Work Begins on Capitol Riverfront's "Crown Jewel"

Developer Forest City Washington broke ground today on the latest Capitol Riverfront redevelopment initiative: the Park at the Yards. Located between Nationals Park and the Navy Yard, the $42 million, 5.4 acre park, designed by M. Paul Friedberg and Partners, was touted as "the core" and "crown jewel" of the greater Yards development. Once complete, the area will feature 2700 new units of housing, 400,000 square feet of retail and 1.8 million square feet of office space. The park’s first phase, scheduled for completion next summer, is set to include “vast open lawns” and landscaped gardens along a riverfront promenade that will incorporate an extension of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. Future work will include three retail pavilions, including one in the historically-protected Lumber Shed adjoining the site, with the end result of creating a world class waterfront destination.

“A world class city has to have a world class waterfront…This I think is the biggest piece of that and generations of Washingtonians are going to be thankful that this day occurred,” said DC Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Meanwhile, FCW President Deborah Ratner Salzberg told DCmud that other, more retail-centric pieces of the greater Yards puzzle, such as the Boilermaker Shops at 200 Tingey Street, SE, continue to fall into place. According to Salzberg, roughly 50% of that space is now leased and the FCW development team recently returned from a conference with potential retailers.

Despite rumors of business being slow in the from-scratch neighborhood surrounding the ballpark as construction continues, Claire Schaefer, Deputy Executive Director of the Capitol Riverfront BID, said that approximately 1,600 new residents are now in place in the area’s various rental and condo buildings, with that number expected to climb to 2,000 by year’s end. According to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, the Yards alone will host some 3,700 Southeast newcomers once work finally wraps sometime in the twenty-teens. Those figures will surely be helped along by the vast number of transit-oriented, “’smart growth” projects coming along as the riverfront coalesces - expanded bus services, water taxis, street cars and even horse-drawn buggies being among the options explored for a site that once hosted a government compound known as the Southeast Federal Center.

“You have to put all these pieces together to get to today…[This is] how a neighborhood gets transformed,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who facilitated the nation's first public-private partnership on federal land for the Yards project. “It is especially important to the neighborhood and city that there be a way to reach our river from which we have been isolated forever. This is a part of the city that has been opened to the people.”

Near Southeast PUD Development Faces Re-Shuffle

Forest City Washington and Urban Atlantic (formerly known as Mid-City Urban, LLC) will go before the National Capital Planning Commission on May 7^th to face a second round of approvals for modifications to their Second Stage PUD redevelopment of the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg Dwellings in what is now the Capitol Riverfront. The project stems from a $34.9 million federal Hope VI grant given to the District of Columbia Housing Authority in 2001; that agency, which selected Forest City and Mid-City Urban for the project in 2003, is aiming for a mixed-income redevelopment at the Near Southeast site, with a one-for-one replacement of the 758 public housing units lost to demolition, plus 525 new affordable units and 330 market rate homes.

"It's a PUD stage two application for Squares 882, which is at 6^th and M, SE. There’s a commercial office building on the south side of that, right up against M Street and then there’s a residential building behind it to the north. The other PUD site is Square 769 at 2^nd and L Streets that is a residential building,” said David Smith, Project Manager for FCW. “Those are the only two that we need the PUD vote for, so that we can move on.”

The development team – which also includes architects from Torti Gallas, the Lessard Group and Shalom Baranes Associates – had their first hearing regarding the changes with the DC Zoning Commission (DCZC) on March 19^th. Citing the economic downturn as a contributing factor, they’re now planning to cut the size of floorplans at their four pending residential buildings along Canal Park with the intent of increasing the number of units on site.

“We are basically shifting around the density of the residential units and moving some parking…we’re above the required zoning amount [for parking]. We’re increasing it some spots and reducing it others,” said Smith. “There’s reduced parking at the office building, but there’s increased parking on another parcel.”

FCW has also been pushing for an extension of time to build a new community center at 5^th and K Streets, SE – a project that has already been pushed back several times since it was first announced. The DCZC gave the team a conditional approval for both the unit increase and parking reduction with the hitch that construction of the community center must begin sooner rather than later – in fact, a full twelve months earlier than FCW’s requested 2012 start date.

