"The Avenue" (Park Morton Phase One) Unveiled

Once again, neighborhood-blog fiends have a reason to saturate the online comments board with rabid debate over the merits of affordable housing. Yes, more Ward One "workforce housing" construction is set to get under way early next year, as the DC Council recently approved a loan injection of $16.5 million to jump-start the Park Morton redevelopment project. With a bit of pomp and optimism, developers have officially dubbed the first phase of the project "The Avenue." The much neglected area could certainly use an infusion of pride and confidence in addition to this desperately needed residential development. Located on the southwest corner of Newton Place and Georgia Avenue, 83 apartments will be built on three parcels of vacant land. Twenty-seven units of the 7-story building will be reserved as "public housing," while the remaining units will be classified as "affordable housing," serving residents with up to 60% of the area median income (AMI). Last month, in accordance with the Georgia Avenue Overlay District, The Avenue was reviewed and approved for construction by the BZA.

The broad-scoped $130 million, 500-unit Park Morton redevelopment project is a dual partnership between the Warrenton Group and the Landex Companies. Wiencek & Associates Architects & Planners are currently completing the designs for the phase one building. General contractors Hamel Builders will carry out the construction, which could begin as early as December 1st. But in all likelihood, ground will break sometime in January of next year. Once started, construction is expected to last 14 months. The PUD application process for the subsequent phases of the redevelopment plans will begin in tandem with initial construction, with the goal of transitioning rather smoothly and quickly from phase one completion to phase two construction. The general intention for the entire redevelopment project is aimed at securing quality living quarters for the current public housing tenants (phase one) that will allow the construction of the new higher density residencies (later phases) - the proportion of purely public housing in the area diminished as the planned mixed-income projects come to life. Upon the completion of all phases, the new housing will follow the rule of thirds, units divided evenly between public housing, affordable or workforce housing, and market rate housing.

The hope of developers and the design team is to amass a work of architecture that exudes modernity and sophistication, to challenge preconceived notions about "affordable housing" by using high quality materials and employing an elegant design on the exterior as well as the interior. The focal point of the design is the central corner of the building at the intersection of Georgia and Newton, where a two-story glassy entrance way, accented by a timber curtain wall, attracts the attention of the onlooker. A cutout top level terrace disrupts the plain single-box shape of the brick building, giving texture to the building, and drawing the eye up along the cornerstone of the design (pun intended). When addressing the Georgia Avenue frontage, like any good painting, the canvas is partitioned into a foreground, middle, and background, or more appropriately a bottom, middle, and top. The bottom floor is pronounced by large glass and metal, protruding store fronts that will house retail upon completion. The brick middle section is accented by boxy, extended bay windows, while the top of the building dissolves plainly and gently into the skyline. The opposite building frontage along Newton Place is an asymmetrical doubling of the Georgia Avenue design elements. The bay windows are stepped down to the first three levels so as to better transition the building across the alleyway and into the neighboring townhouse facades. This allows for a milder, friendlier, more residential feel on Newton place, and a slightly bolder, urban flavor on the more commercially-geared Georgia Avenue.

Amenities for The Avenue building include a spacious entrance lobby, featuring a wide, monumental staircase, leading up to a glass walled fitness room on the second floor. The interplay of elevation change, sight angles, and visible space provide for an open feel. The building will also feature an open and exposed internet lounge, complete with computers and printers - enabling work but also encouraging networking and social interaction. An elevator to the roof will access two landscaped rooftop terraces, one of which will be outfitted with numerous planters for community gardening opportunities. This green roof will not only provide residents a chance at producing healthy produce, but also lower the energy bill by decreasing the solar load on the flat building top. Other sustainable aspects include the exclusion of carpet and all mold-propagating building materials, floors will be a combination of wood and tiles, and bathrooms will be purely ceramic tiles. The steel frame of the building will be reinforced with insulating sheeting to prevent temperature transfer and help maintain a consistent indoor climate. The building will be equipped with high efficiency heat pumps, and solar energy panels on the roof will provide hot water for a communal laundry facility. Builders will replace all sidewalks with brick pavers, granite curbs, and two rows of continuous planter strips, where trees, shrubs, and flowers will bring shade, color, and life to the public space. Classic twin-fixture lighting will illuminate the sidewalk along Newton in the evening, and the elimination of two curb cuts will allow for increased on-street parking. Also included in the plan is a 29 space below-grade parking garage.

