McCaffery and Douglas Pick Up Chinatown Corner Site

The last undeveloped corner in one of the most high-traffic areas of Washington has just been acquired by McCaffery Interests Inc. and Douglas Development, at 675 H Street N.W., encompassing the iconic corner building, long since boarded up, and the vacant lot behind it.

"This is the best intersection in metro D.C." said Juan Cameron, Managing Director of McCaffery, comparing it to Georgetown's Wisconsin Avenue and M Street hub. "It is a central location with a lot of pulse, narrow streets, tons of foot traffic, a heavy daytime population, tremendous residential presence, plus the energy of the Verizon Center. In our eyes, its the closest thing Washington has to Times Square."

Though "everyone has their ideas for how the property will take shape," said Cameron, in these early stages the venture is dubbed as a state of the art, mixed use development. "Step one is looking for a marquee tenant," said Cameron.

General partners for the venture Douglas Development and McCaffery Interests acquired the property yesterday at auction. The property had gone into foreclosure thirty days ago, after Yeni Wong of Riverdale International had been unable to secure financing for the building. This past month was the last of many times the building had fallen into foreclosure; in 2009, Wong was given a notice for this property as well as 801 7th Street for $13,491,471 plus attorney's fees. Wong bought the two properties in 2006 for $10 million dollars.

This isn't the just the first or second try at developing this corner. DRI, a Transwestern Company, had slated 675 H Street as a two-building project: one that would restore the corner space and rise nine stories over the arch, the other a Class A office building behind the main storefronts. The total project would have yielded 110,000 s.f. of office space and 50,000 s.f. of retail. McCaffrey owns Georgetown Centre, leased by Barnes & Noble, and Mazza Gallery, which it bought in 1997. Douglas owns pretty much everything else.

Update: Alex Cooper Auctioneers states that the lot was purchased for $9.1 million.

CityCenter on the Launch Pad

Two months away: So say developers of CityCenterDC, for now downtown Washington DC's largest surface parking lot, who are poised to announce an official start to their transformative mixed-use plan to develop nearly 700 units of housing, 185,000 s.f. of retail, 520,000 s.f. of office space, and central shopping plaza, to replace the site left vacant when the forgettable convention center was demolished in March of 2005. Officials say they are nearly set to announce a late April or early May start date to the project, despite any lack of signed tenants to date.The upcoming groundbreaking is in keeping with the April start date Hines officials promised DCMud in June of last year, though it represents a slippage from original intentions to start construction in early 2008 amid the financial crisis. Current tenants such as Bolt Bus have been given until the end of March to vacate the site. With a spring construction start, developers should wrap up construction by late 2013, just as the Convention Center Marriott is nearly finished next door, a pair of events that should have a profound impact on downtown and Mt. Vernon Square, already a bottleneck for traffic.

Filling the chasm downtown, the Hines-lead team, chosen by Mayor Anthony Williams, will rebuild 10th Street and add an east-west oriented pedestrian shopping plaza, hotel, apartments (458), condominiums (216), parking (1500+ spaces) and two office towers. The central retail plaza will be framed by stepped-down buildings to encourage a naturally lit shopping thoroughfare, in what Mayor Adrian Fenty predicted will be a "bustling area where people come after work to shop or eat or to hang out, a city center." The whole site is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.Construction without an anchor tenant would be an important indicator of faith in the downtown commercial market, as DC's retail spaces show strong demand, financial markets stabilize and the Washington DC office market remains buoyed by an expanding federal presence. CityCenter's backers have been energetically courting large tenants to sign on prior to construction and have tantalized news purveyors that brand name leases are "in the works." Howard Riker, Vice President at Hines, told DCMud last June that the team was reworking some of the floorplans to make way for a major tenant, soon to be announced, and the team has been close to signing several tenants that could have anchored the project, a prospect that still might be close at hand, but there are "no signed leases to date" says Hines' Dawn Marcus. Larger office projects such as Monday Properties' 35-story office tower in Rosslyn have since broken ground sans lessee.

Gerry Widdicombe, Director of Economic Development for the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) notes the difference 185,000 s.f. of retail will make for downtown. "This is really the capstone for downtown DC. We have about 5 million square feet [of buildable space] left on vacant lots or dilapidated office buildings...the old convention center site is about 2.5 million [s.f.] of that, 1.8 million is the air rights building, then we're almost built out." Widdicombe credits former city leaders with setting parameters of a strong residential presence rather than solely office space - despite the commercial's greater tax base value, and for fostering a vision of a retail center. "Everything's working pretty well. The thing we're lacking is retail, hopefully we'll have an Apple store, maybe a Bloomingdales, to get us over 500,000 s.f. of destination retail." He notes that when the BID formed downtown had 95 surface paking lots and 30 dilapidated buildings. "Now we've got 5."

