Construction begins on 440 K

Construction began today on Quadrangle Development Corporation and The Wilkes Company’s development of a 234-unit, 14-floor residential building at 440 K. It’s part of Mount Vernon Triangle’s “critical mass” and should be finished in the last quarter of 2013.

The development includes more than 9,000 s.f. of ground floor retail space in the 2 million s.f. mixed-use community, "the largest such project in Washington, D.C.," says the developer - referring to Mt. Vernon Place, an 11-building project that has been only partially completed and include the Sonata and Madrigal Lofts.
440 K will include 182 one-bedroom, 26 one-bedroom with a den and 26 two-bedroom units.

In addition, it will have a 96-space parking garage, enough bicycle storage to make those 96 people self-conscious and a 24-hour concierge service. The building was designed by Davis Carter Scott.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Today in Pictures - Marriott Marquis

It hardly seems like a year since the Marriott Marquis broke ground next to the Convention Center. Construction crews have now finished digging and are now building back up, as evidenced by the photos taken last week. The 1,175-room, 15-story Marriott, headed by Quadrangle Development and Capstone Development, will feature an underground tunnel to the convention center and more than 100,000 s.f. of meeting and ballroom space, 25,000 sf of retail, and 385 parking spaces. Two more Marriotts will be built to the north. Hensel Phelps is the general contractor.









Washington D.C. real estate development news. Photographs by Rey Lopez.

Convention Center to See More Marriotts

If all goes according to plans, three Marriotts will eventually be built on 9th Street NW, immediately west the Washington Convention Center at the convergence of Downtown, Shaw, and Mount Vernon Square. Although one notable hotel - the Marriott Marquis - is currently underway and set to complete in 2014, two more Marriott hotels are being conceptualized just north of the Marquis, at the foot of the Shaw Historic District.

The parcel in question, north of the Marquis construction site, running along 9th Street between L and M Streets, NW, bears six boarded-up storefronts. Around the corner on L Street a large co-op and two good-sized row houses have sat shuttered. The 1,175-room Marquis aims to fill a void in convenient hotel options for conventioneers upon completion, and although the new hotel will be the second largest in the District, original plans for the Marquis, by joint-development team Capstone and Quadrangle, were even bigger, calling for a 1,400 to 1,500-room hotel spanning L Street, and spilling into the blighted area to the north. The idea for one hotel, connected by a pedestrian bridge, was scrapped years ago, before the Marquis broke ground in November of 2010. But now, current plans by the same developers for the Marriott-owned land between L and M Streets call for the revival of increased hotel space in the form of two new Marriotts: a Residence Inn and a Courtyard Marriott. 

A source from Capstone says that building two additional hotels will “meet the city’s original goal for the convention center of 1,600 total rooms.” Marriott has not given a reason for building three hotels instead of one, but varying price points is likely a factor, as all three Marriott brands are targeted to different customers. The zoning process for the two additional hotels has not begun, says Norman Jenkins, president and founder of Capstone, and subsequently, “a start date has not been solidified.” However, the future plan is to “retain all of the boarded buildings that front 9th Street and incorporate them into the hotel," giving the redevelopment a “really neat old/new look.” As for the boarded-up real estate on L Street – the co-op at 919 L Street and the two row houses – the goal is to demolish them, if granted approval. 

The recent demotion of a few “non-contributing structures” (i.e. non-historic buildings) at the northern parcel of land created a small amount of space to be utilized as parking for an influx of construction workers for the next three years at the Marquis site.  Capstone was mum on where the development team is in the entitlement process, however, no permits have been applied for with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), so it seems Marriott's 2nd and 3rd hotels on the site will arrive well after the Marquis is finished. 

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Convention Center Financing Completes, Construction Begins

The Washington Convention and Sports Authority (WCSA) announced today that it has sold all of its $250,000,000 bond offering for construction of the convention center Marriott, removing the final obstacle to building the 1175-room hotel. Preliminary construction began this week, and will last an anticipated 3 and a half years to complete the building, ending in the spring of 2013.