Developers admitted there are challenges to producing mixed-income projects, including the task of overcoming negative perceptions about the neighborhood and the stigma of mixed-income residencies. But architect Scott Knudson explained that such a test is most effectively bested by setting a lofty bar of excellence. "The way to overcome such notions is by setting a high architectural standard and creating a building worthy of residents of all income levels," said Knudson, arguing that quality and style were not sacrificed here to meet budget. The designer's commitment to excellence extended to their refusal to compromise on small details like ceiling height and top-of-the-line kitchen appliances. Knudson says the design process for each new building will be approached and evaluated on a project by project basis; and new designs will refrain from replicating too closely the appearance of the first apartment building; "neighborhoods are richest when developed over time, and this phased process encourages both consistency and a sense of texture and variety."

Washington Real Estate Development News

Central Union Mission Pursues Gales School, Again

The District has issued a Request for Proposals to revive the Gales School at 65 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. Officials must be hoping for a better result than the previous efforts to develop the building shell, a swap with the Central Union Mission for its land at 3500 Georgia Avenue - a site that might now be part of the Park Morton Development. The announcement indicated DC was seeking offers from private companies and non-profits to renovate the historic building (circa 1881) and operate it as a homeless shelter, capable of serving upwards of 150 people each night. The RFP is the first sign that the furor over previous efforts have subsided, and the dilapidated building will once again provide services to the city's homeless.

The District ran the building as a homeless shelter between 2000 and 2004. In the proposed trade, DC would have gained the Georgia Avenue property and the Mission would get use of the school as a shelter, plus an additional $7 million. But the exchange was derailed by an America Civil Liberties Union lawsuit claiming an Establishment Clause violation - i.e. separation of church and state - because the trade would, according to the suit, result in a "net gain" of $12 million for the Mission, which the ACLU objected to because the Mission requires homeless men to participate in religious services in return for room, board and counseling services.

In the face of the lawsuit, the Mission proposed to move the shelter to Georgia Avenue, only to face fierce community opposition to a homeless shelter and more opposition when the plan changed to a mixed-use residential and office project. That changed in October when DC Officials announced that the development team of the Park Morton Project, Park View Partners (Landex Corp., Warrenton Group and Spectrum Management), would be absorbing the Central Union Mission Property as part of Park Morton, though Park View has not yet solidified that agreement with the Mission. (Image below at left)

David Treadwell, Executive Director of the Central Union Mission, said that the deal with Park View Partners is a "long-term contract" that cannot be finalized until negotiations between the District and the developers are completed. That said, the property is "off the table as far as a swap with the government goes" said Treadwell. With the swap option gone and the $7 million spent long ago elsewhere, the Mission will now compete for the Gales School. Treadwell said it was his understanding that the concerns raised in the lawsuit had more to do with the cash payments than with the land swap, so the Mission will submit a response to the Gales School RFP.

Treadwell added that he hopes the new proposal will "work for everybody, that is fair to everybody and acceptable to the community" because the Gales School is a "great location for serving the poor and the homeless." Still, the Mission's offer will depend on its ability to raise funds for a project that ultimately will not be a revenue creator, and which may be torpedoed again if perceived to contain any sort of subsidy, a problem that non-religious organizations would not face. Treadwell said the Mission's offer will likely call for an addition to the building of approximately 5,000 s.f. for a new kitchen, classrooms and storage space to serve 150 or more men a night. The project will likely cost $12 to $14 million, "we are entering with fear and trepidation," said Treadwell.

As for the lawsuit, Treadwell said he cannot speak for the ACLU or other parties of the suit as to whether the new arrangements and changes to the original plans will have resolved any concerns. The Gales School was designed by Edward Clark, the Architect of the Capitol, and named for DC's 8th Mayor.