Putting that concept to paper, and soon to ground, is the worldwide team of Foster + Partners, which created the master plan and is bookending the site with apartments (overseen by Archstone) and office towers, and Shalom Baranes, designing the interior condominiums and integrating the retail. Along with a new 10th Street and I Street, the plan introduces a new vertical pedestrian street ("9 1/2 St"), an east-west pedestrian promenade, and at their intersection an expansive public plaza encompassed by two-story retail spaces with street-level access. The dominance of retail is not lost on its designers and developers, who sloped rooflines downward to the plaza and raised ceiling heights, a major sacrifice in a height restricted city, while stacking an extra floor of retail and creating - if successful - a destination akin to the European fountain, albeit less historic. DC is a city without plazas, and the architects have their sites set on a remedy.

"The real focus of the project is the public realm and retail" says Robert Sponseller of Shalom Baranes, a design principal for the project. "If you take the architecture aside, DC has always lacked a critical mass of urban retail. We're stuck with low height, so our retail space is squeezed. Here the ceiling heights are 16-22 feet, with a 2nd level of retail around the public plaza area...these are literally modeled on the best European street designs of Barcelona and Berlin." Sponseller says the alleys, or "intimate pedestrian streets," in his words, are 24 feet in width beneath residences that stoop to 4 or 5 stories above the plaza. "The Foster plan is remarkable for its clarity and simplicity. There is great pedestrian access, its really an intense, mixed-use project" says Sponseller.

The northern tier of the lot will be filled by a public park on the western margin, a hotel north of I Street in the middle, still just conceptual and without a flag, and a lot on the east owned by Kingdon Gould that has no firm plans for development at this time. Gould obtained the land in a swap with the city, giving up real estate at the Convention Center Marriott to get the northeast parcel of CityCenter.

Hines is a Houston based, privately owned real estate investment firm with offices in 68 U.S. cities and 15 countries. Old convention center photo courtesy Wrecking Corporation of America.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Dreyfus Releases New Renderings of Center Leg Freeway

Earlier this week developers at Louis Dreyfus presented their plans to build 2.3 million s.f. in 6 buildings on top of I-395, a stretch known as the Center Leg Freeway, to the Zoning Commission. The developer has now released new renderings for their North Block plans, courtesy of Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo & Associates; so no more reading, just looking...enjoy.

Dreyfus Tees Up Center Leg Freeway

Building 3 city blocks on top of an active highway isn't easy. But developers at Louis Dreyfus think they have it just about figured out, and tonight they will make their pitch to the District of Columbia Zoning Commission that their designs to build 2.3 million s.f. in 6 buildings on top of I-395, a stretch known as the Center Leg Freeway, should be approved.

What began decades ago as a horribly misbegotten idea by the National Capitol Planning Commission (NCPC) to create an Inner Loop within the District, an idea that birthed the Southwest Express and tore down swaths of historic buildings, relegating southwest DC for decades to woeful cementitious architecture and federal dependency, may at last be partially healed. The urban planning of the 1940's and 1950's fortunately never realized its goal of extending another half mile north and west, but left a chasm known as the Center Leg that isolated a section of northwest. Dreyfus plans to cover that scar burrowed deep into the city, not only building a platform on which a neighborhood can reside, but doing so while keep the highway operational throughout construction.

Plans have been knocked around for years, but tonight will mark a milestone for its advancement. Dreyfus intends to roof the highway from E Street to Massachusetts, extending F and G Streets to a now-isolated Georgetown Law School. The most recent development plans developed over the past month up the number of buildings from 5 to 6, increase retail visibility, and contemplate additional residential density.

The local ANC gave unanimous approval to the revised concept after developers agreed to "a good faith effort" to raise ceiling heights of retail spaces in the hopes of attracting classier retail, replaced a canopy idea bridging two buildings (ala Tech World Plaza, shudder) with a new building, and agreed to factor in more than the 150 planned residences. "They've been very good at addressing all the issues we've brought up" said Rob Amos, a Commissioner with ANC 6C. "They've been an exemplary developer. We wish more developers were like this."

