Old Town Waterfront Project Nears Opening

EYA is nearing completion on their Old Town Alexandria project, Robinson Landing.  Originally the site of a deep water landing when first mapped in 1749 by a surveyor and his young assistant, George Washington, the land had once one of the busiest seaports in America but was gradually filled in.  The nearly complete project consists of 70 condos in 3 buildings facing the water, as well as 26 (already completed) townhomes.  Designed by Shalom Baranes and built by Donohoe Construction, the project sits on 2 acres of land on the south side of Old Town, overlooking the Potomac River, the MGM hotel at National Harbor, and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

Incorporated into the site is a warehouse, first built in the late 1700's and replaced in the late 1800's, which still stands.  Excavation of the historic site was expected to take 9 months but stretched to double that thanks to the discovery of 3 buried ships, sinking old ships being a common practice to fill in land. 8,000 s.f. of retail space will also face the Potomac and include restaurants Shoreline and Barca by Alexandria Restaurant Partners, the latter designed by Hapstak Demetriou made partially out of shipping containers located on a pier.  Condo sales began at $1.25m for a one-bedroom unit.

Alexandria Virginia commercial real estate news

Shops Open in Fairfax’s New “Urban District” at Mosaic

Sponsored Post

One stroll through Mosaic District and you’ll think you’ve landed somewhere between Capitol Hill and Bethesda.

DC’s favorite shops and restaurants are flocking to Mosaic District, a $150 million Edens development with retail anchors such as Matchbox Restaurant, Black’s, Cava, MOM’s Organic Market, Nieman Marcus Last Call Studio, Dawn Price Baby, Anthropologie, South Moon Under, Angelika Film Center and much, much more. Target, the largest retailer at Mosaic District, will open its doors this Sunday, October 14^th.  A full list of retailers, opening dates and events is available at the Mosaic District website.


Also onsite are new townhomes by DC’s leading urban developer, EYA. The townhomes at Mosaic District feature three and four bedroom floorplans, contemporary architecture, garage parking, plus the company’s signature rooftop terraces. New homes start from the mid $600s and include luxury finishes such as hardwood flooring, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The townhomes are now 50% sold out and a limited number remain for Spring 2013 move-in.


In addition to the 40 shops and restaurants onsite, Mosaic District offers a shuttle to Dunn-Loring Metro station for easy access to the Orange line and downtown DC. It is perfectly situated where I-66, Route 50 and the Capital Beltway meet and Tyson’s Corner is a quick ten minute drive. Mosaic District is EYA’s 17th new home community in northern Virginia and a destination designed by leading retail shopping center developer Edens.

Bethesda Industrial Site to Be Remade as Residential Complex

A moribund, paved-over industrial site just off of Little Falls Parkway in Bethesda is slated to be replaced with a 30-townhome housing development.

The 1.8 acre property at 5400 Butler Road is bracketed by Little Falls Parkway and Butler Road, between River Road and Massachusetts Avenue, and surrounded on three sides by parkland.  Presently the site of the BETCO complex of buildings and surface parking lots, plans call for the site to be razed, the pavement removed, and replaced with a Lessard Group-designed "scale-appropriate residential community" of 30 single-family garage-centered homes.

"We actually just got our planning board approval last week for the site plan and preliminary plan," said Stephanie Marcus of lead developer EYA Development.  "We hope to start construction at very end of this year or early in 2013."

Five of the townhouses (16.67%) will be moderately-priced units, and just under forty percent of the new site will be green space, up from basically zero percent at the current site.  Plans also call for about 2 parking spaces per market rate unit and one per MPDU, totaling approximately 64 spaces.

The developers have made several optional concessions, including
removing the existing pavement at their own cost, throwing in an extra MPDU (they're only required to include four), installing stormwater management at their own cost, and setting the amount of green space at 38%, 8% above the requirement.  The project will also remedy the BETCO plant debris' encroachment onto nearby parkland.

The plan itself is somewhat unremarkable - let's face it, a development of townhomes excites pretty much no one - but it's essentially making something from nothing, and in the big picture the removal of the pavement, remediation of parkland encroachment, and significant addition of greenspace, more than makes up for what may be lacking aesthetically.