Washington, DC real estate and development news

Mission Says "Maybe" to Park Morton

After Wednesday's press conference announcing the DC government's award of the enormous Park Morton contract to Landex Corp., Warrenton Group, and Spectrum Management, DCMud promptly reported the more surprising revelation by Councilman Jim Graham that the District would roll the controversial Central Union Mission site into the Park Morton project - a win for the Park View Partners (Landex, et. al.), who get more area to work with, for the Mission, which gets bought out of a neighborhood that has fought the project from the beginning, and for the neighborhood, which slams the door on an unwanted neighbor. The problem? Neither the Park Mortonians nor the District of Columbia ever quite finalized any such agreement with the Mission. While officials have been working closely with owners of the Mission to reach such an agreement for "some time," sources at the DC government say the Mission is continuing to pursue its own zoning approval to relocate to the site, as we reported earlier, but also to negotiate with other suitors. While things may fall into place, they're not there yet.

Washington DC commercial property news

Industry Insight: Adrian G. Washington of the Neighborhood Development Company

As the founder and CEO of the Neighborhood Development Company (NDC), Adrian G. Washington has overseen numerous development initiatives in the District with a primary focus on boutique condominiums and affordable housing in Columbia Heights and along a resurgent Georgia Avenue corridor. In between working on a current slate of projects that includes the Residences at Georgia Avenue, the Heights on Georgia Avenue and a proposal for the mixed-income redevelopment of the Park Morton public housing complex, Mr. Washington spoke with DCmud about the state of development in the District of Columbia, the challenges of affordable housing and what the future of the residential market. 

Can you give us an overview of the company? 

I’ve been doing this for about twenty years. I started out as basic as it gets - rehabbing brownstones – and moved up from there. Then, I worked for a big corporate real estate company called the National Housing Partnership and we did a lot of affordable housing stuff. I started NDC about ten years ago by doing really the same sorts of things – rehabbing brownstones. By the next year, we were doing 4-unit buildings, then 10-unit buildings and it sort of just got bigger and bigger. It really kind of took off about five years ago. I brought in my partner here and a couple of junior partners, a couple of vice presidents who really brought it up to a professional level. We started doing bigger projects. We were lucky to be on teams that got selected to do CityVista and the old Convention Center site, now called City Center. We really kind of rode the condo boom when it was hot; we had a lot of really cool boutique projects. So it started out focusing on Columbia Heights because we’re always emerging neighborhood focused. When Columbia Heights became more established, we sort of shifted it. So for our last projects, we’ve done a lot of stuff up and down Georgia Avenue – projects like the Lofts at Brightwood and Lamont Street Lofts. We’ve also done some affordable rental projects like the Residences at Georgia Avenue. As the economy shifted, we started doing more affordable rental projects. Our Heights at Georgia Avenue project will be almost like a sister project – same size, same kind of concept with affordable housing on top and retail on the ground floor. Then we proposed on the Park Morton site and we’ll also be proposing on two of the DC school sites. We’ve teamed with EYA on the Hines School site and with Equity Residential on the Stevens School site. 

Indeed, most of your new construction seems to be focused on Georgia Avenue.  Are you still bullish on the area? 

We hope so. We like it. We’re headquartered here and I live about five minutes away. We’ve always been focused on this area and we just saw it as the next “cool neighborhood.” You have Columbia Heights to the east and with Georgia being a Great Street, the city’s been really interested in what we’re doing and certainly helped out on a lot of things. We’ll be coordinating with them for some of the infrastructure improvements with Great Streets. It’s a really great transportation corridor. It’s got some good parcels that are available and, particularly at the start, there were some great industrial buildings that you could convert to lofts. There's not as much now, but it’s a great area and we kind of adopted it as our backyard. We really wanted to be focused on particular neighborhoods, which is where we are. 

How does the current state of the market affect a company that’s primarily focused on affordable housing? 