A Zoning Commission approval would greenlight the project for purchase of the air rights from the city, a deal that is expected to net the city $60m. Developers would then build a separate platform for each of the 3 new city blocks, 247,000 of new "ground," in sum, beginning work on the buildings as each platform is finished. The plan allots 3 buildings in the north block (up from 2), 2 in the center block, and 1 in the south block. Each of the office buildings will rise the usual 12 stories, and developers are contemplating where to put unspecified additional housing at the behest of the ANC, a move it hopes will keep the area from vacating at night. "We're looking forward to putting those 2 pieces back together again" said Amos of the Berlin-style east and west sides of the highway, but added that it would be 2012 at the earliest before the project begins construction.

Years of wrangling came together in 1966 when construction of the freeway got underway, culminating in $81m in spending, 7.5 miles of flourescent tube lighting, and the dislocation of enough neighborhoods to do a Beijing bureaucrat proud. The cosmetic surgery to remove the scar is expected to cost well above $400m and drag on for at least another 3 years. Connecticut's John Dinkeloo & Associates is designing the buildings, while New York's Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is serving as master planner.

Washington DC real estate development news

History, Secrecy, and Preservation in Downtown DC

Call it delicious irony. The U.S. Secret Service, the organization that has seemingly unchallengeable power to take over sites - land, buildings, streets - that it feels it needs to protect the POTUS, are finding it difficult to take over a single building for office space in downtown Washington DC. The building - the historic Webster School - has remained empty for a decade while the agency has been unable to afford renovation, despite its enormous budget and long term lease of the property.

DC residents boxed out of the botched 2009 presidential inauguration and suffering from an ever widening security perimeter around the President may be forgiven a bit of spite toward the enigmatic agency (not that we aren't happy idling in our car for 30 minutes in advance of a Vice Presidential motorcade, and don't even get us started on the Salahi debacle). But the Service says "financial constraints" prevent it from renovating the skeletal eyesore located across the street from the Old Convention Center site and has no plans in the works for the darkened building.

The school, built in 1882, was used to educate naturalized citizens and by DCPS for many years, but saw its last use in the '90s. The National Treasury Employees Union bought the building for $2m and sought to demolish it (claiming special merit for its needs) to make way for a new headquarters, a move thankfully checked by the Historic Preservation Review Board, which then landmarked the building. GSA subsequently exercised eminent domain on behalf of the Secret Service, which hoped to renovate the school as an adjunct facility to its headquarters next door amid rumors of a pending museum for the site. The Service, with an annual budget this year of $1,500,000,000, says it lacks appropriate funding but needs the space for its 7,000 worldwide employees (it won't give the number of employees in DC). "We have plans to make it usable space for Secret Service employees" says Robert Novy, a spokesperson for the Service, dismissing museum theories.

Legally protected from demolition, the building is also being protected from death by natural causes with a minor structural renovation. But with the hole-plugging came exterior scaffolding and plywood sidewalk canopy that has lasted for several years, annoying neighbors, and the Service says it has no immediate intentions, or even designs, to change that until it receives dedicated construction funds. In the interim, the building has been vacant since the Clinton years, a fact that may be noted by an administration that hopes to stanch charges of fiscal profligacy by cutting its inventory of vacant office space, not to mention ax-wielding Republicans that will begin arriving in town over the coming weeks.

So for the time being the corner of 10th and H will remain dark and fenced off, a less-than-inviting streetscape at night, unless the Secret Service can find a way to make money out of a public nuisance. Perhaps they should ask the Salahis.

Washington DC real estate development news

NYU's Student Housing Still On Track Downtown

New York University's College of Arts and Sciences is moving forward with plans for 75,000 square foot, LEED gold-certified "multipurpose center" at 1307 L Street, NW. This week the University received updated Board of Zoning Adjustment approval for the downtown site, which it purchased in 2008 for $7.3 million. The NYU-DC Center, the educational/dormitory facility will house some 150 students studying off-campus each semester.

The Hickok Cole-designed 9-story complex will feature a lecture hall, seminar rooms and office space for NYU’s Office of Government and Community Affairs and John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress, below five-stories of student housing. The facility will also offer temporary living space for visiting professors. The slim 60-foot wide lot posed a design challenge to the architects, luckily students are adept at living in diminutive spaces, especially New Yorkers. Rooms will be arranged in four-room suites. A balcony along the building façade will act as a visual separation between the student housing and the academic areas below.

The BZA exception removes the developers requirement to provide parking or loading areas. The location lends itself to a walkable lifestyle, blocks from the White House and the legion of summer internship opportunities.

