Union Station's Main Hall Set For Big Changes

Entering Union Station's grand Main Hall, amid all the construction netting and scaffolding resulting from the emergency ceiling repairs prompted by August's earthquake, you'd be hard pressed to spot preparation for two shafts set to penetrate the Main Hall's pink marble floor.

The sinking of what will become two 750-square foot escalators openings are just the start of a grand "less-is-more" redesign of the hundred year-old-plus Main Hall, which among other things, will eliminate the Center Cafe and the two circular marble planters, while adding more seating and retail and improving sight lines, signage and pedestrian flow. It's what Union Station Redevelopment Corporation chief consigliere David Ball hopes will create more "vertical circulation" -- improving access to an expanded level of retail space on the venerable station's lower level, freed up with the closure of the much-maligned Union Station 9 movieplex downstairs in 2009.

The remake is the biggest overhaul of Daniel Burnham's Beaux Arts gem since Union Station's 1988 restoration and the largest repair job since January 1953, when 200-plus tons of locomotive and coaches of the Federal Express en route from Boston, sans brakes, plunged into what is now the lower level food court.

Still, getting this far hasn't been easy. Union Station has a virtual who's who of multiple stakeholders, including Amtrak, Union Station Redevelopment Corp., The Federal Railroad Administration, Metro, Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which owns the lease to Union Station through Union Station Investco LLC, and Jones Lang LaSalle, which manages the retail spaces.

The replacement designs for what came next became became a bureaucratic slug-fest between alphabet-soup agencies including the Commission on Fine Arts, The D.C. Office of Historic Preservation, and the National Capital Planning Commission who couldn't come to an agreement on what they liked. Compounding the difficulty was the 1969 declaration of Union Station as a National Landmark, which made it subject to the complex Section 106 proceedings of the National Historic Preservation Act.

It was easier to reach an agreement on what they didn't like -- Center Cafe smack in the middle of Main Hall. While the double-decker libation center was popular with 20-something Capitol Hill types, many said the sight lines in Main Hall were spoiled.

"The distracting Center Café makes visitors pause in confusion and forces travelers to circle around the pedestal and stairs to find the trains," said Nancy Metzger of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society in comments to the Union Station Redevelopment Corp. last August.

But the first design by GTM Architects, unveiled in June 2010, was almost a wreck on the scale of the Federal Express. Reminiscent of the 1970's Bicentennial visitors center, the design would have cut a giant hole in the center of the Main Hall, creating a glass and steel platform flanked by two elevator/escalator shafts.

The suggestion of re-opening the floor in the main hall recall(ed) memories of the ill-fated slide show pit," said Wesley Paulson, a member of the National Capital Trolley Museum. Critics such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation said the initial design (left) used too much glass and said that the redesign was no better than the behemoth Center Cafe it was designed to replace. In July 2010, USRC and GTM unveiled round two of the redesign, eliminating the center elevator/escalator shafts while seeking a retro-approach in an attempt to make the Main Hall look like more like its passenger station heyday of the 1920's and 30's, with long high-backed mahogany benches.

But this time, Amtrak police, perhaps channeling their inner-TSA, sought to nix the iconic mahogany, saying that the proposed high-backed benches made it hard for their explosive-sniffing police dogs to do their work, while giving potential bad guys plenty of places to hide.

Finally in December 2010, a compromise was reached. Two, smaller, but parallel escalator shafts closer to the front entrance but on opposite sides of the Main Hall so as not to impede center flow traffic. The escalator shafts would be detailed with wood, brass and marble signage and fittings to help pedestrians find their way to trains and the new retail.

Instead of the high-backed benches, the design called for functional if unimpressive low-slung pedestals that can be easily scooted out of the way for black-tie corporate shindigs in the evenings that the Main Hall routinely attracts, something the long benches would have impeded. Also added would be two new retail kiosks or "luxury marketing units" and an information booth in the center, reminiscent of the original layout.

Construction on the Main Hall improvements will follow the emergency work already being done on the ceiling as a result of the earthquake on August 23. The emergency work will be finished in late 2012.

The improvements in the Main Hall aren't the only ones. Already underway outside Union Station is a redesign of Columbus Circle in junction with the National Park Service, along with plans from Union Station Investco to improve the passenger waiting area with "Best In Brand" stores and new fixtures.

Metro too, is looking to upgrade access to its own station at Union Station as well, with a new improved entrance along First Street NE and a tunnel to H Street, in advance of Akridge's massive Burnham Place project, set to begin preliminary construction in 2014.

Washington D.C. real estate redevelopment news.

Smithsonian's New Museum of African American History and Culture Unveils Latest Design Changes

Awarded the rights to design the Museum of African American History and Culture by the Smithsonian back in April of 2009, a Smithsonian presenter and team of architects from Freelon, Adjaye Associates, and Davis Brody Bond unveiled the newest plans for the National Mall's next museum yesterday. Responding to initial concerns about the large size of the building and it's impact on the views of the Washington Monument and surrounding Mall, the team presented their augmented designs - lowered, and shifted back - to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). This is the first of many give and take meetings that will play out before the building is finally built and opened in November of 2015. Next stop: the Commission of Fine Arts will review the newest concept design, final approval on the design will not come until 2012.