I think it’s been good and bad. When things started getting tougher, most people - me included – said affordable housing financing is not going to be affected by the credit crisis. Well, in fact, it has. The most popular mechanism for financing affordable housing is the low income housing tax credit, where essentially you get credits that allow companies to reduce their taxes. Well, a lot fewer companies have taxable gains these days, so the market for that – while it hasn’t crashed – has declined considerably. Also, the District a lot of times provided gap financing. A lot of that comes from the Housing Production Trust Fund that is funded by sale and recordation taxes. At the same time, the gaps have gotten bigger because construction costs went up and land values went up. The District used to be fairly flush and now they’re pretty tight. That’s been a little challenging, but the good thing is that the demand is still there. Land prices are starting to retract a little bit and construction costs are starting to mitigate. So it’s much tougher, just like private development is much tougher. But I think DC is really strong market with basic fundamentals like what you can rent things for and demand. I really haven’t seen things as bad yet as I read in the papers and I’m optimistic because demand for things like condos and rentals really haven’t declined as much as the headlines suggest. 

One crucial element of development is retail. CityVista, of course, has a Safeway and your newly completed building, the Residences at Georgia Avenue, is planned to include a Yes! Organic Market. How do you go about making neighborhoods once thought undesirable attractive to retailers?

Those were two very different cases. In terms of CityVista, Safeway was part of the team right from the beginning. Actually, before we became part of the team, Safeway and Lowe Enterprises, our partners, were already linked to that project. Safeway saw it as a great place to put a new urban model Safeway. The thing with Yes! Organic is that we approached them very early on. We didn’t have a broker or anything. They just saw it as a great location. We had some personal connections with Gary Cha, the head of the company, and, as matter of fact, he liked it much that he wanted to buy it because he saw the potential of the neighborhood and said, “I want to get in on the ground floor.” That’s how we’ve done it. We had the Meridian Restaurant at our Lofts at Brightwood project and it was the same type of thing – a really entrepreneurial retailer that was willing to take a chance and invest in the neighborhood in the same way we were. That’s how we traditionally work – not through brokerage channels, but with retailers who’ve really gotten it and want to get in early on a project and help design the project to meet their specifications. It sort of goes together. 

At this point, it’s safe to say that CityVista has been a success, while other projects in the immediate area have stumbled. What would you chalk that up to? 

 It’s funny because we just had a case study that ULI did and they put together all the people –developers, contractors, lawyers and architects. One of the things that we talked about was doing a true mixed-use project – some condos, some apartments and retail. It’s really hard from a construction standpoint, from a legal standpoint, from an architectural standpoint, but if you get right and you get the right mix…synergy is a corny term, but it really applies to this. We got this great Safeway, we got Busboys and Poets and we have a real mix of retailers at the base, all of which people really want. These kind of lifestyle-type things help it be a place where people really want to be. NoMa is still kind of an emerging neighborhood and people want to feel like they have a sense of community – a place where they can live, they go downstairs to shop, they can go out to eat, they can go to go the gym. And not just a little in-house gym, but a really cool gym like Results. It’s a really cool place and what we’ve seen is that it’s drawn people from all over. You think it would be people who live in different parts of DC, but we have people from Prince George’s County and Virginia. It’s just been a nice sort of synergy and I think the rental component energizes the condo component and the condo component energizes the retail component and vice versa. And I think it’s priced right. It’s not entry-level pricing, but it’s not super-luxury pricing either and a lot of people can afford it. We knew we were going to sell like that.

NDC has a record of vying for some prominent District issued RFPs, including Park Morton, CityVista and 5th and I. How would you characterize your relationship with the Fenty administration and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development? 

I’m not an insider or anything, but I value and appreciate what they’re doing and I’d like to think that they feel the same about us. I feel that our goals converge. They’re interested in developing Georgia Avenue and we are too. They’re interested in promoting local businesses and I live in the city, I work in the city and I hire people in the city. It’s matter of being on the same page and understanding their challenges. For me, having been inside the government at one time, I understand what it’s like to be on the other side of the table - the challenges that you have from a political perspective and from a legal perspective. A lot of times, you go through these long agreements with people and can seem like, “Why are they asking for that? It makes no sense.” Having been on the other side of the table, I understand that they have to get certain things through certain offices and fiscal years and so on. Having spent a bit of time in their shoes helps me understand what their hot buttons are and what’s important. That helps the negotiation process. The important thing is that we share the same goals. We want improve neighborhoods. We want to work with the community. Like most developers, we feel that we have to reflect what’s going on and what people are looking for. 