A groundbreaking is planned for September of this year, the first student would likely arrive in 2012. Once completed, the Center will serve as NYU’s thirteenth off-campus (but first domestic) study abroad site.

Washington, DC real estate development news

The Streetcars are Coming - in Prototype

For all you Paul Revere-types out there harboring fears that the arrival of the streetcars spells doom, with cumbersome, monument-obstructing wires and disaster for DC as-we-know-it, tomorrow's Streetcar Showcase is for you.

Despite a minor setback of DDOT failing to make it to last night's Georgetown ANC meeting to present their plans, streetcar service may eventually cover 37 miles of the District, but will begin with limited service in Anacostia and at H Street-Benning Road by 2012. But on Wednesday, May 5th through Saturday, May 8th on Lot B of CenterCityDC (a.k.a. the still undeveloped old convention center site at 9th and H Streets, NW), The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is giving District residents, workers, and those rare tourists interested in DC transportation matters, a chance to ogle and board the District's latest transportation innovation.

Admittance to the 10:30 AM showcase is free. And if you still haven't gotten your fill of streetcars, you can stop by the free streetcar propulsion technology seminar at the Renaissance Hotel at 999 9th Street, NW on Thursday, May 6th to listen to the top minds in transportation technology and planning discuss ideas for how the streetcars can be integrated into our transportation mindset.

Ellen Jones, Executive Director of DC Surface Transit Inc. - a veritable posse of entities and BIDs including the Downtown, Golden Triangle, and Georgetown Business Improvement Districts, as well as the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA), the Washington Convention and Tourism Corporation (WCTC), and the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) - explains that the seminar will cover all aspects of "the adaptability of the three cars that we've [the District] purchased and what can be done with them."

Thursday's panel of experts will include everyone from Downtown BID's Executive Director, Richard Bradley, to what Jones affectionately calls "five ubergeeks with over 200 years of propulsion system experience between them" from the American Public Transportation Association, to urban design guru Greg Baldwin. Stop by and get answers to any question you've ever pondered about the green-ness of the project, how DDOT intends to get around that pesky 19th century Federal statute prohibiting overhead wires in the District, and ideas for how Prius-style battery technology can safeguard our views from wires for many miles of the tracks.

Washington DC Real Estate and Development News

DC Passes Convention Center Hotel Bill

The District Council today passed legislation that authorizes and helps finance a new convention center hotel. The bill provides for District financing of nearly 40% of the costs of the Marriott Marquis Hotel, which government and civic leaders have sought for years to provide services to support the city's investment in the convention center. The project has been on-again off-again for several years, with builder Quadrangle Development Corporation reducing the one-time size of the project and negotiating with the District, which by one recent plan would have funded the entire project in order to help kick start the neighborhood and use of adjacent Washington Convention Center. Council members have been motivated to alleviate the Center's obvious Achille's heal - its dearth of hotels in the immediate vicinity - while distancing themselves from the cost of the project. Councilmember Kwame Brown (at-large) said in a press release that though today's legislation was "not ideal," the overall result was positive. "We went from a 100 percent publicly financed hotel to a deal that requires the developer to fund the majority of the costs." The mayor is expected to sign the legislation, which could get construction going as early as this fall. Development of the four-star hotel is expected to cost more than $500 million.

Washington DC retail and commercial real estate news

Downtown BID: State of the Downtown

The Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) issued their 2008 State of Downtown report this week and found that - for an imploded real estate market - things aren't so bad. The BID, which represents the downtown core of Washington DC from Union Station to the White House below Massachusetts Avenue, reports a general trend of rising job rates, more residents, and fuller commercial buildings.

Among the statistics compiled for the report are the creation of 3,800 jobs during 2007 and 2008; 250 new residents during 2008, for a total 7,600; a "record year" for downtown hotels, which boasted a 75% occupancy rate; and a Class A commercial vacancy rate of only 9.6%. Though no new buildings have broken ground since the financial crisis began in September of 2008, commercial projects already under construction are expected to drag down both occupancy and lease rates.

A growth in both daily Metro ridership (108,000 on weekdays, 41,000 on weekends) and tourist attendance (10.1m visitors, give or take a few) helped fuel a rise in "destination restaurants" from 113 to 122.

W Hotel Debuts in DC July 8

Washington DC's first W Hotel will open to the public on July 8th, the first local opening for the hip hotelier. The international pop luxury chain, operated by Starwood Capital Group, takes the place of the Hotel Washington, once a grande dame of DC hotels but that had become faded and tired before selling in 2006, first for $120 million and then to Istithmar Hotels for $150 million, then closing for renovation in 2007 and selling yet again to Nakheel Hotels. Both Istithmar and Nakheel are partly owned by the government of Dubai.