Bethesda, Maryland real estate development news

EYA Opens New Home Community in Fairfax, VA: Townhomes at Mosaic District

Sponsored Announcement

Built to LEED-ND and LEED for Homes

Fairfax, VA– Next Saturday January 14, Washington-area building leader EYA will celebrate the grand opening of its 17th new home community in Northern Virginia at Townhomes at Mosaic District.

Mosaic District is a 31-acre mixed-use urban renewal project at the site of the former Merrifield Multiplex Cinema at Gallows Road and Lee Highway in Fairfax. Lead developer, Edens, has attracted Washington’s most iconic boutique retailers to anchor the neighborhood: Cava, Matchbox, Black Restaurant Group, Taylor Gourmet, MOM’s Organic Market, Angelika Film Center & Café, Neiman Marcus Studio, Dawn Price Baby, Lou Lou and more. Shops already open on site include Panera Bread, Chipotle, Four Sisters Vietnamese and Sea Pearl Restaurant.

The project will bring smart city living to Fairfax with exciting, quality shops and restaurants in a walkable, urban environment. A Metro shuttle will operate onsite from Mosaic District to
the Dunn Loring-Merrifield Metro station on the Orange line. The first shops are expected to open in October 2012. Alongside the 500,000 square feet of new retail, EYA will build 112 new townhomes in an urban architectural style to complement the neighborhood’s city-like setting. Brick exteriors will be accented by contemporary iron railing and Juliet balconies. Inside, the homes will be built to the nation’s most comprehensive green building program – LEED for Homes. ENERGY STAR features also contribute to energy savings and a more comfortable indoor environment for homeowners. New home buyers at Mosaic District will enjoy features like rooftop terraces, garage parking, and gourmet kitchens with stainless steel appliances. Home prices start at $577,400.

Townhomes at Mosaic District Grand Opening
Saturday, January 14, 2012
2951 Eskridge Road
Fairfax, VA 22031
(703) 385-4647
www.EYA.com

About: EYA is a smart growth developer, specializing in walkable new townhome communities and mixed-use developments. Since its founding in 1992, the company has built over 30 neighborhoods in the Washington Metropolitan area. EYA is currently selling three new home communities: Capitol Quarter and Chancellor’s Row in Washington, DC and Old Town Commons in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. For more information on the company or its neighborhoods, visit http://www.eya.com/.

EYA Announces Construction Start for Brookland Metro Project

After last week's announcement of Bozzuto-Pritzker Venture's new alliance with Abdo in developing the $200 million project on Catholic's South Campus, every propogator of real estate news (including DCMud), was happy just to have something printable during a lazy August. But the cash infusion into the neighborhood was good for other developers too; namely EYA, which rebroadcast the news in advance of its own groundbreaking around the corner. The area's current access, or lack thereof, to quality, independent eateries and retail is regrettable, and any chance of more commerce, whatever the time-frame, is good news. Now piggybacking on these housing-market huzzahs, EYA has given the area's residents and real estate news junkies more to cheer about, announcing that their expansive LEED-certified residential development will break ground on Tuesday. As proof of the regional renaissance, EYA also notes "the massive 40+ acre Dakota Crossing development and the Rhode Island Avenue Metro redevelopment".

The 10-acre field of grass EYA purchased from St. Paul's College is now tilled, and come the first week of September foundations will go in and construction will start moving vertically. EYA expects to deliver their first townhouse models in February or March of next year. Upon completion the whole project will bring 237 Lessard Group-designed single-family townhomes to the former campus field. The townhouses are currently being offered from $470,000 to $590,000. According to EYA, only 206 of the total will be officially "luxury townhomes" while the remaining 31 will be marketed as "affordable dwelling units." Half will go to those unit-dwellers (a.k.a. humans) earning 50% Area Median Income (AMI) and half to those earning 80% AMI.

EYA began marketing their Chancellor's Row houses in May, before they had even finished constructing their sales center. Not to be misled by the subtle art of neighborhood cartography, neighborhood watchdogs have pointed out that the "Brookland Metro" development lies a few blocks west of the unofficial "official" dividing line (9th Street NE) of Brookland, in Edgewood.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

EYA Serves Up Old Town Commons

This weekend, EYA will begin sales on its Old Town Commons project in Alexandria. A grand opening Saturday May 15th will be promptly followed by the beginning of sales contracts (it is hoped) on Sunday, May 16th, when EYA will release a limited number of new homes. Old Town Commons will add 245 market-rate and 134 affordable homes, renovating five full blocks of Old Town.