Are there any details that you can share about your proposal for the redevelopment of Park Morton? 

The first thing that I really want to emphasize is that we’ve teamed with a really great partner. They're called Community Builders. They’re Boston-based, but they have a DC office. They’re really the leading non-profit developer in the country. They’ve done over 20,000 units in terms of projects. They really specialize in these sorts of difficult public housing transformations. They have a great human capital program and do things like job training, education and public safety – things that affordable housing demands. Our team, with our local knowledge and our skill, is a great combination. Essentially, we stuck pretty close to the plan that was developed when we were part of the task force that designed the original Park Morton plan that was in the RFP submission. They’re looking for a three-phase plan – roughly a third, a third, a third - that will provide homes for all the current people who are there and then mix them up with moderate income and market rate. It’s, give or take, 500 units of housing. We’ll be demolishing this area [along Park Road] for Phase I and building a total of 195 units. We’ll have [a separate] building dedicated to senior citizens and mixed-income units. Prior to demolition, we would provide for the relocation of families that are in there now and put them in units in and around the area, so they could stay in the neighborhood. We’d then demolish the [second area along Morton Street] and move people into the first phase, along with new people from outside the community and build another roughly 250 units. Then, finally the third [along Lamont Street] would be building condominiums. By that point, we think the neighborhood will have improved, the market will have improved and that it would a great place to do a condominium building. 

Many owners of undeveloped property are now caught between inability to get financing and maturity default. How is NDC positioned to make it through the next two or so years? 

I think we’re well positioned. We’re either lucky or smart. I’m happy to take either one. We’ve done condo projects over the years and about two years ago, we began to sort of feel something in the air. Four years ago, if you built something, people were lining up. As far as two years ago, things began to slow down and we decided to decrease our exposure to condos. We did a couple of projects, but they were very value priced and we were able to sell out of those. Right now, we have zero exposure to condos. Our project across the street, the Residences at Georgia Avenue, is a moderate income rental. We’re in lease up now and we’re getting tons of responses, so we feel very good about how that project is going to perform. The Heights on Georgia Avenue that’s basically across the street from Park Morton, we just got through with PUD and we’re just looking for financing now. Again, we think we’ve created a product that’s moderately priced and we’re pretty optimistic that we’ll get financing for that. We think that we’re in a very good place. We’re lucky to be part of CityVista that, amidst all the problems, is performing well. We’re well-positioned and I think it’s a great time to be a developer. A lot of newcomers and weaker competitors will be going away. It’s more challenging – you need more creativity – but that’s kind of cool.  

Is it possible to be profitable selling new construction there in this environment? 

I think so. It has to be the right place and the right design. And one of the really crazy but cool things is that things change so quickly. Our focus has been on the kind of building - it’s called podium style - that has first floor retail with four or five stories of residential above it. It’s a stick-built product. What happened in the last few years is that the delta between concrete buildings and stick-built really expanded. This was kind of a nice sweet spot in terms of building a building that’s six-stories high, but the cost per square foot was a lot lower. That was the threshold and, if you wanted to go any higher than that, you’d have to go with concrete. We really looked at this as model for the Heights and Park Morton and we’ve seen prices for this come down. What we don’t know is if concrete construction is going to come back down and become much more competitive. You’ve got to moderate, just from a supply and demand perspective – not just in the US, but around the world. A lot of stuff is clearly not going to get built. Commodity prices, concrete construction, oil and gas, steel – all that’s come down and the demand for labor has come down as well. 

Do you see NDC starting any market-rate condominium projects in the near future? 

Oh yeah, absolutely. Whether you’re condo or rental, I think that DC is great place to live. I think in terms of a competitive advantage, with the new administration and the Stimulus Package, that the city is becoming more in demand. I liked the city before the market went down and I like it even more now. I think that supply and demand is going to come back into balance. We’re seeing things like the month’s inventory start to come down. Real estate is cyclical. We had a particularly strong up cycle and now we’ve had a particularly strong down cycle, but it’s going to come back. Just in terms of how long it takes to do things, if you look at the demand, I think the trade-up buyer has kind of decreased a little bit and speculative investment buyer has gone away completely. But that first-time buyer and the price point from three to five hundred thousand has pretty much stayed there. But nothing’s getting built. Nobody, for any kind of project of any significant size, is starting. There’s nothing in the pipeline now and the way these projects work is that if you’re not in the pipeline now, you’re not going to deliver for at least three years – more like four or five. As the economy straightens itself out and demand is solid and starts to increase, the supply is going to be way low. Things that will be delivering in two, three or four years, I think there will be a great market for. We could easily do a boutique building of under a hundred units in that time frame. I’m really bullish on that.