The Marriott project is being headed by Quadrangle Development and Capstone Development, and will help the District compete with National Harbor. With an "A" rating from Standard and Poor's, the WCSA sold the entire $250m bond release authorized by the DC Council on the last day of September. The Authority intends to hold a formal ceremony to mark construction in November.

Washington DC real estate development news

Groundwork Gets Underway at Convention Center Marriott

Construction crews could begin preliminary groundwork as early as next week for the Convention Center's newest addition, the 1,175-room, 15-story Marriott Marquis, a project headed by Quadrangle Development and Capstone Development. The Washington Convention & Sports Authority (WCSA) announced earlier today that it will provide limited early access in order for developers to orchestrate initial site remediation work including: "removal of underground storage tanks, demolition of the Erhlich Building, erecting fences, placing signage around the site and readying the area for construction."

A more ceremonial and celebratory start to construction will soon follow, says Gregory A. O’Dell, Washington Convention and Sports Authority President. "The Authority and the District are finalizing the documentation and preparing to close on the bonds as we anticipate a groundbreaking within the next 30-45 days," he explains. Once construction begins, a build-out of 42 months is anticipated, placing the delivery date in the spring of 2014. While this is not the official groundbreaking, convention center authority spokeswoman Chinyere Hubbard confirms that this is indeed the beginning of construction and an indication of nothing but green lights going forward. There are "no further legal obstacles", says Hubbard, who notes that the WCCA board will officially approve the financing bonds tomorrow.

The soon to be active construction site is bounded by Massachusetts Avenue and L Streets, NW. Because of District height limitations, the massive hotel is burying much it's square footage beneath the earth, so the first order of business for contractors is to dig a giant hole and start building back up to ground level. Progress above ground might not be visible for almost a year after construction starts. Upon completion, the building will feature over 100,000 s.f. of meeting and ballroom space, 25,000 sf of retail, and 385 parking spaces. The plan also calls for a below grade tunnel (vehicle and pedestrian) connecting the hotel and Convention Center. The hotel will become only the third Marquis in the country. Developers and District officials hope the already impressive Convention Center will be a world-wide attraction now that an accompanying state-of-the-art, large-scale hotel is on the way.

Last year, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the New Convention Center Hotel Amendments Act of 2009 that authorized Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and the issuance of bonds, to fund up to $206m in construction and operational costs. Private developers will pick up the remaining portion of the estimated $550 million total cost. With JBG's spat over the project and ensuing lawsuit now ended, today's announcement means the project is officially moving forward.

Washington DC real estate development news

Tysons Tower Tees Up

Tyson's Corner has a new office building. 1850 Towers Crescent, the newest addition to the office building refuge, adds new landmark for beltway drivers, with 295,000 s.f. in 13 stories and 14,451 s.f. of retail and restaurant space - all now looking for takers. Designed by SmithGroup, the structure features a south-facing brick facade opposite a curved glass curtainwall, maximizing natural light on its northern exposure and presenting its better side to south-bound travelers. DC-based Quadrangle Development Corporation touts the empty building as the only new corporate home to open in Tysons in 2009. Construction began in August of 2007 and achieved substantial completion in August of this year. Designers did not shoot for green certification on the building. 1850 Towers Crescent Plaza is the last of 4 office buildings designed for the complex, but plans for 3 residential buildings are being kept warm. The office park includes the iconic, Philip Johnson-designed office tower known to any Tysons visitor for its curved facade and slender, impractically-scaled columns meant as a nod to Jeffersonian design principles, but for which few people have much affection. Steven Cohen, Vice President and Project Manager at SmithGroup, says the biggest challenge in realizing the 10-year-old project plans was second-guessing the market. Given the cap on total development space for the project site, Quadrangle had to decide how much square footage to leave on the table for its three un-built residential components. Meshing with the existing fabric proved another obstacle. "There was the challenge of making it unique, especially trying to balance it against the Philip Johnson building; our charge to give it its own presence, but one that ties in nicely with the existing buildings. That's why we gave it two very distinct faces." said Cohen. County planners also prioritized the plan to integrate the site with the Tysons Corner mall, and work continues on a pedestrian bridge, nearly complete, that will link Towers Crescent with the mall via the top level of the parking garage and link, they point out, the Silver line metro when it opens "in 2013," providing a "pedestrian-oriented urban center." Interested corporate tenants should contact Jones Lang LaSalle, which is leasing the building, but did not return calls for this article.