“We had asked for a certain date for the community center because of the economic times. The financing’s not there for it and we’re hoping they understand…We’ll find out what their vote is next Monday,” said Smith.

Though the sprawling, 23-acre Department of Housing and Urban Development-funded redevelopment initiative often fails to generate as much buzz as work immediately surrounding Nationals Park (including FCW’s own Yards project), progress in the Capper Carollsburg has been progressing steadily. The new Capper Senior Center and 400 M Street have already taken on tenants, while EYA’s Capitol Quarter project - featuring 137 market rate townhomes, 75 workforce housing townhomes and 86 public housing units - held a grand opening this past Wednesday. Seven hundred thousand square feet of office space is still planned to be split between 250 M Street and the Capper Senior Center’s former location at 7^th and M Streets, SE.

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

Factory 202 Gets Mixed-Up in Southeast?

Forest City Washington's aggressive development of the Capitol Riverfront via The Yards project is still keeping pace with its brisk timetable, but one component in particular might be getting a little retooling before it sees the light of day. The SK&I-designed Factory 202 project - a renovation and expansion of the Navy Yard industrial building formerly occupied by Federal Protective Services - had initially been inked as a 271-unit condo project. Now, whether due to the enduring pain of the condo market or saturation from competing projects in the area, Forest City is exploring the possibility of a different development scheme for the property.

"We're currently evaluating whether it will be all residential or include some mixed-use retail," said Gary McManus, Marketing Manager for Forest City.

Another contributing factor to the planned renovation and two-story addition to the historic warehouse/factory - still slated for a 2011 completion - is the fact that the property remains in the hands of the General Services Administration (GSA). Said McManus:

That’s former federal land…GSA actually owns that site and we’re partnering with them...When we actually begin development of a new building or redevelopment of one of the existing buildings, we buy that parcel from GSA at that point. But…nothing is happening on that building yet, we haven’t bought [it].

As such, a definitive start date for project has yet to be scheduled. Nonetheless, work continues on several other mixed-use Yards projects. The Park at the Yards is under is construction, while the adjoining “Lumber Shed” renovation, new retail pavilions and stainless steel spire all recently received approvals from the DC Zoning Commission and National Capital Planning Commission. Meanwhile, the Boilermaker Shops at 200 Tingey Street, SE continues to court retailers for what (one day) will be space along the linchpin of the Capitol Riverfront boardwalk.

Canal Park Gets New Architect, Timeline

The Capitol Riverfront BID yesterday announced that OLIN, a Philadelphia-based landscape architectural firm, has been selected to supply designs for the long in-the-works Canal Park – the pedestrian-friendly makeover of what is currently a school bus storage lot spanning three blocks between I and M Streets, SE and one of the proposed touchstones of area's redevelopment.

Unfortunately for green space aficionados, this means the project’s managers at the Canal Park Development Association (CPDA) will be throwing out the park designs previously approved by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) in 2006 and starting back at square one - a process that will involve re-submitting plans anew to that very same body.

"We should be done with the schematic design in about 12 weeks. Then we’ll start interacting with Commission of Fine Arts and NCPC at that point,” said Chris VanArsdale, Director of the CPDA. “We won’t be done with the [final] design for 10 months, 12 months. So when the design is sufficiently complete, we’ll bid it out.”

According the Riverfront BID and VanArsdale, the site will be begin to be cleared in early June with construction planned in early 2010. Newly announced amenities planned for the Southeast redevelopment initiative include “a new pavilion, a cafe and a possible summertime fountain and wintertime ice skating rink.” The CPDA is currently in negotiations with the BID about possible operators for those park components. Funds for the project are being drawn from $13 million in City Council appropriations, as well as private donations.

Though the strip of land set to host the park was initially to be transferred from the District government to the now dissolved Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, the CPDA has reached an agreement with government authorities that will allow them to oversee the park well beyond its projected 2011 completion. “[The land is] still technically under the control of the DC government, but we have a license agreement with the District to develop and maintain the park,” said VanArsdale.