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Prospects Announced for Park Morton

Following last summer's Request for Proposals, Deputy Mayor Neil Albert has announced the three development teams contending for the $170 million redevelopment of the Park Morton housing project in Northwest Washington. Per the specifications of the RFP, all three are vying to reinvent the troubled public housing complex with more than 500 new units of affordable and market-rate housing and 10,000 square foot park.

The teams named by Albert are the Park Morton Partners (Pennrose Properties, LLC, FM Atlantic, LLC, and Harrison Adaoha, LLC); another Park Morton Partners (Neighborhood Development Company and Community Builders, Inc.); and, lastly, Park View Partners (Landex Corp., Warrenton Group and Spectrum Management).

"We need a partner that [is] capable of more than just building housing,” said Albert in a prepared statement. “We are looking for someone who is committed to building a healthier, safer new community. This response, especially in light of the current economic conditions, speaks volumes about the value of this opportunity.”

The Park Morton project was greenlighted under the of the New Communities initiative – a District-led program to transform blighted public housing complexes into “mixed-use, mixed-income communities." Other such developments targeted for redevelopment by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (ODMPED) include the long-gestating Northwest One, Barry Farm and the Lincoln Heights/Richardson Dwellings in Northeast.

According ODMPED, the bidding development teams will make public presentations regarding this plans for Park Morton at an unscheduled time “later this spring.”

Re-Inventing Public Housing at Park Morton

Mayor Adrian Fenty today announced the District's Request for Proposals (RFP) concerning the $170 million initiative to redevelop Petworth's Park Morton public housing complex. Although currently seeking a development partner for the deal, the city has already forged ahead and outlined their intentions for the site: 317 market-rate housing units, 206 affordable housing units, a 10,000 square foot park and a new community center with green designs throughout. The mayor prefaced his comments to the press by assuring the current residents in attendance that they will be relocated to new units in the project and that "no one will be displaced."

Mayor Fenty credited the New Communities Initiative established during Anthony Williams' tenure as mayor (which also includes Barry Farm and Lincoln Heights, in addition to Park Morton) as the genesis of the new development and explained how the city planned on manifesting change in an area best described as derelict and dangerous. “It is about bricks and mortar because a lot of these projects are old. They need a lot of work and, to be honest with you, just re-doing them isn’t going to cut it,” he said. “But its also about more than bricks and mortar. We’re also going to have health care facilities, schools, recreation centers, and job training centers here at Park Morton.” The mayor concluded his remarks by stating, “It’s important to note that while this in-and-of-itself is an important opportunity and investment for the Georgia Avenue corridor, this is just one of the many different things that are happening.” He went on to specifically cite Donatelli Development Inc.’s $70 million, 156-unit Park Place project and neighboring $5 million retail investment, along with Jair Lynch’s 130-unit apartment complex at 3910 Georgia and the District’s own new, mixed-income development on the 3400 block (more to follow from DCMud in the coming weeks) as other in-the-works projects aimed at making area attractive to prospective residents and retailers. 

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, who had introduced the initial city council resolution for the Park Morton project and led community meetings on the subject, followed Mayor Fenty’s turn at the podium. He began by reiterating the mayor’s promise that no residents would be displaced by the project and promised that the upcoming changes would result in “a much more successful and livable community than we have today.” He also said that the District would not repeat mistakes with regard to public housing that have plagued the city for decades. “Gathering all the poor people in one neighborhood, in one building, ought not to be the preferred approach,” he said. “When we have the opportunity to create mixed-income, diverse background [housing], that is an opportunity we should not lose.” He went to specify that the new Park Morton will become a beacon of diversity in Ward 1, “without losing a single person who is here today.” Michael Kelly, Executive Director of the DC Housing Authority (DCHA), went on to trumpet the long-term viability of a new community comprised of “low income, moderate income and market-rate people.” And sounding a bit like George Washington at the Continental Congress, Kelly referred to it as "This grand experiment," asserting that the project "is [due to the leadership] of Washington, DC, and has not been replicated anywhere else in the country.” 