Tysons Corner, Virginia real estate development news

Shaw Main Streets Development Woes

At the annual Shaw Main Streets (SMS) Development Forum Wednesday night, representatives from developers were invited to present the current status of their plans for major renovation and new construction in the area. The status, unsurprisingly, was "more of the same," leaving community members to resign themselves to continued hopeful waiting. SMS Executive Director, Alexander M. Padro, made excuses for several invited developers who were unable to attend. Quadrangle Development was a no-show because of the recently publicized litigation over their Marriott Marquis Convention Center Hotel deal, though Padro said Quadrangle indicated that financing is now secured. Banneker Ventures, slated to build The Jazz on Florida Avenue, declined to attend as their Land Disposition Agreement with WMATA has not been finalized. And Hines-Archstone, developers of the planned City Center cited scheduling issues. 1. Paul Millstein of Douglas Development, certainly does not sugarcoat anything. About the Wonder Bread Factory development Millstein said it was a "victim of the times...stuck in a trench" and "could be stuck for a while." As for Squares 450 and 451 on the 1100 block of 7th St, Millstein announced that though the original plan was to redevelop the site, the group will now remove window boards, put some lipstick on them, and lease them out for the time being. On the positive side, Douglas secured a NY-based restaurant, Carmine's, to fill the 18,000 square feet of their Penn Quarter property near the Clara Barton Condos and Wooly Mammoth Theater. As for their 7th and Florida Ave. project, Douglas is seeking tenants, but according to Millstein the group is being picky, refusing to go the "fast and ugly" way of cell phone stores or fast food. Neighbors gave a round of applause for that one. 2. Next came 1501 9th ST NW a smaller development by a small business, Inle Development. According to the property owner/developer, the space will be leased to a single tenant, Mandalay Restaurant and Cafe, a Burmese restaurant currently based in Silver Spring. Mandalay will have a ground floor restaurant with outdoor seating, a second floor bar and the remainder will be residential space for the restaurant owner and family members. The developer cited a few financing "hiccups" but estimated the project should break ground in three to four months, delivering late 2010. The project takes up a single lot and will likely be 50 ft in height. 3. On their Addison Square project Metropolitan Development had hoped to be into the ground by now, but it's looking more like summer 2010, at which point the 4-5 weeks of demolition will commence, followed directly by construction. The group received their final PUD two weeks ago, and a few changes mean the 54 units of affordable housing will be distributed among the 224 market-rate units, for a total of 278 rental units in the main building. The ground floor retail plans are largely unchanged with the group looking to have both a white table cloth restaurant as well as a faster, less formal restaurant. 4. Ellis Development Group and Four Points, erstwhile developers of Howard Theatre and Media Center One, formerly Broadcast Center One, said the financing for the projects, which have been repeatedly punted down the road, hit a "road bump," but the group expects the project to move forward, breaking ground on Media Center's 300,000 s. f. mixed-use development on 7th and S Streets NW before the new year. Construction will take approximately 24 months for Media Center to finish and, as the developer noted, they are one of the few lucky projects to actually have a tenant secured. Over at the Howard Theatre, demolition of the 1940s facade has already begun, ground breaking may still happen this year, and the developers are, of course, talking with prospective tenants. 5. Roadside Development's City Market at O finally has some legs and a timeline. In an agreement with several DC Council members, Roadside received a $2.5 million grant, enabling them to "put the architects back to work." The big day will be September 3, 2010, when the group starts work on stabilization of the historic market. The next big date is January 15, 2011, when the current Giant will close its doors and from which date Roadside will have 24 months to finish construction of the new Giant location. The takeaway from the evening, with projects stuck in trenches, hitting road bumps or just plain falling victim to the economic climate, was that Shaw developers seem to be in a regular war zone these days. With so many groups blaming the current "financial situation" for development and construction delays, we are beginning to wonder what they'll blame whenever the financial situation improves...