The new development replaces 194 units of affordable housing built in 1954 and owned by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA). Current residents will be relocated on site or transferred to other available ARHA housing in the community. The developer began the process in 2006 when it responded to city-issued RFP, which it won in the summer of 2006. As part of the agreement, the developer will buy the land beneath the market-rate units, money which ARHA will then put toward funding the public housing units. The public housing will also be funded through low-income housing tax credits.

The homes will be a mixture of architectural styles, designed by project architect the Lessard Group. Across the five phases, the housing breaks down into 159 market-rate townhouses, 86 market-rate condos and 134 subsidized apartments. The first phase includes 38 market-rate units and 18 subsidized units with the remaining phases following a similar pattern of two-thirds market-rate to one-third subsidized. The first phase of homes should complete by the end of 2012, according to EYA Vice President, Jack Lester.

The development team will hold a ceremonial groundbreaking on May 26th which Lester described as an event directed towards the neighbors and future residents of the public housing element of the project "to celebrate the beginning of construction."

Alexandria, Virginia real estate development news

EYA's Chancellors Row Begins Sales

Though the field is still green and the sales trailer still under construction, EYA's Chancellor's Row will begin sales this Saturday for the first phase of its townhouse development in Brookland. The houses will be nestled in the residential neighborhood among the various religious orders that call the area home. EYA will build on the 10 acres of property it purchased from St. Paul's College, which maintains a swath of green hill as an entrance from 4th Street to the 10 acre campus it retains. Construction on the new community will begin with basic grading and utility work over the summer with vertical construction expected to begin in October or November and deliver sometime between February and April.

Designed by the Lessard Group, the whole project will bring 237 single-family units near the Trinity and Catholic campuses along 5th and 6th Streets, NE. The 14 to 18 foot wide townhouses will sell between $450,000 and $550,000. The project includes 28 affordable set-asides, 13 of which will come online this weekend. Of the low-income units, half will go to buyers earning 50% Area Median Income (AMI) and half to those earning 80% AMI.

EYA originally won out over a field of 12 to 15 other developers who responded to a solicitation of interest put forth on behalf of the Paulist order. The developer paid a fixed amount up front, with a formula for additional payments based on sales. Right now, EYA only owns the land for the first phase, which sits on either side of an extended Jackson Street, abutting land owned by the Dominican Order and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Under the contract with the Paulists, EYA will purchase the second phase no more than three years from now and the third phase two years after that. Depending on sales, the transactions could happen sooner, said EYA Vice President, Jack Lester. The timeline was based on an assumption of three sales per month.

Chancellor's Row is less than a 10 minute walk from the Brookland Metro and, as part of a compromise between the Office of Planning (OP) and the community, each unit will have one parking spot with the option to add a second for a nominal fee. The community expressed concerns that the new neighbors would (collective gasp) seek on-street parking; still, proximity to Metro trumped that concern and OP narrowly won the day with a theoretically smaller carprint.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Four Years Later, Arts District at Hyattsville Chugs Along

Hyattsville in PG County is not exactly the center of "urban chic" in the DC Metro area, but a mixed-use project, lead by EYA with retail by StreetSense, is vying to stake a claim to being Maryland's H Street. Most of the residential in the West Village, the first phase of the Arts District at Hyattsville that began in 2006, has sold. After several years of threatening to do so, the development team this month broke ground on the retail element of the second phase, the East Village, and has signed on tenants: Tara Thai, Busboys and Poets and, most recently, Yes! Organic Market. Construction on the one-story retail element is scheduled to begin in earnest in May and to complete by fall 2010 with occupancy in late 2010 or spring 2011; construction on the East Village residential element is expected to begin late this year.