Kelly cited the Housing Authority’s upkeep of current Park Morton facilities, including the addition of new boilers, stairwells and security cameras as initial steps towards a better quality of living. He then went on to ask the assembled residents if such efforts had made them feel safer – and received a rousing reply of “yes.” Following the remarks, all in attendance were led on a tour of the newly remodeled Park Morton Children’s Center. As the first example of Park Morton revitalization, Mayor Fenty inspected the new computer lab, classrooms and music rehearsal spaces that are to serve as a hub of community operations during and after construction. BIDs for the Park Morton project are due by December 12th with final selection to occur in March. 

Washington DC commercial real estate news

From AWC to NCRC to DMPED, Fenty Lauds Change

Mayor Adrian Fenty, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil Albert, and Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) held a public ceremony this morning to celebrate the one year anniversary of the District's decision to disband and take control over the portfolios of the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation (AWC) and National Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCRC). In a tribute to their combined foresight, the Mayor lauded the District's "significant progress" on over two dozen key from the portfolios since the merge, and offered up morsels of imminent announcements. "There were a lot of properties in these two quasi-public entities and it was the decision of the Council of the District of Columbia to make sure that those properties moved a lot faster, that they got developed quicker, and most importantly, that people saw results and I can say that a year later there has been a flurry of consistent activity," Fenty said. With $60 billion in the citywide pipeline since 2001 and $13 billion in current economic development projects, the Office of the Deputy Mayor's portfolio now includes over 12,000 residential units - including 4,500 "affordable" units - 1,800 hotel rooms, 2 million s.f. of retail space, and 8 million s.f. of office space.

Looking back on their recent successes, the Mayor noted that on May 14th, the District issued a RFEI for a master developer for Hill East Waterfront, 50 acres around the former DC General Hospital site. On June 4th, the District issued a solicitation for a development partner for Parcel 69, a potential $130 million office/hotel project by the Southwest Freeway. Master land planning began at Boathouse Row in SE on July 11th. On Tuesday, the Council approved a $198 million TIF/PILOT package to fund park and infrastructure improvements for the $1.5 billion Southwest Waterfront redevelopment. Yesterday the District selected Argos Group to develop two properties on Capitol Hill, including the Old Engine House 10 into eight condominiums. And looking forward, Albert told DCMud the Strand Theatre project (5131 Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, NE), developed by Washington Metropolitan Community Development Corporation and Banneker Ventures, will break ground in the next two weeks. He added that his office will also announce a developer for 6425 14th Street, NW in the coming weeks, a 12,100-s.f. parcel of land in Brightwood. Sean Madigan, Director of Communications in the Office of the Deputy Mayor, predicts an announcement for 5th and I, as well as Minnesota-Benning Road, NE, in the next few weeks, and that the Park Morton development group will be announced "imminently." Evans, who had a hand in the creation of both the NCRC and the AWC, said the decision to create the organizations was correct at the time, as was the decision to consolidate them. "I was there for the creation of NCRC and AWC and at the time when we were looking at putting those semi-private entities in place, the District government wasn't functioning, and so the idea of having an NCRC was something like the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation model to get economic development projects done in the city," Evans said. "Then we learned that the semi-private entities were not doing what they were supposed to and we rolled them back into the government and put them under the Deputy Mayor and as we said today, it seems the decision was absolutely the correct one, because now we have a unified government and we can now focus on these projects and get them done. What we did in the past made sense and what we did last year made sense and we are now celebrating the results of those actions," 

Evans concluded, as the development troika lauded each other's vision and accomplishments. Albert added that a major goal of the consolidation was to establish one point of accountability for economic development in DC, but also to save taxpayers money. "One of the reasons the Council and Mayor worked so hard to consolidate the agencies, was to make sure that there was a single point of accountability on all economic development projects here in the District. Citizens had been asking for it, and they got it with this merger. Also, this merger resulted in significant savings for the taxpayers - over $5 million in savings because of the consolidating," Albert said. Like a gloating parent, Fenty added, "I just love efficient government, we have too much waste - a lot of these quasi-public commissions and entities and boards, they just spend money wastefully and we're gonna put a stop to that too." 