One of the key features of the park that will remain intact, despite the change of design teams, is its goal of accruing “zero net energy.” According to the BID, OLIN will be exploring green features like stormwater management systems and “solar panels on lightpoles and possibly neighboring buildings” to make the project as low impact as possible. Michael Stevens, Executive Director of the Capitol Riverfront BID told DCmud last year that "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."

DC Breaks Ground on Southeast Waterfront Park

A cadre of District officials, including Mayor Adrian Fenty, were on hand today to start work on Diamond Teague Park, an $8 million waterfront esplanade in the shadow of Nationals Park at First Street and Potomac Avenue, SE, Washington DC.

Construction has already begun on the park’s duel waterfront piers that, once completed, will offer waterfront taxi service and other commercial boating services to service the baseball stadium. A separate, 200-foot "environmental pier" will also host space for school groups and personal watercraft, such as kayaks and canoes. The piers are expected to be completed by the Nationals’ Opening Day on April 13^th; District officials anticipate work on the rest of the park, including a mural by artist Byron Peck and memorial to the Park’s namesake, Diamond Teague, to be completed by July. The Landscape Architecture Bureau-designed project is intended to serve as the linchpin between the ballpark and a projected 20-mile network of trails that wind through the redevelopment areas of both the Southeast and Southwest waterfronts.

The prominently located park is named in tribute to Diamond Teague, a Southeast teen who was gunned down by unknown assailants in 2003. Teague was once a member of local volunteer organization the Earth Conservation Corps – headquartered in the neighboring Capitol Pumphouse – which works to purifying and preserve the Anacostia River

“Diamond Teague committed his life to restoring, protecting and preserving the Anacostia River,” said Fenty. “This park will be a fitting tribute to his legacy and it will mark our commitment as a city to carry on his work.”

According to the Mayor’s office, funds for the project are being “covered through dedicated revenue streams tied to a number of adjacent economic development projects that surround the park.” The JBG Companies previously contributed $1.5 million toward the project; this past October, the developers behind the neighboring Riverfront on the Anacostia development, Florida Rock Properties, made an $800,000 contribution in Teague’s honor.

Washington DC commercial property news

Capitol Riverfront Showcase This Weekend

With passage of the stimulus bill now behind us, the Capitol Riverfront BID (CRBID) is teaming with local artist collective Artomatic and starving artist patrons, The Pink Line Project, to highlight a trio of residential properties along the Southeast Waterfront this coming weekend. Entitled “Luck of the Draw,” the festival/marketing showcase will include art installations and live music coincidentally located at three prominent nouveau Southeast developments: the Cohen Companies’ Velocity Condominiums, JPI’s Axiom at Capitol Yards, and Faison’s Onyx on First.

The free public festivities kick off this Friday, February 13th at 6 PM and run through Sunday, February 15th. Residential units and lounges at the three aforementioned properties will be populated with “photography, installation art, graffiti artists, live music, and DJs and dancing;” we can only presume that there might be a few agents on hand (wink wink) to facilitate the transition from the dance floor to the sales office. Talk about mixed-use.

The cross-pollinating event will also serve a prelude to the CRBID’s 2009 partnership with Artomatic, which will be holding a 10^th anniversary party of their very own in the Capitol Riverfront in just a few months. Artomatic had previously teamed with competing development district, NoMA, for their 2008 exhibition.

"With our 2007 Artomatic we began working with the Business Improvement Districts...and found partnering with the BIDs as a perfect way for Artomatic to better engage the neighborhoods we were in and better leverage our outreach and marketing efforts for our event," said Artomatic representative and featured artist, Patrick Oberman.

EYA Paints the Town Green in Southeast

In an unprecedented move for a large scale residential development in the District, developer EYA took steps this week to ensure that all 210 for-sale townhomes within their Capitol Quarter development along Southeast Washington’s Capitol Riverfront will meet the standard for "LEED for Homes" certification – the industry standard for recognizing sustainable design and green building practices par excellence.

