include 57,500 s.f. of retail, 140 underground parking spaces for Safeway customers, upwards of 500 apartment units on top of that, and additional 411 residential parking spaces. The Wheaton store will resemble DC’s 14-story City Vista Safeway at 5th & K Streets NW. The architects for the Wheaton store are Hord Coplan Macht.

So what’s to become of the Avalon at Wheaton Community without its intended anchor? And really, will there be a market for the hundreds of extra AvalonBay apartment units now that Patriot Realty is adding upwards of 18-stories of rental units across from the Metro?

When asked about their future Avalon at Wheaton plans, AvalonBay spokesman, Adam Davis replied by email explaining that the Wheaton development “is still in our pipeline,” but “has been delayed for the foreseeable future.” He added that 2011 might be a more realistic year than 2010 for construction to begin on any new Avalon at Wheaton community.

When Rob Klein, Director of Wheaton's Redevelopment, was presented with news of AvalonBay's delays, he commented that the delayed status was "new to him." According to Peter McGinnity, WRP Business Development & Intergovernmental Program Manager, as far as their staff knows, the AvalonBay project "is moving forward," and they were under the impression that AvalonBay planned to "increase the number of apartment units and include less ground floor retail" now that the Safeway was out of the picture.

FDA Office Gets Residential Revamp in Rockville

Developers AvalonBay Communities are nearing the end of two years plus of planning for the redevelopment of the US Food and Drug Administration offices at 12720 Twinbrook Parkway in Rockville. The 32-year-old, 50, 235 square foot "office/flex industrial building" currently on site will soon be razed to make way for the Avalon at Twinbrook Station – a new, SK&I-designed residential complex that will add 240 units to the rental market.

"We've been presenting this plan to the neighborhood for the past two years and, essentially, now we’re [entering] the formal approval process. The City of Rockville was going through an entire…master plan recreation for Twinbrook neighborhood,” said John Cox, a Senior Vice President at AvalonBay, of the project’s origins. “When they created the new Twinbrook neighborhood plan, [the City] endorsed our use on the site.”

With the backing of both the local community and city planners, the development team will deliver more than two hundred apartments – ranging in size from 450 square foot studios to 1200 square foot two-bedroom "lofts" – with 12.5% set aside for affordable housing. The bulk of Twinbrook Station will top out at four-stories, but also include a portion that steps down to a three-story “townhome façade along the majority of Halpine Road.” It’s a design scheme that has allowed the developers to conceal the project’s parking garage by surrounding it with residential units on three sides – with the exception being a portion abutting the future site of 7-story office building currently in development by Uniwest Commercial Realty.

AvalonBay will soon be submitting their final site plan to the Rockville City Council for approval and is planning for construction to get underway late next summer. “I don’t believe there is a scheduled hearing date yet, but, obviously, we’ve had numerous meetings with [City Council] staff and public committees,” said Cox. “We’re thinking [we’ll start in] probably the third quarter of 2010.”