Washington DC retail and commercial property news

Lower Georgia Housing Project Approved

The DC Council today voted unanimously to give the final affirmation to Park Morton, the mixed-use, mixed housing development on lower Georgia Avenue that will replace 174 units of well worn public housing with 477 units of "moderate density" newer housing, both subsidized and market.

Park Morton had been originally sponsored by Councilmember Jim Graham back in 2006, and the Council had approved an additional $3m for the project only last December, going only a small way toward the estimated $157m the project will cost. A host of contributors has already been selected to realize the city's vision, including DC-based development firm Banneker Ventures, nationally renowned environmental consulting firm Circlepoint, and design firms PGN Architects and WDG Architecture.

The project, sitting on the east side of Georgia Avenue and the south side of Park Road, had been noted by the District in several studies as encompassing "severe poverty" lacking basic amenities, though the project's planners did not include a retail element, relying instead on the slow accretion of retail on Georgia Avenue to service the new homeowners. But don't call your real estate agent just yet, development is not likely to start until at least late this year, and take an estimated nine years to complete.

Georgia (and Low Income Housing) on My Mind

A pair of District agencies are planning to redevelop a strip of Georgia Avenue just south of the Metro Station as part of a "New Communities Initiative." The partnership between the Office of Planning and Economic Development (OPED) and the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) seeks to develop the Park Morton community in Ward 1. Last week, the Office of Planning publicly considered a draft of the plan which proposes to broadly (and drastically) change the economic environment of the Park Morton area, a section of the Park View neighborhood located in between Georgia Avenue and Warder Street. The community response was unanimous in support for the draft that includes a compendium of objectives: protect affordable housing in the community, improve economic integration, decrease crime, replace publicly subsidized units, create workforce and market-rate housing opportunities, create better jobs, education, training, human services and other programs for the community; no word on whether it will solve our dependence on foreign oil.

The process for redeveloping Park Morton began in February 2006, when designated as a development site by a Council resolution. Despite a flood of new development over the past seven years, the Park Morton area is still beleaguered with areas of severe poverty that lack the fundamental elements of a healthy community. Park Morton, an area where only about 40% of residents own their homes and the median household income is roughly $45,000, was thereby recognized as a possible site for a New Communities program, a public entity described as a "comprehensive partnership to redevelop the physical and human architecture of neighborhoods characterized by violent crime and poverty," according to the District's CFO, Natwar M. Gandhi.

The overarching goal is to create mixed-income communities with "integrated services that offer...better housing, employment and educational opportunities," according to the draft plan. Their vision for Park Morton involves the replacement of 174 new public housing units, adding social services services within the community, creating east-west connection to break down barriers that segregate communities, and forming new open space and passive park areas. The overall site plan would create a "moderate density mixed-income community of...152 replacement units, 7 homeownership units for current Park Morton residents and 317 market/workforce units for a total of 477 homes," according to the draft.

The plan notes a lack of retail and office space in the general area, yet points out that although demand is high, Park Morton would not serve as the ideal commercial space for consumers. 53,000 s.f. of retail is in the pipeline for the Georgia Avenue corridor, with an estimated 40,000 s.f. of unmet demand remaining post-implementation. A deficient supply for office space was also found in the area, despite a 10% vacancy rate for rental office space.

The entire redevelopment window will span nine years, beginning in 2008, and is expected to cost an estimated $157 million. DCHA and OPED have an abundance of private firms collaborating on the project: DC-based development firm Banneker Ventures, nationally renowned environmental consulting firm Circlepoint, and design firms PGN Architects and WDG Architecture. Although the DC Council still needs to approve, OPED is determined to introduce the plan by the end for the month with the hopes of receiving approval by January.