Buzzard Point Recommendations

The American Planning Association (APA) has released its recommendations for Buzzard Point, ideas that include swapping Akridge's planned high-security federal building for mixed-use affordable housing for federal employees and military families, a Sydney Opera House-type structure on its southern point to define the waterfront, and turning the PEPCO building into a cultural center for the community. These broad changes were among many suggested after an APA team did a walk through of the area and met with "key stakeholders" earlier in November. Luckily for the APA, the group is not responsible for designing, executing or paying for any of the suggestions.

If you are still scratching your head trying to figure out where this new land of opportunity is, you're not alone. As APA Team Leader Allan Mallach described it, Buzzard Point is an "in between" neighborhood - not quite SE Waterfront, but not SW Waterfront either. It has a large government presence with Fort McNair, the U.S. Coast Guard and PEPCO, but also a "strong existing residential component" largely made up by a variety of affordable housing. Despite the large industrial and government footprints, Mallach indicated the APA focused on the potential future development of more residences to complement the seismic change in the next 5 to 15 years with the departure of the Coast Guard, the arrival of the street car and reconfiguration of the waterfront and South Capitol Street.

Here are the ideas the APA put forth:

1. The Waterfront: The District should plan to buy the Jamal and Monday properties that are currently occupied by the Coast Guard to ultimately convert it to open space with limited development. Mallach admitted that this would "clearly be an expensive proposition," but suggested the District could recoup the costs by trading the development rights of those spaces for greater density elsewhere in the city.

2. Residential. Residential. Residential: A high security federal tenant on the Akridge site would be, according to Mallach, "a major missed opportunity" and the "whole concept of building a high security installation is predicated on the idea that this is not a community, so it doesn't matter." Instead, the team recommends medium-density residential developed in partnership with the federal government for "families of military personnel and/or new federal government hires." But Mallach acknowledged the challenge in convincing a developer to switch from maximum build out of six to eight stories across two or three city blocks to the modest plans for residential development.

3. Steuart Property: The site should be used for a "strong, iconic structure" that acts as the "gateway" to the SE Waterfront from the Anacostia. Mallach likened to their vision to that of the Sydney Opera House. Lest we strive for mediocrity.

4. PEPCO: Though, according to Mallach, PEPCO has no plans to go anywhere in the near future, the planner recommended taking the long view. As some of the stations go offline over time, the APA suggests that the District and the utility provider work out agreements to shrink the utility footprint in the area in favor of, you guessed it, mixed-use development. Ideally the PEPCO facility could be converted into a museum or cultural center much like the Tate Modern in London. So we've got London and Sydney covered.

The final report of the team's findings will be released sometime between February and March 2010.

Washington DC real estate news

Akridge's Field of Dreams

With all the talk about waterfront development, you would think the best waterfront property in DC was spoken for. That might just depend on who you ask. Real estate development firm Akridge currently holds the keys to a corporate dream home: nine acres of land on the Anacostia waterfront, which can house 2.7 million s.f. of development and more than 1,600 parking spaces by right, not to mention site lines down the Potomac River. And for baseball fans who dream of finishing up a day at the office with a cold beer behind home plate, the Akridge site is only four blocks away from the new Nationals Stadium. Officially, the site's address is 100 V Street, SW, just within the historic Buzzard Point district. Yet the potential for development is vast; with the possibility of spanning three full city blocks to create a corporate campus that fits nicely within the context of the Fort McNair neighborhood. “We think it’s ideal for a user that has security needs because there are several natural buffers. The site encompasses three full city blocks with water on one side, Fort McNair on the West and a PEPCO sub-station across First Street SW, it is on a point with little thru traffic, and adjacent occupants also have large campus-like properties,” said Mary Margaret Plumridge, Media Contact for Akridge. 

Akridge, which purchased the site in 2005 for $75 million from utility supplier PEPCO, has lovingly maintained its original parking lot appearance, retaining the Field of Dreams look and, Akridge hopes, its promise. The new owners did remove an abandoned oil tank left behind by the previous owners - unfortunately empty. The development team has decided (for now) to avoid setting a firm design plan in stone. It's what Akridge calls the "ideal build-to-suit" opportunity. Basically, if you like the idea of having your office a stone's throw from the Potomac, or the notion that you could catch a home run from your office courtyard (assuming Bonds is still juicing), this might be the opportunity you seek. And in a reverse Field-of- Dreams-scenario, if someone wants it dearly enough, Hellmuth Obata & Kassabaum will design it for the lucky bidder, at which point Akridge will build. Because of Akridge’s by-right zoning, the developer is ready and willing to build and is marketing the site to either a “secure user” or for the traditional mixed-use path. Akridge expects to eventually manage the project that is built, but recognizes that the nature of the user would dictate that possibility.

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