“It’s been our intention all along to select an organization that we could partner with and meet agreed upon standards that would certify ‘being green,’ if you will,” said Andy Warren, EYA’s Chief Operating Officer. “It’s an emerging area and some builders are just doing kind of silly stuff…and calling it green. We felt the perfect thing to do was to find some sort of third party that was recognized and public in the industry as a valid resource to define what is and what isn’t green.”

Per a statement released by the developer, EYA intends to use the Capitol Quarter project as a “model for volume builders on how to implement LEED for Homes on a larger scale.” They’re even pushing their eco-friendly ethos one step farther by including Energy Star-branded appliances and windows in the homes, along with a host of other green chic features like high efficiency cooling units and low flow plumbing fixtures. According to Warren, the modifications will represent only a modest increase in cost over their typical construction practices, as the development team had always intended on utilizing some aspects of sustainable design for the Capitol Quarter - with or without LEED certification.

“I think frankly if you were going from the minimum code requirements to the standards that you need for LEED for Homes and Energy Star, the cost would be very significant. For us, it’s more the magnitude of several thousand dollars, as opposed to the maybe tens of thousands of dollars you’d have to spend otherwise.”

At present, the Capitol Quarter project is slated to deliver approximately 137 market rate townhomes, 75 workforce housing townhomes and 86 public housing units to the burgeoning Capitol Riverfront quadrant of Southeast – well within walking distance of the Navy Yard Metro, the Nationals home turf and a bevy of similarly scaled (re)developments, such as Forest City’s Yards project . The Capitol Quarter’s public housing component - built in conjunction with District of Columbia Housing Authority – will not, however, bear the same LEED certification as its ballpark brethren.

“That is primarily due to the significant lead time that was involved in putting the plans and specs together for the city,” said Warren. “Those decisions were made more than a year ago and to change that just wasn’t feasible, but some same elements and construction techniques that we used on the for-sale units will carry over.”

EYA currently projects an April or May 2009 delivery for the first batch of Lessard Group-designed rowhouses at Capitol Quarter; all construction is expected to be complete by the fall of 2010. The market rate units are currently available for pre-sale, with prices starting at $630,000.

One, Two, Three or Four in Southeast?

When DC Mud last reported on DRI's proposed mixed-use development at 88 K Street SE, the project had more working titles than a Star Wars sequel ("99 I Street" or "Square 696") and there was much confusion as to what shape the project would take when fully realized. The identity crisis now has some closure, now that Tammal Demolition completed its razing of a taxicab garage on the site in order to make way the project - now indisputably titled "The Plaza on K."

The HOK-designed project will begin Phase I construction in the coming months with a "flexible building plan," that, according to DRI's marketing department, could accommodate up to 4 towers of retail and office space taking up the entire city block at First and K Streets SE. (This despite the fact that the Capitol Riverfront's own newsletter reported the Plaza on K as tri-tower development in conjunction with the raze.)

The project’s first phase will include construction of the first tower and will add 290,000 square feet of office space and 14,000 square feet of ground-level retail space to Southeast’s shot at a real estate "do-over." Current plans call for the three towers to total 825,000 square feet in all, sport rooftop terraces and gold LEED certifications, and surround a 10,000 square foot public plaza.

The Plaza on K is just one of multiple District revitalization projects underway on what were once some the District’s most neglected pieces of property. Once completed, the Plaza will neighbor JPI’s Capitol Yards development at 100 I Street and the Cohen Companies' Velocity condo complex at 1050 First Street. Phase I's single tower is scheduled for completion in mid-2010, although a BID for the project has yet to issued. A firm timeline for further towers on the site has yet to be established.

DC's Most Expensive Vacancy Up for Lease

The District's Office of Property Management (OPM) has issued a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) for the former printing plant at 225 Virginia Avenue SE - a property that has lain dormant since it was first acquired by the city. Originally intended to a 1^st District Police substation and evidence warehouse, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) secured a 20-year lease for the 421,000 square foot site from Washington Telecom Associates LLC in 2006. After two years of paying $6.5 million in annual rent (nearly $550,000 a month, folks), they've finally given up the ghost on a project that has succeeded in doing, well, bupkis.

