PG Plaza Apartment Community Breaking Ground

On September 14th developers will herald the groundbreaking of a new 283-unit, mid-rise apartment community in Hyattsville.  Silver Spring-based Grady Management is working on the project - called 3350 at Alterra, near the Prince George's Plaza Metro station.

A ceremony will be held at 10am on this Friday, celebrating the inaugural launch, though developers have already demolished the low-rise buildings on site and begun work on the project.  The apartments are, in theory, the first phase of a mixed-use, planned redevelopment of the rental complex called Belcrest Plaza with Contee Company (which owns all the land) that would have included massive office and retail components, as well as up to 2750 apartments.  Land developers put together plans for the $600m development in 2008 for the 25-acre site, but a spokesman at Grady says there are no firm plans yet for the rest of the project.     

The design will feature a group "earth-tone" brick and Hardiboard exteriors in a 4-story building that snakes across the site, and the developers are promoting the transit-oriented nature of the project with a gridded street plan for the new community. "Pedestrian and bicycle pathways/linkages to the Metro and between all of the buildings within the development are being designed to promote non-vehicular travel and encourage walkability," notes a press release.  Developers hope to achieve a LEED rating with the project.  Lessard Design is the chief architect of the project, completion is expected in mid 2014.

Hyattsville, MD real estate development news

Contee Co. Redevelops 25 Acres around Prince George's Plaza Metro

As part of the development around the Price George's Plaza Metro station, the Contee Company, LLP, is redeveloping 25 of the its 35 acres, along with Old Town Construction and the Lessard Design. Those 35 acres were originally developed in the early ‘60s. The developer now intends to build several thousand housing units and an office building. Currently, it is working on a building dubbed "Building 6," which will replace 5 recently demolished buildings.

Jared Spahn, a Managing Member of Old Town Construction, said since the area is a living community, Contee is rebuilding the parcels one at a time and demolished the five buildings in February. Spahn said he expects a grading permit for Building 6 "in a week or two."

Building 6 will be a 4-story, 283-unit, 360,000 s.f. garden-style podium building with an underground parking garage, replacing the 105 units demolished.

"It’ll have all the great bells and whistles to compete with all the great projects,” Spahn said.  The bells and whistles apparently include fitness rooms, a business center and meditation gardens to presumably spend time in after spending a long day in the business center. Spahn said it needed to be “extremely high-end to compete with the other great projects that have been invested in around that Metro station.”

Spahn said construction should begin within the next two weeks, as soon as he receives the grading permits.

The  new building will be competing with other “luxury” complexes in the area, but Spahn thinks customer service will set it apart, commenting that having a local owner is what tips it over the edge.

“What I think sets our building apart a little bit from the others is because compared to Post Park and Equity Residential, we are renting from friends and family instead of a multinational corporation. What it allows us to do, we’re not driven by stock prices or market movements because we are long-term investors, it’s going to allow us to provide, we think, a better priced product for our customers than those that have to answer to Wall Street.”

The entire area previously had 555 garden-style apartments in 20 buildings on the site. Through redevelopment, Spahn expects 2,400 to 2,500 units and 350,000 s.f. of office space in the next ten to fifteen years.

Hyattsville, MD real estate development news

Today in Pictures - Ripley District

Once a forlorn street with only ramshackle buildings better for disposing of cars than for strolling, despite its location in downtown Silver Spring and proximity to the Metro, Ripley Street is on its way to birthing two residential developments. The first, by Washington Property Company and Lessard Design, will feature 295 rental units (9 live-work replaced what was to be a retail space) inside a 17-story structure, with a "resort-style" pool at 1150 Ripley Street. WPC broke ground in September of 2009 and will now deliver the first units the 1st week of May. Work is expected to continue through August.

The second site, by Home Properties, will deliver a Shalom Baranes designed residential tower late next year. Eleven55 Ripley, originally conceived as Midtown Silver Spring, will offer 379 "premier apartments" in a 20-story building and adjacent 5-story building, adding a small pocket park as a public amenity.



Silver Spring real estate development news

Tysons Developer Begins Route 50 Apartment Project

Tysons-based Insight Property Group has started construction on a 67-unit "luxury apartment" building in Arlington near the Courthouse Metro station. While this will be the first completed development for the Insight team, it claims to have more than 1000 units "in the development pipeline."

Grayson Flats will be a 4-story ("luxury") building on a 1.67-acre site at 1200 North Rolfe Street, near Ft. Myer, which Insight acquired in 2010, demolishing the post-war apartment building that existed on the site.
Lessard Design and Preston Partnership collaborated for the design, with apartments "larger than typical Ballston/Rosslyn offerings." And forget old school, the building will feature the absolute latest in amenities package - think bocce, Wi-Fi, billiards, cyber cafe, bike storage and an electric car charging station. Such amenities may soon be coming even closer to your own neighborhood, as Insight is planning to dot the area with similar apartments:

"Insight development projects include two buildings scheduled to break ground later this year: one in downtown Silver Spring, MD and one near the Huntington Metro station in Alexandria, VA. Two more projects -- another development in Arlington and one on H Street, NE in Washington, D.C. -- will follow shortly thereafter."

Clark Builders Group is the general contractor, Buvermo Investments of Bethesda is the equity partner in the $25 million development. Construction began on the project last year and is expected to be complete by this fall.

