Another Neighborhood Changer for JBG: NoMa's Capitol Square Breaking Ground Within Days

You’ve got to hand it to the Chevy Chase-based JBG Companies. The development group has a hand in a number of major projects around the region, yet seems undaunted about adding yet another game-changer to the list, and their latest may break ground within a few weeks.

That project is NoMa’s Capitol Square project, an almost two-block-square site located a block away from the NoMa-Gallaudet U Metro station that will eventually include a hotel, office space, retail and residential units.  The first phase—a Hyatt Place hotel—is just starting up, but the rest is all “phaseable,” the developers explain. That is, the developers will build in stages, waiting to move forward on office space, for example, until they have tenants in hand.

Still, it’s a major undertaking. Sited on two parcels—the first a triangle with New York Avenue, 1st Street, and N street as its borders; the second a rectangle on the south side of N Street (see map above), the project will add almost two million square feet of property to the area. Specifically, that will include 200 hotel rooms, 300-350 residential units, and 60,000 s.f. of ground floor retail space, all wrapped into what JBG is describing as a very pedestrian-friendly, retail oriented streetscape. “It might be like a Bethesda Row/Woodmont Avenue experience,” explained Dean Cinkala, a JBG partner.

But first things first. The starting project is Hyatt Place, a 14-story hotel with a fairly small footprint that’s been designed by local architecture firm Cooper Carry. “We literally just closed on financing and acquisition of the land,” said Cinkala. The company plans to begin demolition and abatement immediately, and expects to be finished by early 2014.

That’s at the western end of the triangular plot of land, where the nightclub Mirrors currently sits. The company also owns real estate on the eastern side of the block. That Smithsonian-worthy McDonalds at the corner of 1st and New York Ave. will also be history, transformed into an 800,000 s.f. office building designed by the New Haven, Ct.-based architect Pickard Chilton, which has burst onto the DC architectural scene recently.

There will be more office space on the south block, which isn’t wholly owned by JBG (a nightclub at 1st and Patterson streets will remain, as will another section abutting North Capitol Street). Perkins and Will, a nationally-known architecture firm with a Washington DC office, will be designing a second office building of roughly 575,000 s.f. there, which may be completed in two phases.

JBG properties include 5a and 5b within the red box

Schematic design drawings are complete for both buildings, which will include ground floor retail, but JBG isn’t moving forward on building either one anytime soon. “We don’t plan on building speculatively, given current market conditions,” said Cinkala. “We’ll submit the building[s] if and when the GSA [General Services Administration] puts out a solicitation.” The company has apparently targeted NoMa as an emerging home for the federal government, but Cinkala said he isn’t ruling out the private market—especially if financing for office buildings becomes easier to come by in the next few years.

The final piece of the pie is 33 N Street, a spot on the southern parcel. The current lease expires in November 2013, and Cinkala says the company is currently hiring residential architects to design a 300-350 unit building directly across from the hotel that will be ready to deploy next November. 

That’s a lot of building on the drawing board. To tie it all together, JBG is working with local landscape architects Lee and Associates to create an urban streetscape that draws pedestrians onto the side streets of N and Patterson streets.

It’s all about boosting the neighborhood’s dynamism, said Cinkala. “NoMa is clearly evolving into a mixed-use area. All this development will help the market mature, and create that live-work-play environment that’s so attractive.”

Washington, D.C., real estate development news

GW Looks to Bury Law School Buildings

In 2006, Sherry Rutherford, former managing director of real estate planning and development at GWU, was quoted as saying the University's "mantra [for development] is up not out." She was referring to the strategy for increasing density on the Foggy Bottom campus in anticipation of their growing student population, without expanding beyond their current borders and encroaching on their residential neighbors, but to kick off their campus redevelopment action, GW has proposed a construction project that opts to build down and out. In 2006 the Zoning Commission approved the University's Campus Plan and First Stage zoning (PUD) for its Foggy Bottom campus. The plan laid out provisions and guidelines - how future development on the campus would play out, and also highlighted 16 specific locations fit for new construction, renovations, and improvements. The first stage plan also specified that all campus development projects henceforth would come back for a second stage PUD. Yesterday, the University applied for their first second stage PUD under the Campus Plan, and Zoning agreed to set down the hearing as a "contested case."

