District's Northeast Neighborhood Library to Get Facelift

The District's Northeast Neighborhood Library, the fourth-oldest library in the city, is getting a $10 million makeover.

The D.C. Public Library announced it had selected Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner Construction, builder of Rockville Town Square and RBK Construction, with BELL Architects and Vines Architecture, as the design/build team for its Georgian-style Capitol Hill facility.

The library, at 330 7th Street NE, first opened in 1932. It will get its original woodwork restored, as well as new plumbing and lighting, along with more space for meetings, and a new elevator and restrooms. Existing furnishings and fixtures will be rehabbed as well.

Design plans will take six months, and the project, which will shoot for a LEED Silver Certification once complete, is expected to begin in fall 2012 and will take about a year to finish, the D.C. Public Library said.

(photo courtesy DC Public Library)

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Hill's Old Naval Hospital Halfway to Rebirth

In June 1866, a 24-year-old African American seaman named Benjamin Drummond became the first patient to be treated at what was then the state-of-the-art Naval Hospital (more recently known as the Old Naval Hospital). Having escaped from a Confederate prison in Galveston, Texas, Drummond attempted to return to duty as a Union sailor, but complications from a gunshot wound suffered three years prior while serving in the Gulf of Mexico forced him to seek medical attention in Washington DC. Drummond was discharged in 1868 with a government pension. The Old Naval Hospital has served many purposes since it first served Drummond in the 19th century, but until recently the stately structure has sat lonely, abandoned, and slowly rotting. Now, after a festive groundbreaking in July, the historic landmark is roughly halfway to its completed $10 million renovation and highly anticipated reincarnation as the community-oriented Hill Center at 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.

In 2002 the locally-spawned Old Naval Hospital Foundation (ONHF) submitted a comprehensive plan for the property's renovation and reuse as an "educational center for children and adults and a gathering place for community residents" to the city. After earning the endorsement of the Historic Preservation Review Board in 2009, and following the culmination of several years of securing federal grants ($5.5 million of District funds, and $2 million from the federal government), the ONHF is currently moving swiftly forward with plans to open the Hill Center by next summer.

David Bell of Bell Architects PC, a local firm specializing in historic preservation and adaptive reuse projects, helped draw up design plans for the renovation, and continues to work closely with the Foundation. Rosemary Freeman, handling public affairs for the Foundation, explained that her community and the ONHF wishes to "blend the old with the new, so to leave this historic property to our children and future citizens, as well as save lots of energy dollars going forward." In tandem with the development team and architects, the community endeavored to these ends, ensuring that several "nifty, environmentally sustainable, energy-efficient components" were included in the design plans. Two of those gadgets were recently installed, as 32 150-feet-deep geothermal heating wells are nearing completion, and an energy saving machine-room-less elevator was recently shafted into the structure. "We feel it is a model for historic renovations using 'green' technologies," Freeman boasts. Architect Bell believes the geothermal wells to be the "first ground source heat pump of this scale in an historic building in Washington DC."

The Center will offer nine fourth-floor offices, rented to local non-profits hungry for affordable operating space. The rest of the building will offer classrooms and multipurpose meeting spaces (one room will hold 100 people) for "activities, learning, meetings, lectures, classes, exhibits, performances, and civic and social functions for people of all ages and interests." Once the doors are reopened, visitors can expect "drawing and painting, music, parenting, creative writing, cooking and more." A portion of the building will serve to commemorate the proud history of the Naval Hospital, and the Carriage House will be transformed into a "family-friendly cafe." The Foundation is leading mid-construction tours this afternoon for savvy journalist-types to show off their achievements.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Historic Hill Hospital Going under the Knife

The Old Naval Hospital Foundation (ONHF), working in tandem with the Office of Property Management (OPM), is growing closer to a final design concept for the restoration of one of the District’s oldest medical facilities, the Old Naval Hospital at 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. If all goes according to plan, the 145-year-old, Civil War-era institution, which has gone largely unused since 1999, will re-emerge as the Hill Center - a non-profit educational facility for "lifelong learning, cultural enrichment and community life."

Part and parcel with the Hill Center’s mission statement will be a complete refurbishment of the hospital and its grounds. BELL Architects is planning, since condos are probably out of the question, that the building’s top floor will be devoted to office space for community organizations, while the remainder of rooms will be retrofitted for all-purpose uses, capable of hosting “meetings, workshops, lectures, recitals, after-school tutoring, art exhibits, receptions and the many other functions and events that make a neighborhood a community.”

The ONHF has already secured sponsorship from the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and Capitol Hill Computer Center for select events. Meanwhile, the carriage house adjoining the main building will converted into “a family-friendly café.” According to architect David Bell, the “project’s goal is to create a community center that doubles a commercial building, in keeping with the scale and shape of the original building.”

But similar plans have appeared - and evaporated - before. OPM first announced their intent to restore the property in 2002 and have vetted several projects, but some area residents expressed concerns that the project is now moving too fast at last month’s meeting of the ANC 6B and cited the need for more community input. Members of the project team, however, were quick to disagree.

“Take a look around. This building is deteriorating,” Bell told the commission. “I’m concerned [that the longer we wait] the more difficult and expensive this will be.”

The ANC subsequently approved the design. However, according to Ann Brockett of the Historic Preservation Review Board, the project has yet to be scheduled for HPRB review – a process that can take anywhere from weeks to (gulp) years. Nonetheless, the ONHF is optimistic that they will soon be making headway on the renovation. “If all goes as planned with leasing, permitting and construction,” reads their project plan, “the Center will be open and operating at the beginning of 2011.”