Arlington, VA real estate development news

Today in Pictures - Rhode Island Row

After years of urban planning-speak about the untapped potential of Rhode Island Avenue, many false starts notwithstanding, its first major project is now coming online. Rhode Island Row, the joint venture between A&R Development and Bethesda-based Urban Atlantic, is on the way to a September completion. The 8.5 acre, $109,000,000 project with 274 new residential units above 70,000 s.f. of retail broke ground in May of 2010, with some District help, and sits along a new and expanding bike trail, just a scoot away from bustling NoMa. Rhode Island Row - formerly Rhode Island Station - was designed by the (now defunct) Lessard Group, but switched to Lessard Design. Developers completed the first few residential units in December, and have now delivered 2 of 8 phases of the two residential buildings. 59 of the units are now open, and most of those have already been leased, according to Caroline Kenney of Urban Atlantic. "There's a seriously wide mix of people geographically and demographically," she notes, and that despite the Avenue's inglorious past, "this part of the city is finally getting to be on the map." Of course being right on the red line and bike trail is not a bad marketing hook, and the development team has capitalized with "a ton of bike storage". Kenney said she hopes to have a Capital Bikeshare location on site in the future. Retail tenants are also on the way, with CVS the first to sign on. While Kenney won't divulge names of other retailers, she says 60% of the retail is unofficially spoken for. In all, the project will have 531 parking spaces, some of which will be short term retail parking, plus the new 215-space Metro garage.

Once just a theory...

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Another Park Crest Residential Tower Going Up in Tysons Corner

The 14-acre development in Tysons Corner known as "Park Crest" will get another residential tower. Life insurance company Northwestern Mutual purchased the undeveloped portion of Park Crest earlier this year and construction is to begin on the 19-story, 300-unit apartment - "Two Park Crest" - next month.

The Penrose Group and Donohoe Companies are partners in the development of the Park Crest site, and continue to work with architect Lessard Design to make Two Park Crest a reality.

Two Park Crest will be the second tower built in the Park Crest development, and will be under construction soon, confirmed a project architect at Lessard Design (formerly Lessard Group, now without a website). Construction at the Two Park Crest site will join another parcel of Park Crest now under construction: a 5-story, 354-unit apartment "Avalon Park Crest" by AvalonBay, to deliver next July. AvalonBay purchased the 2.64-acre site for $13.3 million in 2010.

The entire Park Crest site lies on sloping terrain, and the change in elevation has lent itself to the creation of a "terraced waterpark" that will be incorporated into the Two Park Crest site, explained Priya Sambasivam, an associate principal at Lessard. The water feature will crisscross through greenery and drop 20-to-30' from start to finish. Other on-site features of Two Park Crest include an outdoor pool, a fitness room, a cyber cafe, a game room, an outdoor Bocce ball court, and a "small dog park." Sambasivam added that the tower lobby will be "a grand two-story atrium."

Two Park Crest will be architecturally sympathetic in scale and style (contemporary) to the first completed residential tower in Park Crest, the 18-story "Park Crest One Condominium," but feature a strikingly smooth glass curtain wall facade offset with vertical bands of brick - unlike the highly textured exterior of Park Crest One, with numerous bays and rounded corners.

The condo delivered in 2008, and Penrose retained majority ownership of the remainder of the property. The 335-unit condo is 86-percent sold out and priced between $350K and $1.5 million said Mark Gregg, President of The Penrose Group. The other completed component of Park Crest is "The Lofts at Park Crest," a 131-unit apartment (95-percent occupied) with Harris Teeter grocery. The Lofts were sold to Behringer Harvard REIT for $67.5 million in January of 2010.

Two Park Crest will soon become the sole high-rise apartment under construction in the Tysons area, explained Gregg. Likewise, in 2008, Park Crest One was the first "luxury" high-rise condominium built in Tysons Corner in over two decades.

A third residential tower, the site of which was also purchased by Northwestern Mutual, is currently in conceptual design phase by Lessard Design and will likely be rental apartments. When complete, the entire Park Crest development will contain over 1,300 residential units, a mix of apartments and condominiums (high-rise and loft).

Of Park Crest's greater locale, Fairfax County planners believe that "by 2050, Tysons Corner will be transformed into a walkable, sustainable, urban center that will be home to up to 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs." It's quite the goal, but they have nearly 40 years, and four metro stations on the way in their favor.

Virginia real estate development news

Jefferson Pointe at Market Place, to Erase Memory of Addison Square in Shaw

Near CityMarket at O in Shaw, Metropolitan Development's never-built "Addison Square" development is now officially moving forward as "Jefferson Pointe at Market Place" - same specs, new brand - due to the $16.6 million purchase of the fully entitled project by the Jefferson Apartment Group last month. As was the plan in 2004 when Metropolitan purchased the property for $7 million, the development - with architecture by Lessard Design - will include 280 apartments (54 subsidized), 230 below-grade parking spaces, and 13,400 s.f. of retail space along 7th. Construction could happen as early as spring of 2012, after demolition of the seven vacant brick buildings on site (along the 1500 block of 7th) that combined were once the housing project known as Kelsey Gardens. 

  Washington D.C. real estate development news