The three tiers (the "Corona") of bronze, porous, pumice-stone-like material still form the bulk of the structure. What was originally a large base of the building, the "Porch," has been mostly pushed below grade so only the top pierces ground level, a concession to the prominence of Washington's Monument. The raised platform will retain its mezzanine functionality as a place to install skylights to illuminate below grade programming. Planners are proposing to mound the earth around the structure to replicate the sloping dimensions of the neighboring Monument grounds.

Overall, the building's footprint and profile have been reduced, and adjusted slightly to the south, to diminish the perceived brutish visual intrusion of the building as initially rendered. Although the designers admit that this new position shifts the building a bit offline from the center alignment of existing museums, the changes were made to create a less obtrusive structure, and allow more open sight lines to and pleasantly framed views of the Washington Monument from Constitution Avenue.

Initial renderings showed the Porch rising high above ground

Revisions on technical matters - security, landscaping, loading and docks - will continue, but the Commission had approved previous conceptual designs, and no comments from the NCPC panel appeared likely to derail the overall concept. But persisting complaints highlighted the difficulties that lay ahead for this design team. A long road to appease a plethora of the different guard dog and policy making entities awaits: DDOT, National Park Service, NCPC, the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, Office of Planning, and more. One panelist commended the design team for both their efforts at middle ground and their endeavor to blend a modern design into the setting of the Mall. "I sympathize greatly with the design team...With all of their demands, it seems a lot of my colleagues seem to want to you build a building that is invisible." With that being unlikely, the design may well retain the form presented at yesterday's unveiling. Another interesting reaction was that of Commission member Herbert F. Ames, who after applauding the design team, slammed down his fist and implored Congress (who I'm pretty sure wasn't in the room) to put a stop to any new projects set for the National Mall. "We're going to ruin a national treasure," he said, "the Mall was full years ago, and the Mall is full now."

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

New Visions for Washington Monument Grounds

What do you do with 50 acres of under-utilized, poorly maintained land in downtown Washington DC? When the site is the grounds of the Washington Monument, planning ignites a nearly existential debate. Yet one organization has set out to envision a fresh design for the grounds and the monument with an unofficial "ideas competition" that will kick off later this summer.

Despite more than 200 years of unfulfilled designs that include creating museums, lakes, universities, a paved plaza, and World's Fair space, the land surrounding the monument - the focal point of the Mall and most important tribute thereon - remains largely unimproved, unplanned, and dilapidated. The National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds hopes to bring attention to that and "develop innovative and creative ideas for making the Washington Monument grounds more welcoming, educational, and effectively used by the public." The competition will launch this summer, accepting any and all ideas about how to better use the space and (maybe) pay tribute to the first president, with submissions due October 31, 2010. Organizers hope to narrow submissions to five finalists by next summer and submit those contenders to a public vote.

Obstacles to adoption of the winning ideas are daunting. The land is administered by the National Park Service (NPS), which would have to support the plan, which would then have to be signed off by Congress, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) and the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, none of which have even endorsed the competition. NPS has already devised plans to renovate century old Sylvan Theater, and the Army Corps of Engineers plans to work on a levee system for the northwest corner of the grounds.

Leaders of the competition, however, are more animated by the debate and thought provocation than by a redesign that would actually stick. Jim Clark, President-elect of the Virginia Society of the AIA and Chair of the steering committee, says the project is "mostly an educational forum, that's why we've opened it to younger students as well." Clark has been leading design competitions for 15 years and sees a larger purpose. "This will generate interesting dialogue about the center of our capital city, and will help educate people about history, about planning, and about the status of the National Mall."

As to the choice of this quadrant of the Mall, Clark answers that "this is really the heart of the National Mall. Symbolically it should be the richest area of the Mall from an interpretive standpoint. The mall has many many needs and will continue to evolve. We're really looking at this competition broadly to assess what role the monument grounds should play in the future." Ellen Goldstein, Executive Director of the steering committee, notes that the intent is not to actually transform the Mall. "We don't have any intent to advocate or lobby for the ideas to be implemented" she says of the winning design, though adding that it "could lead to be a transformational process ultimately, even though it is not a stated objective."

The grounds surrounding the monument have changed little over the years, despite the numerous grandiose ideas by accomplished architects. In the early 20th century a public pool graced the northwest corner of the site, and mid-century government office buildings packed the foot of the monument until they were torn down in 1960. Following the terrorist attacks of September 2001, a circular security perimeter was added to the landscaping, which otherwise looks much like it did when the land was originally reclaimed from the Potomac in the late 1800s.

The steering committee has already selected five of the judges and expects to announce the full panel of judges shortly, whose job it will be to determine what good design will never be built.

Washington DC real estate development news