Starwood will provide 317 rooms and suites, stretched out from the original 400 rooms, retaining the famed 11th-floor rooftop terrace that overlooks Tim Geithner's office, not to mention the White House, in a decidedly more upscale setting - the word "swanky" being all but ubiquitous in reviews of the hotel chain. In keeping with its "category buster" profile, the hotel was re-designed by architect Dianna Wong, a Los Angeleno, who kept many of the original architectural elements while adding such must-haves as a DJ and "digital fireplace," for an appearance that will be "sophisticated and sleek but never trendy."

The hotel renovation, which took 18 months to complete, entailed a complete gut and overhaul, and the new owners "gutted it to the girders," according to Barbara Martin, Director of the Patton Group, a public relations firm. Some original elements of the building such as chandaliers, check-in desks, and archways were taken out, restored and returned to the building, but the rest will be new. The POV (point of view) Lounge on the top floor will operate year-round, with drop-down screens and raised awnings for yet better views of the executive office.

Opening within the hotel will be J&G Steakhouse. Rates available on the W's website start at $289 per night single-occupancy. The hotel was built in 1888 as department store and renovated in 1917 to become the fabled Hotel Washington. The July 8th event will be open to the public.

Bottom rendering courtesy Dianna Wong.

Update: It should also be noted that BBG-BBGM was the architect of record for the redesign of the hotel. BBG-BBGM has designed numerous hotels both locally and internationally, and designed the W Hotel in New York City.

Shovel-Ready for 2010: CityCenter?

With the economy slowing real estate development (just a touch), developers are finding themselves on the defensive about projects in the planning stage. A skeptical public might think it a case of protesting too much, but promoters seem compelled to assuage public doubt while struggling to convince once-bitten investors. Case in point, the rumor mill was rife recently with reports that Archstone and Hines Interests’ redevelopment of the old Convention Center - the important and hugely visible CityCenter – was being taken off the table. Not so, says Ken Miller, a Senior Vice President at Archstone. In fact, despite issues with financing and retail partnering, according to Miller, DC might just be seeing the project sooner than cynics expect.

"We are within a year of breaking ground," said Miller. "We are continuously meeting and speaking with retailers that expressed interest."

And yet the project has missed several projected groundbreakings since the developers' first estimate of a groundbreaking by last January, and despite numerous assurances that the delay isn't affecting retail interest in CityCenter, no major retailers have been announced. The multi-phase, mixed-use development will commandeer 10-acres of vacant downtown property to eventually realize 400,000 square feet of retail space, more than a million square feet of office space, 670 residential units and a 400-room “high-end” hotel with its own 100,000 square foot retail plaza, under a 99 year lease from the city. It may sound a little on the ambitious side, but Archstone claims they have more than enough time – and resources – to see it through.

"At this point in time, we still have months to complete our construction documents and get our final permits and entitlements. We’re busy meeting with potential investors and banks that have expressed interest,” said Miller. “By year’s end, even though we’re in a challenging state with capital markets, we’ll be able to get the financing lined up and be able to break ground.”

The last time DCmud reported on the status of CityCenter last September, a Hines representative relayed that the project was “85% ready to go” and that the development team would seek a general contractor “in the next few weeks.” Though neither has yet transpired, there was recently one sign that wheels are again turning after a dour Spring; on April 28th, the development team met with potential contractors at a pre-bid "requirement conference."

The District Government swapped land in 2007 with Kingdon Gould, who gave up land on the site of the future Convention Center Marriott to get the northeast parcel of CityCenter from the District government (labeled 'District Parcel' in the rendering). Gould will be developing his land separately, but has also not committed in time or in scope, nor has the much discussed Convention Center Marriott broken ground yet.

NYU to Build Student Center in Downtown DC

Downtown DC will soon be getting a little taste of Greenwich Village, now that New York University’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) is moving forward with plans for 75,000 square foot, LEED gold-certified “multipurpose center” at 1307 L Street, NW. Entitled the NYU-DC Center, the educational/dormitory facility will house some 200 students studying off-campus at the site of former local dive bar Stoney’s (since relocated to swankier Logan Circle).