Washington DC commercial real estate

DC Officially Gets its Convention Center Hotel

Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty will hold a very public ceremony this evening to officially ink the legislation that will kick-start, finally, the District's Convention Center Hotel. In a 5:30pm ceremony, the Mayor will sign the New Convention Center Hotel Amendments Act of 2009, granting authority to spend $182m in TIF funds and $35m in bonds to go toward the construction, operation, and maintenance of an 1160-room, 14-story hotel opposite the lonely Convention Center. Technically, the bill amends the Washington Convention Center Authority Act of 1994 to further fund the Washington Convention and Sports Authority (WCSA), which will own the hotel, and instructs the WCSA to contract Quadrangle Development to get it built, and with Marriott to operate the new hotel. The Act authorizes Tax Increment Financing (TIF) and the issuance of bonds, to fund up to $206m in construction and operational costs. The remainder will be paid for by private developers. Funds derived from bonds and TIFs will go solely toward hotel expenses, and not into DC's General Fund. The District government has actively conspired to get the new beds as a rebuttal to National Harbor, which hosts a larger convention center and five, count 'em, five hotels surrounding it. Not to mention that a nice river runs by it. But back to DC, where the massive hotel will serve the convention center, and ensure the success of the convention center. Of course, it was the convention center itself that was supposed defibrillate the moribund Shaw neighborhood and spark development of the area, expectations that many of the convention center's original backers feel have not been met. Officials have maintained that construction could start as early as October, with about a three-year time frame for completion. Plans for the hotel went through many iterations before today, beginning with an even more ambitious plan that would have stretched the hotel over L Street and onto the next block for more than 1400 rooms. The city had also pursued a public-financed option that would have committed the Authority to picking up the $530,000,000 tab in full. The current version incorporates the historic American Federation of Labor Building (pictured) into the Marriott, which will otherwise overtake a swath of surface parking lots. The hotel will become the third largest in DC, and fourth largest in the region. The largest, at 2000 rooms, remains the Gaylord, at National Harbor.

Washington DC retail and commercial real estate news

DC Passes Convention Center Hotel Bill

The District Council today passed legislation that authorizes and helps finance a new convention center hotel. The bill provides for District financing of nearly 40% of the costs of the Marriott Marquis Hotel, which government and civic leaders have sought for years to provide services to support the city's investment in the convention center. The project has been on-again off-again for several years, with builder Quadrangle Development Corporation reducing the one-time size of the project and negotiating with the District, which by one recent plan would have funded the entire project in order to help kick start the neighborhood and use of adjacent Washington Convention Center. Council members have been motivated to alleviate the Center's obvious Achille's heal - its dearth of hotels in the immediate vicinity - while distancing themselves from the cost of the project. Councilmember Kwame Brown (at-large) said in a press release that though today's legislation was "not ideal," the overall result was positive. "We went from a 100 percent publicly financed hotel to a deal that requires the developer to fund the majority of the costs." The mayor is expected to sign the legislation, which could get construction going as early as this fall. Development of the four-star hotel is expected to cost more than $500 million.

