Sheridan Station Celebrates Opening, Now Nearly Half Built

Ribbons were cut today at Sheridan Station, a $100-million effort by the D.C. Housing Authority and William C. Smith & Co. to redevelop 11 acres in Ward 8 that once held the public housing complex Sheridan Terrace, torn down in 1997.

The ceremony this afternoon marked the completion of Phase I (of three), which delivered 114 apartment units (with gym, business center, etc.) to Barry Farm/Anacostia, confirms Carol Chatham, spokesperson for William C. Smith + Co.

Construction on the first phase of the project began in May of 2010. Now complete, the apartment building, designed by SK&I, is in the queue for LEED-Platinum certification (the highest certification possible from the U.S. Green Building Council), due to incorporation of rooftop solar panels that will generate energy to cover 30 percent of the building's needs, a rainwater collection cistern, LED lights, and low-VOC materials - among other green building tactics.

Expected to be in attendance today were the appropriate local and federal government representatives on behalf of DCHA, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, and DMPED - all celebrating the ability to fund the project, which includes the use of a $20-million HOPE VI HUD grant and ARRA funds.

Phase two - 80 for-sale townhomes - is under construction now; 22 of these townhomes are currently for sale and will deliver in February of next year. Chatham added that three are under contract now. The third and final phase is still in development, a start date has not been specified.

The 11 acres of Sheridan Station are jointly owned by DCHA and William C. Smith & Co. As lead developer, Smith partnered with Union Temple CDC and Jackson Investment Co. to form Sheridan Terrace Redevelopment, LLC.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Arlington Mill In Process of Selecting Newest Suitor

Plans for a mixed use development set for 4975 Columbia Pike that couples the construction of a new Arlington Mill Community Center with a large mixed-income residential project have been brewing for several years now. Originally devised as a three story multipurpose center with several levels of residential units stacked on top, the now 5-story Community Center stands solo and starkly modern in its newest configuration; the residential building will be constructed separately on the adjacent land. In its inception the development was billed as a large public/private partnership, packaged as a singular entity. But fed up with the roller-coaster-like search for development partners, and having lost their most recent teammate in Edgemoor Real Estate (a subsidiary of Clark Construction) to the slow economy, Arlington County officials decided to press on with their publicly funded side of the development (the community center) while they issued yet another request for proposals for the residential half of the project.

The County steering committee and involved public officials held an open meeting last night at Walter Reed Community Center to unveil the latest redevelopment plans for the Community Center. Looking to make up for lost time, planners are moving forward aggressively with the intention of demolishing the current building in October, breaking ground in early 2011, and opening the doors of the new center in the spring of 2013. The public development team will meet with the Transportation Commission, the Planning Commission, then wrap up proceedings with a final Board hearing on September 28th. With plans finalized, a request for general contracting bids will soon follow.

One of the earlier site plans.

Although a construction team won't be selected until winter, architects at DCS Design (Davis Carter Scott) have already supplied the updated schematics. The boxy, glassy building brings a bold, urban flare to the Columbia Pike thoroughfare, but an aquatic inspired color scheme of light blues and greens give a calming sensibility to the imposing structure. The five stories will be stacked on top of two tiers of underground parking (140 spaces) and feature a full gymnasium (8,700 s.f.), an entire floor's worth of fitness center, a game room, visual arts studio, mini libraries, a career center, computer labs, and a variety of multipurpose classrooms, study rooms, and meeting rooms.

A County spokesperson explained that their strategy for the updated programing line-up was to create "one stop shopping for County services." The plethora (10) of multipurpose rooms, as well as several fixed classrooms and conference rooms, will provide flexibility for programing, especially as new relationships are built with nearby schools and libraries that may utilize the new space. The Community Center will be financed with general obligation bonds already sanctioned by County voters, most recently a $26 million bond authorized in November of 2006. Community members seemed supportive, but anxious about the dearth of details for the accompanying residential plan.

The Starry Night version

Arlington County issued a request for proposals earlier this summer, receiving several official plans before the early August deadline. When asked about the proportion of affordable housing going forward, Arlington Mill Steering Committee Chairwoman Linda LeDuc explained that "all six of the received proposals would at least meet the originally stipulated 61 units at 60% AMI. We accepted both mixed income plans," she clarified, "and entirely affordable housing propositions. But it's all kind of up in the air right now." For those who've been tuned in since the beginning, the project has come together at a snail's pace, but once a new developer is decided upon, the process should move more quickly. Officials are expecting the new development team to be poised and ready to apply for HUD's Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) by spring of next year.