George Washington University intends to develop a plot of land (the northern half of Square 103) that has only recently become entirely controlled by the University (Lot 18 being the previously missing piece) through a land swap with Delta Tau Delta Fraternity. One Zoning Commission member found this selection of property, a plot of land not originally highlighted by the Campus Plan, to be "ironic." Further, the proposed development will go down, not up, by burrowing "23,281 s.f. of academic and administrative program space for the Law School" beneath the ground, along with a 392-space below-grade, four-level garage. Also going down will be several existing buildings on site, either during this initial or subsequent phases of development. While a portion of the Law School staff and administration will be relegated to a window-less, below-ground work space, the proposed development will provide the rest of the school body with "an attractive and sustainable improvement to the campus and surrounding streetscape...[that] incorporates sustainable design features intended to minimize stormwater runoff and encourage its reuse." The "attractive" surface improvements more specifically include 58 surface parking spaces, 64 covered bicycle parking spaces, and a covered entrance pavilion. The project was co-designed by architects at Perkins & Will and Shalom Baranes Associates. Wiles Mensch Corporation has undertaken civil engineering duties, and Oculus shouldered landscape-design responsibilities.

University developers intend to begin excavation of the property later this Fall, or as soon as the Zoning process allows, and expect that the construction period will last roughly 18-20 months. Phase II of this project calls for development in the skyward direction, but offering only that the project will consist of an in-fill, above ground building "which will be the subject of a future second-stage PUD application and Campus Plan application." As one can imagine, the Zoning Board expressed concern over the proposed above grade parking lot, and also voiced their wish to be better-informed about the specifics of the future above-ground developments. This and more will be discussed at the next Zoning hearing, scheduled for next month.

Clarification: In light of the accusations in the comment thread below, DCMud once again reached out to GW's Real Estate Development team in hopes of clarifying in discrepancies, this time with success. Suzy Cora of the University's development department confirmed that the factual validity of the published article is sound, and that no corrections needed to be issued. She did point out that although the words "contested case" were uttered during the set-down hearing, Board members quickly realized they could not officially classify the application as a "contested case," because no formal party has come forward in opposition yet. She also explained that the underground square footage being used for academic programming will not house staff and or administrators that sit in an office or behind desk all day, but instead for storing cataloged law journals that will be accessed by various staff and students for research purposes, only for a few hours at a time.

Washington D.C. Retail and commercial real estate news

NCPC Approves Coast Guard Headquarters Design

The new United States Coast Guard (USCG) headquarters planned for St. Elizabeths is now on track to begin construction as soon as February. The latest building designs, reviewed again and approved today by the by the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), include 1.175 million s.f. of space for upwards of 3,860 employees, addressing concerns raised by NCPC last January. Among those issues are increased traffic on Shepherd Highway, the massing of the USCG building and garage, and the location of the security perimeter with respect to the historic cemetery on the site of the first national mental health facility in the country. Last August GSA awarded the $435 million construction contract to Clark Construction, WDG Architecture and HOK , with concept designs by Perkins and Will. The Coast Guard campus will be the first of 3 phases at the historic hospital. Phase 2, the center building, will house the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary's office and other "senior" staff. Phase 3 will be largely new construction for storage and other warehouse facilities. The Shepherd Highway issue is a sticky overlap of various federal authorities including the Federal Highway Administration, DHS, the General Services Administration, the National Park Service, the Department of Transportation and the Department of the Interior. DHS and GSA, along with the FHA, have determined that the highway is the best way for construction vehicles to access the West Campus to state construction. The National Park Service, which owns the land, objects because a portion would likely see permanent negative affects, but in the end the group agreed to keep exploring alternatives and continue on schedule for February construction. The Coast Guard HQ and parking garage will be built on a 118 ft slope visible from Haines Point and from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Concerns about the appearance of the HQ as seen from around the city led to reduced massing and planning for additional vegetation. The new plan also adjusts the visibility of the garage which would originally have been five levels above-grade, two below, but now proposes an inversion - only two above-grade and five below, but with an expanded footprint. The garage will provide 1,973 parking spaces and will serve both the USCG and the Department of Homeland Security headquarters. The exterior of the garage on the northern facade now swaps an extended green wall system with the previous zinc-clad frame. Finally, though the original Master Plan created a security perimeter that excluded the historic cemetery, new plans include the cemetery within the security perimeter to restore it "to its place as an integral part of the West Campus." NCPC will hear more plans in March when they review Phase 1B. 