Washington DC retail and commercial real estate news

DC Officials Pitch New Plan for Convention Center Hotel

The DC City Council’s Committee on Economic Development was briefed today on a new scheme devised to underwrite the fully-approved and shovel-ready, if financing challenged, Marriott Marquis Hotel. The city's newest plan for the mostly vacant property next to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center would get construction going by mid-October.

Today’s hearing was spurred by legislation introduced by Mayor Adrian Fenty, himself described as "tired of waiting" on the project, this past spring that would have effectively removed the project’s developer, Quadrangle Development Corporation, and made the new Marriott wholly city-sponsored. In the intervening weeks, officials from the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA), the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development and the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCF) have been feverishly working on a fiscal reconciliation that would preserve the public-private partnership.

"Given current economic conditions and the lack of liquidity in the capital markets…the District, led by the Washington Convention Center Authority and its partners at Marriott and Quadrangle, was forced to pursue alternative plans, including an option whereby the Authority would finance 100% of the hotel by selling bonds,” said recently appointed (though still unconfirmed) Deputy Mayor Valerie Santos. “We’ve made considerable progress on a new financing proposal, such that the new hotel would once again be largely privately financed.”

The crux of the proposal depends of the Committee’s authorization of an additional $22 million in city-backed debt to get the project going. This deal, presented to the District by the development team only last Thursday, would ensure that more than 60% of the hotel’s $537 million budget come from private funds, with DC footing the bill for the remaining costs. At present, lawyers from the OCF are currently exploring whether the project could also qualify for stimulus funds under the American Investment and Recovery Act, thereby offsetting the District’s burden in a year of record high spending.

The sense of urgency behind the proceedings is well founded, as Greg O’Dell, head of WCSA, said his operation is continually losing business to other comparably-sized convention centers, such as those in Denver and Indianapolis, which have on-site hotels and hospitality amenities. Furthermore, city officials also view continued development at Prince George’s County’s National Harbor as a direct threat to the Convention Center’s revenue stream – a feeling that has only been exacerbated by Disney’s recent announcement that they’ll be building their own mega-hotel/meeting space just across the river. That leaves the District, in the words of Councilman-at-Large Michael Brown, directly “behind the eight ball.”

Both the public and private sides of the development team will now spend the next two weeks finalizing the in-and-outs of their proposal before returning to the Committee on July 14th for a final vote. In the meantime, Committee members repeatedly stressed that the project’s fast track status will not delay other city development in the pipeline or cause any fiscal belt tightening.

“This will not cause us to postpone any projects that are already authorized…Nor will this require expenditures from the general fund. This is not going to be publicly financed deal,” said Committee co-chair and Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans. This would not be the first partnership for Marriott and the developer, Quadrangle and Marriott jointly built a 224 room hotel together in Bethesda in 2004.

Washington DC real estate development news

DC Announces Contenders for Eastern Market School Site

Fresh off last week’s announcement that Eastern Market will reopen in June, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development has gone public with their short-list of candidates for redevelopment of the nearby Hine Junior High School at 335 8th Street, SE.

The 43-year-old, 131,300 square foot educational facility was shuttered in 2007, in order to redirect $6.2 million worth of school funds towards leasing costs for the District of Columbia Public Schools' headquarters at 825 North Capitol Street, NE. Now, according to ODMPED officials, the various proposals aim to repurpose the Eastern Market site for “combinations of new housing, office space, nonprofit space and neighborhood-serving retail.” The six contending teams are:

1. The Bozzuto Group/Scallan Properties/Lehr Jackson Associates/E.R. Bacon Development, LLC/Blue Skye Development/CityStrategy, LLC

2. Equity Residential/Mosaic Urban Partners

3. Quadrangle Development Corporation/CapStone Development, LLC

4. National Leadership Campus/Western Development Group

5. Stanton Development Corporation/Eastbanc Inc./Autopark Inc./The Jarvis Companies/Dantes Partners

6. StreetSense/DSF/Menkiti Group

District administrators will be hosting a community showcase of all six proposals on June 10^th at Tyler Elementary at 1001 G Street, SE. The meeting will begin at 6 PM and is open to the public.