The Hickok Cole-designed complex will feature a lecture hall, seminar rooms and office space for NYU’s Office of Government and Community Affairs and John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress, below five-stories of student housing - should be easy to concentrate there. Though the NYU-DC Center won’t be operational until 2012 or 2013, the University is already attempting to spark interest in the center amongst its student body by lauding the selected site as “close to many NGO’s, and near one of Washington’s newest cultural centers, the 14^th Street corridor” – two factors that make it ripe for both cushy summer internships and late night downtown escapades. Students of economics, politics, art history, journalism and other CAS mainstays will be eligible for study at the Center. The project was spurred by a recent donation (of an undisclosed sum) from NYU alum and Washington litigator, Ronald Abramson.

Once completed, the Center will serve as NYU’s thirteenth off-campus (but first domestic) study abroad site; the University already has other locations across five continents in far-flung locales like Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, Ghana, Buenos Aires and Prague. However, seeing as NYU is one of the most expensive colleges in the nation (if not the world), student transplants to the District might be able to get a break on rent at Paradigm Development’s new Washington Center student housing complex, currently under construction in NoMA.

Years Late, Old Post Office May Deliver

President George Bush has signed a bill into law that seems to finally set in motion the redevelopment of the Old Post Office building at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, in downtown DC's Federal Triangle. The law specifically encourages the General Services Administration (GSA) to develop the building upon authority it received back in 2001, but which the GSA failed to implement.

The federal law specifically faults the GSA, given authority to redevelop the building in 2001, for dallying to produce its 2004 Request for Expressions of Interest, a document which generated substantial buzz and private sector feedback at the time, but which the GSA miscarried, leaving it unchanged. GSA could not be reached for comment.

GSA and the Office of Management and Budget had been evaluating redevelopment options for the famed edifice on Pennsylvania Avenue for a number of years. Federal Triangle’s Old Post Office was the largest government building and the first steel-framed building in the capital when initially built as the headquarters of the Post Office Department in an attempt to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood.

Complete demolition is not a threat as it was after WWII, but under the National Historic Preservation Act the government space can be leased to private tenants, providing endless possible uses for the building. In the 80’s, the GSA tried to take advantage of this by creating retail space on the first two floors, a project that has since proved financially unsuccessful. Congress suggested that the use of the lower level space not be predetermined, but rather this redevelopment project to be used as an opportunity for developers to submit unique ideas for the building – with the stipulation that any changes made to the inside of the building during redevelopment be reversible.

The bill calls for the facility to put to a better use than its’ current incarnation as the home of a food court and a dwindling number of government offices. This would mark the first step towards the realization of one of the key tenets of the National Framework Plan (which DC Mud reported on last Friday). Specifically, the Plan calls for the 109-year-old historic building to be incorporated into the grounds of a new, mixed-use development that would stretch from 9^th Street to 12^th Street NW. How this would affect any current tenants remains to be seen. The GSA is given specific authority to move the current federal tenants into other buildings.

The speed of the redevelopment does seem a bit, well, postal, given that the idea was initially put forth…wait for it…44 years ago. The Pennsylvania Avenue Commission - initiated by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 - recommended the demolition of the Post Office to allow for completion of Federal Triangle and revitalization of what was then a decaying strip of Pennsylvania Ave. Nancy Hawks, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts at the time, led a crusade against the measure that included letter writing campaigns and full blown street protests. Eventually, the government backed away from the matter and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places – a status that will protect it against demolition during any redevelopment efforts that take place. Metropole

BZA Approval for Armenian Museum

The DC Board of Zoning Adjustment recently approved plans for the development of the former Federal-American National Bank at 615 14th Street, N.W. into the Armenian Genocide Museum of America. The board unanimously approved plans for a complete restoration and renovation of the five story 50,000 s.f. landmarked bank into 18,000 s.f. of exhibit space in what will be, "The premier institution in the United States dedicated to educating American and international audiences about the Armenian Genocide and its continuing consequences."

Designed by Martinez & Johnson Architecture, the museum will be two blocks from White House, within walking distance of the Smithsonian and down the street from the US Holocaust Museum, a location that symbolically fuses politics, genocide, and education.

Exhibits will be constructed in the two-story banking hall as well as the fourth floor. According to the architect's plans, the exterior will also get a face lift that will include masonry work, general cleaning, and the reconstruction of first floor storefronts. The museum is scheduled for a 2010 opening and will include interactive exhibits, "state-of-the-art" technology, online programs, and places of reflection.

The museum's website compares the Armenian Genocide, which started in 1915, to that of the Holocaust, Darfur, and Rwanda.