Granted, after the District balked at the cost of re-outfitting 225 Virginia as an operational station, they were able to make space for the MPD at two properties they owned outright. But, curiously enough, they seemingly thought of nothing to do with the hulking building they had leased until recently. According to the developer brokering the deal for the District, M.L. Clark Real Estate, the five-story building comprises “one of the largest blocks of contiguous spaces immediately available within the District of Columbia." What’s more, it’s one of the only original buildings near the new Nationals Ballpark that has yet to be redeveloped. The neighboring lots that once surrounded the massive installation are now Washington Nationals parking lots or Capitol Riverfront construction sites (soon to be mixed use residential and retail developments) – all of which makes this one hot piece of property just off the I-295 exit ramp.

The building and accompanying parking lot are on the block for $80 to $85 million, depending on the options exercised under the terms of the sublease. Due to confidentiality agreements in place, representatives of M.L. Clarke Real Estate were unable to comment on the number of proposals received so far, per the confidentiality agreement, but they did, however, hold a pre-submission site visit for interested parties this morning, in association with the OPM. The project team assembled by M.L. Clark also includes architect Yves Springuel and Tischman Construction. The deadline for proposals for the site has been set for October 3rd.

Diamond Teague Park Makes Headway in Southeast

Using plans approved by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) in October of last year, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development's proposal for a new public park along the Anacostia River will finally go before the NCPC once again for permit approval on Thursday, September 4th. If all goes according to plan (cue maniacal laughter), Diamond Teague Park will be completed by fall 2009.

Located at the terminating intersection of First Street and Potomac Avenue SE, Teague Park looks to be the much needed community icing on the commercial cake that the mayor's office has baked - first with Nationals Park and soon to be followed by the Capitol Riverfront. The proposal stresses the importance of using the park to attract pedestrian foot traffic as it moves to and fro from the stadium with amenities that include a water taxi service, several public piers for watercraft, a thirty foot wide, floating boardwalk and a lead-by-example, eco-friendly garden space. All of this will occupy a third of an acre at a cost of $16 million.

Of course, what would a public works project in this day and age be without giving into green fever? The proposal calls for the park to be a “green oasis” and refers to the current condition of the Anacostia River as a set of “diverse environmental restoration challenges.” Buzzwords and understatements aside, those restoration challenges should provide an invaluable showcase for the Earth Conservation Corps (ECC), which is currently headquartered in the former Capitol Pumphouse that adjoins the park’s proposed location. With a staff comprised almost entirely of neighborhood youth, they plan on using the park as soapbox for community issues that dovetail with their environmental mandate – namely fighting the further pollution of the river and trash accumulation.

On the aesthetic side, the Landscape Architecture Bureau, the project’s lead designers, couldn’t have found a better setting to show off their oh-so-tasteful plans for the waterfront vista. Teague Park is to occupy the prime real estate next to the Riverwalk and, as such, will be in plain view from the ballpark’s upper deck and so-called “Grand Stairs.” From this vantage point, the intent is that Teague Park will serve as the centerpiece of the landscape - providing not only a splash of flora and fauna, but some much needed visual continuity between the Riverwalk and several soon-to-be restored DC Water and Sewer Authority buildings that straddle the site. The park is to be one of four currently outlined under the Capitol Riverfront BID.
Presumably, the ODMPED’s proposal faces little in the way of opposition (unless the Army Corps task force charged with investigating the site stumbles upon more of its own unexploded munitions...again), as it's faced with no competing proposals and relatively little criticism, given its community-oriented mandate and ties to the ECC. All that remains to be acquired before ground can be broken is the requisite National Parks Service permit, whose jurisdiction falls over the portions of river bottom encroached upon by the project.

Positive neighborhood developments aside, the name of the park should serve as a grim reminder of Anacostia’s prospects only a few years ago. The park is named in memory of 19 year-old Diamond Teague, a Southeast resident and ECC member himself, who was gunned down on his front porch by two unknown assailants in 2003. The investigation into his murder remains free of suspects and unsolved to this day. A memorial baring his likeness will be completed in time for the park’s grand opening.

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.