Tyson's Developer Thinks Condos

With its fourth high-rise approaching completion, the Towers Crescent office park in Tyson's Corner is finally a reality. Now the developer behind the project, the Quadrangle Development Corporation (QDC), is testing the waters for an additional three buildings that would add upwards of 900 residential units to Fairfax County, while re-branding Tyson's as a place to live and not just the site of the nation's tenth largest mall. "The County has been seeking to encourage more residential development at the center of Tyson's Center - making it more of a 'live, work, play' 24-hour environment," says George Boteler, who oversees leasing operations for Quadrangle. "Right now, there's over a 100,000 people who work in Tyson's Corner; only about 17,000 live there. The County is anxious to increase that, as a way of combating congestion."

The three planned buildings would include between 750-919 units, for a total of 919,000 square feet, and stand next to their cubicle-filled brethren along the Towers Crescent Drive – a stone’s throw away from the Tyson’s shopping complex. The buildings - 1860, 1870 and 1880 Towers Crescent Drive (pictured) – would receive a significant marketing boost once they complete their planned pedestrian overpass. Designers hope a bridge over Fashion Boulevard will provide an infrastructural link between the development and their more than 300 neighboring shops and restaurants, and help in changing the perception of Tyson’s as one of the most unfriendly and perilous neighborhoods for pedestrians in the metro area, if not the universe. The McLean office of Davis Carter Scott is handling designs for the project.

Originally, the entire Towers Crescent project had been envisioned as office space; that changed in late 2007, when Fairfax County allowed the developer to substitute the aforementioned residential units in place of 300,000 square feet of office space. "It was a three for one density bonus - three square of feet of residential for one square foot of commercial," says Boteler. "The development of even more mixed-use project was viewed as beneficial." It was a logical adjustment, but one that was immediately followed by the housing market's shift from boom to bust. Nonetheless, Quadrangle is still dedicated to getting towers five, six and seven in the ground in the near future. Says Boteler: "The market will dictate [our timetable], depending on how long it takes to work through the overhang of condominiums on the market today. We're ready to start on design and development on the buildings, so whenever the market shows signs of life [we'll begin]...The plan is to build it regardless of whether it starts as apartments or condominiums, but to build it to a condominium standard."

If Towers Crescent's prime location adjacent to the mall is any indication, they shouldn't have trouble dealing with either of those options. In the coming weeks, months and years, the site will be on the receiving end of two huge boons to the Tyson's area: WMATA’s addition of a Tyson’s Corner Metro station – planned for completion in 2013 – and the Hilton Hotel Corporation’s relocation down the block to competing office development, BF Saul’s Park Place II. Delays aside, Quadrangle may have real estate's three guiding principles - location, location, location - in check for quite some time.

Tysons Corner commercial real estate news

The Shaw Redemption

Five metro area developers came together last night to highlight their major (and we mean major) plans for the District's Shaw neighborhood. Hosted by the Shaw Main Streets initiative, the developers on hand included Douglas Development (Wonder Bread Factory), Marriott Hotels (Washington Marquis Marriott), Roadside Development (City Market at O), Metropolitan Development (Kelsey Gardens) and Hines Interests (CityCenter DC).

Douglas Development
The keynote of Douglas' presentation was the long-gestating revitalization of the former Wonder Bread Factory at 641 S Street NW. Contrary to initial plans, the building will not be razed. The developer has obtained the original plans for the facade and will, to the best of their ability, restore the building to its original 1922 appearance. An additional story will be added to bring the building up to 5-stories and 150,000 square feet. The project has been summarily approved by the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) and is aiming for groundbreaking in approximately 7 months, following permit approval. The developer expects construction on the GTM-designed facility to take no more than a year. Once completed, the former Wonder Bread facility will neighbor the proposed Radio One development (the outline of which can be seen in the accompanying renderings).