The $200 million Arts District is a new, 25-acre residential neighborhood off of Route 1 in PG County (a.k.a. Rhode Island Avenue in D.C.), just two miles from the District border and two miles from the University of Maryland. Jack McLaurin, a Principal at Lessard Group architects, said his firm tried to create a "depot main street architecture" for the project, hearkening back to old railroad towns, since a railroad line runs along the property. Lessard "tried to funk it up" to make the new project look like "someone had come in and revitalized an area that had been there for a long time." Faux adaptive reuse?

The project is delivering in two phases: the West and East Villages (i.e. East or West of Route 1). The West Village includes 132 townhouses, 10 of which are live-work space for artists, and the rehabilitated Lustine showroom, which serves as a community center with an art gallery and gym. Aakash Thakkar, a Vice President at EYA, said 102 of the residential units are settled, most are built, and the team "hopes to have it sold and completed by the end of 2010." To put it in perspective, sales began on the West Village in 2006.

The East Village will include 41,000 s.f. retail, 275 multi-family units and 183 townhouses. The project originally was to have fewer multi-family units, but EYA recently received approval from the Prince George's County Planning Board to add an additional 198 units in one, four-story building and to reduce by 21 the number of townhouses. Thakkar said at this time EYA has not decided whether the multi-family units will be rental or condos and that construction on the three buildings will not begin until early next year. The townhouses, however, should start sales as early as this April, with construction set to begin in the 3rd quarter of this year.

McLaurin said the West Village has more of an art deco feel than the updated design for the East village, where the team simplified the design to reduce costs. "No vinyl siding" the architect assured DCMud, but "we tried to work with interesting color combination with the brick and hardie panel." The multi-family buildings are broken up to look like a series of taller townhouses, and to keep with the depot idea, the multi-family buildings have space for ground floor retail or artists work spaces, with "larger window patterns" and "doors on ground level units." McLaurin said he wanted to create a "distinct" feel, so that people would know they were not in "anywhere U.S.A."

Guy Silverman, Managing Principal at StreetSense, said his company is the majority owner on the retail, but has been working closely with EYA so that the two developers are "very aligned...in terms of how we envision the Arts District." Silverman said this will be the first location for both Yes! Organic Market and Busboys and Poets and that the choice of Hyattsville "speaks volumes" about the project and the developers' efforts to create an urban neighborhood feel. Tara Thai is also signed on, bringing the total spoken-for retail space to 60%. StreetSense is now looking tenants like a yoga studio, a drop off dry cleaners, a small spa or maybe even an organic pet food store to fill the remaining space.

Hyattsville real estate development news

EYA Ready to Demo Another Old Town Low-Income Project

After nearly 4 years of planning, developer EYA is getting ready to demolish one of Old Town's numerous subsidized housing relics and replace it with a mixed-income community. EYA reports that demolition should be underway by March on 808 Madison Street, part of the James Bland Additions community on the northern edge of Old Town Alexandria. Old Town Commons will add 245 market-rate and 134 affordable homes, renovating five full blocks of Old Town, replacing the 194 units of affordable housing built in 1954 and owned by the Alexandria Redevelopment and Housing Authority (ARHA). Current residents will be relocated on site or transferred to other available ARHA housing in the community. The EYA project will continue in phases, one phase per block, allowing for many residents to remain in their homes until new space becomes available, though public housing residents are not guaranteed a space in the new project. The developer began the process in 2006 when it responded to an RFP released by Alexandria, which it won in the summer of 2006. As part of the agreement, the developer will buy the land beneath the market-rate units, money which ARHA will then put toward funding the public housing units. Across the five phases, the housing breaks down into 159 market-rate townhomes, 86 market-rate condos and 134 subsidized apartments. The first phase includes 37 market-rate units and 18 subsidized units with the remaining phases following a similar pattern of 2/3 market-rate to 1/3 public. 

The first phase units should complete by the end of 2011. The homes will be a mixture of architectural styles, designed by project architect the Lessard Group. According to Jennifer Hebert of EYA, the primary streets, such as Madison and Wythe, will have "very traditional Old Town" designs, while the new secondary streets "will feature a more modern architectural style." EYA told DCMud that subsidized and market housing will be interspersed and that the exterior will cloak such distinctions to "ensure that the overall community has a consistent look." According to Brian Allan Jackson, a Senior Vice President at EYA, both type of units will be built to LEED for community standards, like their Capitol Quarters project in D.C. EYA also developed several projects in the immediate vicinity, including Chatham Square and Potomac Greens, both collaborations with EYA and county-funded ARHA. EYA is also now building Glebe Park, another partnership between EYA and ARHA, with funding from Alexandria that will be repaid through land sales at Old Town Commons, and have caused more than a little hand-wringing at the thought of sponsoring more low-income housing within Old Town. Glebe Park broke ground in August for the construction and rehabilitation of 102 homes off West Glebe Road, with completion scheduled for late 2010. Jackson said the two projects combined will likely amount to $200 million in total project costs.