Because previous plans have already been approved for a 2-5 story residential building, and because the site is to be developed to Form Based Code as part of the Columbia Pike Special Revitalization District, the normally grueling planning process should be quicker and less painful. Financing and other details will of course remain obstacles, and so no time line has been issued. Vetting of submitted proposals will take place throughout the fall, and additional information will likely be provided as the County irons out their more immediately plans for the Community Center.

Arlington Real Estate Development News

Sheridan Station Breaks Ground

Today, Anacostia's Sheridan Station development kicks off with a ground breaking for the first phase of the HOPE VI residential project. The 344 mixed-income housing units are funded in part thanks to a $20 million HOPE VI competitive grant that the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) received from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2008. Sheridan Station’s 11 acres in Anacostia are owned jointly by the DC Housing Authority and William C. Smith & Co. Though the project was initially set to begin construction in January of this year, DCHA only recently closed on financing. Phase 1 of the 344-unit Sheridan Station, formerly Sheridan Terrace, will revolve around an initial 114 units of public housing and 69 Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) units. The 114 units will deliver in the form of a 104 unit multi-family building and 10 single-family rental units. At least 25 of the public housing units available in Phase 1 will be reserved for current Barry Farm residents. Phases 2 and 3 of the redevelopment will begin once all units in Phase 1 are filled, but the entire project is expected to be complete by 2015. The multifamily building is registered with the US Green Building Counsel for LEED Certification Gold. Green features include a 100 KW solar photovoltaic array which provides 30% of the buildings core energy, a vegetative green roof, and an 8000 gallon rainwater retention cistern underneath the slab of the building. The building will also have a health and wellness center which will provide general family practice care for the neighborhood, provided by Core Health. Construction on the first phase is expected to be complete in December 2011. When all three phases are complete, the 344 units will be almost double the amount of the original Sheridan Terrace - a troubled project that was torn down in 1997. As with the original Sheridan Terrace, the new-and-improved Sheridan Station will contain 183 public housing rental units. An additional 161 units will go up for sale; 117 of these will be sold at market rate and another 44 will be sold as affordable units. As lead developer, Smith partnered with Union Temple CDC and Jackson Investment Co. to form Sheridan Terrace Redevelopment LLC. Sheridan Station will comprise a small piece of the Barry Farm/Park Chester/Wade Road redevelopment planned for Ward 8. The project was designed by Bethesda's SK&I Architects, which furnished the seven different building designs that will include landscaped green space and a pedestrian trail.

Washington, DC real estate development news

FHA's Changing Rules

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced its newest rules to rescue the condo market. Rules that take effect next week will drop the new-condo presale requirement down from 70% to 30%, a welcome change to any developer, but tack on rules that make some lenders jittery. Back in the days when no-doc loans were de rigueure and lenders financed 95 to 100% of home-purchase loans, FHA was but an obscure agency that few real estate agents even noticed. No more. FHA-based financing now allows 97% financing where lenders otherwise lend a more parsimonious 85 to 90%, and news from FHA is watched more closely than interest rates. The newest rules, just released, take effect December 7th. Under the old regime, developers were obligated to find buyers to write contracts on 70% of the units in a new condominium before FHA would back the mortgage. With so many buyers seeking FHA loans, a building could not begin settling loans before the 70% mark was met, a tough standard in the current market. The new rules bring that threshold to 30%, down from the initially proposed 50%. Spot approval, the process of getting an FHA-approved loan on a building that does not have overall FHA approval, now ends February 1, 2010. Buyers with a ratified contract by that date can still get case by case approval even if the settlement date is later. The quirk in the new rules lies in the two methods developers can use to qualify their project. The first entails "Designated Entity approval" with a bank's in-house licensed underwriters, a process the government intends as a quicker, cheaper approval method. The second is to submit the project to the FHA for approval. While no one is willing to guess at how long the government option will take, the bank approval process comes with a caveat that has bankers worried. Under the new guidelines, the first bank that approves a loan in a new condominium will incur liability for any flaws in all subsequent financing, even if it doesn't make subsequent loans. That can leave banks on the hook for hundreds of units for the profit of one loan, a scenario that banks seem not so keen to jump into. On the other hand, all existing condominiums need to be approved under the new system, leaving some industry watchers fearing a glut of applications on December 8th, with some predictions that rules for bank-approved loans will be relaxed to lighten the burden on the federal government. If not, builders will simply have to wait out the government's own approval process.