Several other Douglas projects underway in Shaw were also briefly touched upon. The developer’s proposed development at 600 New York Avenue NW is on hold due to the current economic situation and "lack of synergy," as is their proposed redevelopment of the Howard CVS.

Other projects, however, have had much more luck getting off the ground. The former site of Popeye’s at Florida & N Streets NW will complete its expansion and renovation in the next 3-4 months and will house a Fatburger chain restaurant, a cell phone retailer and office space. Another Douglas mixed-use development at 9^th & N Streets, NW will include ground floor retail, office space and apartments. Although poised to begin construction in the coming weeks, leases for the site will not be sought until the project is completed.

Marriott HotelsThe long-proposed (circa 2001) Washington Marriott Marquis Hotel at 9^th Street & Massachusetts Avenue, NW, long envisioned as an anchor servicing the Washington Convention Center across the street, is now slated to break ground in the first quarter of 2009. Overseen by the Quadrangle Development Corporation and designed as joint venture between TBS Architects and Cooper Carry Architecture, the building comes in at over 1 million square feet. The 13-story project will feature 1250 rooms, 2-3 restaurants, a ballroom and meeting space and a 400 space underground parking garage – all enclosed under an all-glass atrium. Additionally, the Pepco power station and AFL building currently on the site will also be incorporated into the hotel’s footprint, with the latter being converted to hold 42 hotel rooms. The Marriott representative on hand described it as “one of the most complex projects we’ve ever worked on.” The project is hoping to achieve an LEED silver certification.

Roadside Development

The City Market at O is shaping up to bring big changes to the current site of Giant Food on O Street NW. The mixed-use development will feature a new Giant store that will retain the old façade of the O Street Market and was hailed, as least by the pitchmen, as outclassing the new CityVista Safeway in both style and function. Additionally, the site will give way to a new 200 room, limited-use hotel, a large-scale fitness center, a 6000 square foot independent restaurant featuring a local chef, and 600 apartments and condominiums targeted towards “young professionals.” 8^th Street will also reopen for pedestrian use between the two buildings on the site, parking for the facilities will be moved underground. Roadside showcased some interesting architectural features on the buildings, including a 2-story projection on the residential building – currently referred to as “the diving board.” The developers are currently in negotiations with the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) to receive Tax Increment Financing for the project and are hoping for a September 2009 groundbreaking.

Metropolitan DevelopmentThough Metropolitan’s Kelsey Gardens has been recently covered by DCMud, the developer still had a few surprises on hand for their presentation. Architects will employ the increasingly common urban technique of breaking the 14,800-square foot, 297-unit building into five distinct facades, in order to affect the appearance of being constructed during different time periods by different architects. Roofs of the “buildings” will be 50% green and feature both private and public terraces. The development will be complimented by 2 levels of underground parking that will feature preferred parking spaces for “energy efficient vehicles” (i.e., hybrids). The project is shooting for 2011 completion.

Hines Interests
The final presentation of the evening concerned the redevelopment of the site of the old convention center, Hines Interests and Archstone’s CityCenter DC project. Designed by Foster + Partners and Shalom Baranes Architects, the 10-acre site is being envisioned as “a new neighborhood for downtown.” Comprised of 4 separate parcels centered around the now-closed (and eventually to be reopened) intersection of 10^th and I Streets NW, the ambitious project is to include 400,000 square feet of retail space, 1,074 residential and hotel units, 1,064,000 square feet of office space, more than 2000 parking spaces and a public park. The hotel on the site is envisioned as a 4 or 4 ½ star facility, while the developer is aiming to lure home furnishing and fashion retailers (possibly a department store) as well – in order to serve the needs of downtown residents and not specifically tourists. The Hines representative on hand posited that the project was 85% ready to go and would be seeking general contractor in the next few weeks.