Alexandria Virginia real estate and development news

The Joy of CSX: Capitol Hill Braces for Big Dig

Thanks to expansion of the Panama Canal, Capitol Hill may be about to get its own Big Dig - a $174 million capital improvement project that will unearth the long-buried tunnel south of the Capitol Building to widen and deepen the antiquated freight line. For those that miss the obvious connection between Panama and DC, the $5 billion overhaul of the Big Ditch in Panama will now make it easier to ship cargo from Asia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from there into the midwest via rail lines, beating out formerly dominant west coast ports as the cheapest point of entry into the American interior. That is, if the rail lines can handle the increased cargo. Which brings us back to Capitol Hill.

In 2008, freight-hauling giant CSX, which owns the tracks that cross the Potomac and mole beneath the Capitol, launched its National Gateway project to improve the capacity of its rail lines, one of which happens to lie under Virgina Ave in Southeast DC. CSX plans to unearth the narrow tube from 2nd Street to 11th Street, beginning in 2011 and continuing for an estimated two to three years. Surely Bostonians are smirking sympathetically, but area residents and business are bracing for the worst.

According to officials from the company, the CSX rail lines that disect DC are some of the most congested on the line. According to the National Gateway website, a variety of factors lead to the decision to expand and renew the current freight system. Population growth, energy costs, and environmental factors will mean increased demand for freight. According to CSX, the current system of tracks, bridges and tunnels is outdated, hence the new plan to widen the tunnel and lower the tracks to allow for double-stacked trains, but in order to access the tunnels for construction, its Virginia Avenue ceiling will need to be removed.

In the late 1800's Congress authorized the B&O Railroad, now CSX, to build the tunnel and own the area below ground, while the federal government retained ownership of Virgina Avenue at grade. As with any major project in D.C., a spiderweb of authorities will have their say over the planned construction. According to National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) Senior Planner David Zaidain, since CSX is applying for federal TIGER Grants to fund a portion of the project, the company will have to comply with the National Environmental Protection Act and the National Historic Preservation Act. NCPC has oversight because Virginia Avenue is technically federal land and is inside the L'Enfant City plan. NCPC will review the concept and give final approval to the public space effects of the project during and after construction. For good measure, the District Department of Transportation will be working with CSX to evaluate impact on traffic.

Assuming CSX obtains the federal grant money and jumps sufficiently through the various oversight hoops, residents on Capitol Hill can expect an extended period of construction and all its attendant pleasures. Among the joys of CSX: new traffic patterns - including temporary bridges connecting the numbered streets and diverted flows from Virginia onto G Street - construction noise, and the unmasked noise of trains running through the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood. For three years. Or more. And that's before planners start getting ideas about what other infrastructure goals could be accomplished while they're at it.

The project is particularly irksome to residents and businesses such as EYA's Capitol Quarters housing development. The new townhomes line the streets near Virginia Avenue and the proposed CSX plan is giving some future homeowners a (possibly justified) case of buyers' remorse. Some would-be buyers have backed off when they caught wind of the area's construction future. EYA Partner AJ Jackson had this to say about the Capitol Quarter community and CSX, "EYA has been in contact with CSX and will be working with the company as well as the District government to ensure that Capitol Quarter continues to be a great community if CSX’s National Gateway proposal goes forward. Our goal is to ensure that any proposal that’s considered includes the needs and concerns of the Capitol Quarter." Like moving massive amounts of freight from the gulf to the north and west. At least Hill residents can console themselves that this will save alot of fossil fuel consumption. And Bostonians will tell them that this too shall pass. But not soon.

Images from the NCPC and DDOT Freight Railroad Realignment Study.

Washington DC real estate news