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Mr. Eisenhower, Mr. Gehry Go to Washington

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission has announced that they have selected architect Frank Gehry to design the forthcoming Eisenhower Memorial in downtown Washington. Situated on a four-acre Independence Avenue parcel and straddled by the likes of the National Air and Space Museum and Lyndon B. Johnson Department of Education Building, the prominent location will now host Gehry's first ever project within the District.

After tossing his name into the ring late last year, Gehry's as-of-yet undisclosed design has beaten a slew of potential candidates - including principals from Perkins and Will, Krueck and Sexton, Rogers Marvel Architects, Moshe Safdie and Associates, Natoma Architects and PWP Landscape Architecture – for the chance to lay out what the Commission is calling “a unique and engaging landscaped plaza type memorial, with an integral sheltering element to welcome visitors throughout the year and interpretive elements to bring the Eisenhower legacy to life.”

District residents, however, can look forward to more of DC’s famed downtown road closures once work starts. In keeping with the plans to make the Memorial “a unified, defined square,” the stretch of Maryland Avenue, SW currently bisecting the site will be scrapped in lieu of the congressionally mandated and approved Memorial.

The design phase for $90-120 million project is expected to last until 2013, with construction planned to begin shortly thereafter.

Southeast DC Hospital Set for Mixed-Use Expansion

Though currently in the midst of a $79 million renovation, the District’s sole hospital east of the Anacostia River - the United Medical Center at 1310 Southern Avenue, SE - will soon be expanding beyond the confines of its medically-oriented mandate. UMC Development, LLC, in partnership with CMC Realty, LLC, are reviewing five teams of urban planners to add between one and two million square feet of new, mixed-use development to the hospital’s 17-acre campus.

Following a Request for Qualifications issued late last year, UMC has narrowed their list of contenders to five: Hord Coplan Macht, Land Design, Inc., RTKL, Beyer Blinder Belle and Perkins Will –SMWM. Once a final selection is made in the coming the weeks, the chosen architects will work side-by-side with UMC to re-imagine the hospital’s surroundings with new medical offices, mixed-income housing, affordable senior or veteran’s housing, community space and ancillary retail. According to representatives of UMC, they’re in the early planning stages of a development scheme that will be a boon to both greater Ward 8 and the hospital itself.

“We are focusing on the immediate needs of the hospital for the campus. This is the only hospital east of the river and we need to make sure it offers the same healthcare choices that people living on the other side already have available. Additionally, we need to enhance the lives of the surrounding community, which is desperate for retail. Banks, drug stores and restaurants have already approached us about space on the UMC Campus,” said Noah Nordheimer of UMC. “You have a large hospital sitting the middle of the site that’s not going anywhere...We just need to build around it, enhance it and enhance the community.”

Formerly known as Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the facility was acquired by Specialty Hospitals of America in 2007, the parent company of CMC Realty – a move funded in part by $79 million approved by the DC City Council “to help with the purchase, buy equipment and improve infrastructure.” Additions to the hospital itself, including construction of a new MRI Center, continue at this time, but according to UMC, the parties “would like to have a shovel in the ground within 12 months” on the mixed-use component of the redevelopment initiative.

UMC will be holding private meetings with potential architects and their teams over the course of the next months. Presentations will be publicly unveiled at a community forum currently scheduled for May 6^th at the United Medical Center Auditorium.