Florida Rock Gets Zoning OK

Riverfront on the Anacostia received a long-awaited approval from the Zoning Commission yesterday for its proposed action for the 'Floria Rock' concrete plant lot, a major step forward for the lot that borders both the new National's Stadium and the Anacostia waterfront. The site is currently home to an active concrete production plant, which some planners apparently believe is not the optimal use of riverfront space so close to the ballpark. Florida Rock Properties has to wait until May 22nd before final action can be taken for the second stage of their P.U.D., construction could begin as early as 2009.

The Florida Rock lot, spanning 5.8 acres along the Anacostia River, has been under Zoning review since 1998, when the initial application was filed to revitalize the site and convert it to a mixed-use project. The final product looks far different from when it orginally started a decade ago, and now encompasses four buildings totalling 1.1 million s.f., which will together sit on a single, underground parking platform holding more than 1,000 spaces. There will be a total of 460,000 s.f. of office space, 80,000 s.f. of retail space, and 323,000 s.f. of residential space, apparently enough for over 300 units, with 25 units set aside for affordable housing. The 4th building will be a 325-bed hotel, all to sit behind a 719 ft. waterfront esplanade and riverwalk. FRP promises that the entire complex will be LEED Certified at some level.

According to Michael Stevens, Executive Director of Capitol Riverfront BID, one of FRP's requirements per the PUD is to build the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, a 20 mile series of boardwalk spanning both sides of the river, and running from the Arboretum to the southwest waterfront on the north side. Only the portion fronting the Navy yard has been completed, but even that is not yet open to the public. Stevens predicts that the first leg could be open as soon as this year. But don't get out your rollerblades yet, the Florida Rock section is at least a few years away, as is Forest City's crucial link, though their site should see construction begin this year.

A brief history of the development: The first plan for the site was preliminarily approved in 1998 for FRP to build a commercial project, and received final approval in 1999 for two buildings with a 55 ft. wide waterfront esplanade, but - perhaps fortuitously - the project never got off the ground. After a series of delays, the case was set to go before Zoning in September, 2004, but before the firm could have their day, the District announced the Nationals' Stadium which would be built right across the street. The Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, the governing body overseeing development over the new stadium-area, requested FRP delay their P.U.D. re-submission so the two entities could coordinate. Finally in August of 2006, a modified P.U.D. was submitted, with a hearing following in September.

The new project reviewed at the September meeting has essentially stayed the same. The modified P.U.D., appropriately dubbed 'Stage 2', was a rethinking of the now extremely valuable waterfront property. It included four buildings: two offices, a hotel and a residential component. But Zoning outlined some problems with the plan. For starters, one Commissioner stated that the project "lacked the right civic character and [a] greater presence of residential uses, preferably apartment units, would be more appropriate." The rest of the commission agreedthat the project lacked a 'sense of place'. Along with these comments came recommendations for some minor tweaks, including complaints about the East Office building inadequately 'recognizing the location and nature of the grand stair of the stadium'.

FRP went back to the drawing board, and came back in July of 2007 with some modifications; by September some project changes and the new name had been agreed upon, which developers described as a "holistic rethinking of the P.U.D. proposal previously considered, especially regarding the civic spaces." Three public spaces were added to the project, all having retail borders: the Pitch to the east, an enclosed galleria called Potomac Quay, and an outdoor water-animated plaza called Cascade Plaza. Along with this new civic character, FRP engaged in a 'physical tightening of the buildings', increasing the residential uses by more than 100,000 s.f., and shifting the footprints of the East Office building to link the site to the stadium and Anacostia river. Zoning's comments were less biting after September's hearing.

Since September's meeting, FRP and architect Davis Buckley Architects and Planners, made minor changes to the P.U.D. for their February 28th re-submission, and which Zoning approved yesterday. The changes included significant details regarding the outdoor public spaces. The old 'Pitch' will now be called Anacostia Place, and adorned with a Raymond Kaskey sculpture called "Anacostia," it will now be considered the central focus of the east end of the project. Zoning Commissioners want it to be a "high energy and visually-active space." Cascade Plaza will, alternatively be the central focus of the west end, serving as a front door and circular driveway for the residential, West Office and hotel buildings.