Ft. Totten on the Rise

One of Ft. Totten's most transformative developments is at last on the way, and with it, a new neighborhood. The Art Place at Fort Totten, the 826 unit mixed-use complex that sits between the Metro station and South Dakota Avenue, is ready to begin construction "within the next few weeks." The project, conceived by the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, will form a new community with over 300,000 s.f. of retail, 2282 parking spaces, a children's museum, and senior's home in 4 separate buildings.

The plan has been on the boards for years - developers hoped to break ground in 2010 even after the market crash - as part of plans by the city to spur all local owners to coordinate development of the area, one of the last Metro centers that has not seen significant development. The first phase is expected to complete 30-36 months from now.

With construction fences now up, and raze permits all but finalized, developer Jane Cafritz says demolition will commence "in the next 3 to 4 weeks" on "Building A" at South Dakota and Galloway. The multi-phase project will start with the demolition of 5 of the 15 buildings on the 16 acre site in order to make way for 1 of the 4 planned mixed-use buildings. This phase will incorporate about 530 residential units and 110,000 s.f. of retail, though no grocery store at this point due to the Walmart planned across the street, which may be underway as early as this summer.
Cafritz says timing on the project was not affected by the announcement of Walmart. "We're there to be a catalyst in the neighborhood."

Phase 1 will also incorporate a small subsidized housing component and the senior living center; and about half of the 98 units of senior housing will go to current residents of Riggs Plaza. Cafritz notes that the project was designed in phases partly to accommodate existing tenants "that we have great repsect for that have been on site literally for generations." Ultimately all the buildings will be connected by an underground parking garage. All buildings have been approved by DC zoning officials but timing and design issues for Buildings B, C and D have not yet been finalized. While no office space has been planned, Cafritz notes that the first phase will incorporate flex-space that could be either retail or office. The Children's Museum is planned for the second phase of construction.

The Cafritz Foundation had earlier dangled the prospect of hosting both the Washington National Opera and the Shakespeare Theatre for storage, rehearsal space and related shops, a scenario that has now been shelved, but Jane Cafritz says her team is now talking to other similar non-profits. All residential units will be for-rent, the "Foundation owns this and intends to keep this," says Cafritz.

Master planning for the site was done by Ehrenkrantz Eckstut and Kuhn (EE&K), Shalom Baranes Architects (SBA) has designed the first of the four buildings, and MV+A Architects is designing the retail, all to meet basic LEED certification standards.

The eight-story Building C is planned as entirely residential, built in two C-shaped wings, joined at the second level, to accommodate the possibility of a new 3rd Street connecting the Arts Place property to the neighboring Food and Friends property, should the neighbors decide to sell or redevelop at a later date.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Today in Pictures - Ripley District

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

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



Silver Spring real estate development news

Today in Pictures - 2400 14th Street

UDR's multi-family building in Columbia Heights broke ground in December of 2010 and has now topped out. Perched on the slope leading up 14th Street, the building should feature commanding views over the city from the top. The building takes the place of the Nehemiah shopping center, purchased by Level2, which developed the original plans before selling the project. The building was designed by Shalom Baranes and will have 255 units, built by Donohoe Construction.











Washington D.C. real estate development news

Low Income Housing in Shaw Hits Snag Over "Air Rights"

The Lincoln-Westmoreland apartment complex expansion long slated for 7^th and R Streets NW, next to the Shaw metro station, is being held up by a land rights issue between Lincoln-Westmoreland Inc. and WMATA.
Construction of the 56-unit complex, owned by the Westmoreland Congregational Church (UCC) and designed by Shalom Baranes architects, necessitates the purchase of "air rights" for a small 400-square-foot sliver of land presently owned by WMATA. Lincoln-Westmoreland Inc. sold this sliver of land to WMATA in the Sixties for what Robert Agus, the owner’s representative and development manager for Lincoln-Westmoreland, describes as a “token fee” (“we basically gave it to them,” he says ruefully) but says WMATA is now holding out for “fair market value.”

In their defense, WMATA Director of Real Estate Steven Goldin said that Lincoln-Westmoreland is getting the same treatment everyone else gets. "We're required to ask for fair market value" Goldin said. "It's FTA (Federal Transit Administration) regulations." WMATA can't sell the parcel outright because it contains an important access hatch to an underground section of the Shaw-Howard metro structure.

Phase one of the construction project – a $9 million renovation of the existing ten-story, 198 unit property – is complete, and Lincoln-Westmoreland is well into the planning process for the new structure, says Agus. Plans for the new complex include 3,100 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, as well as a significant expansion of the small greenspace located on the south end of the property. Developers also hope to build a playground at the north end of the complex, though the prospective site for this is a divided property co-owned by the District, which could cause problems.
As for funding, Lincoln-Westmoreland received NIS grants from the District to cover redevelopment costs, and expects to work with District of Columbia Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) in early January to work out further financing. The units are expected to be leased at 30% - 60% AMI, the lowest income level designations. A majority of the original 108-unit building is dedicated to Section 8 housing.

The several blocks including and surrounding the project were devastated during the '68 riots and were redeveloped as affordable housing in the early 1970's.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Shaw Giant to Close September 8th to Make Way for CityMarket at O

The Shaw Giant will close September 8th in order to make way for CityMarket at O, Roadside Development's $260 million dollar project that will rebuild 2 full blocks in Shaw with 87,000 square feet of retail (including the Giant), 629 residential units, and 500 parking spaces. The project had received demolition permits early this year and a HUD financing commitment in April, leaving just the final administrative hurdles to clear before beginning work on the long awaited project.

Under the terms of the agreement with Giant, Roadside Development was required to give Giant officials a 60-day notice to vacate, which it planned to do once the funding was secure and in place. While Roadside officials offered a "no comment" on the notice, Giant Store Manager Patrick Aryee tells DCMud that Giant corporate officials informed him yesterday that the store would close September 8th. Once Giant closes, Roadside has 2 years to complete the project to let Giant back in the space. Roadside Principal Armand Spikell told DCMud this spring that Roadside would likely issue the 60 day notice by July.

The closure is therefore sure to be followed quickly by frenetic construction and add vigor to revitalization in Shaw that has already gained steam with such projects as the Marriott Marquis, Progression Place, and a new pair of Marriotts. The new Giant Foods will be one of the larger nearby supermarkets at 55,000 s.f., with 13,000 s.f. underground, burying such items as the loading dock which now mars 9th street.




The buildings are being designed by Shalom Baranes Architects and built by Clark Construction.

Washington DC real estate development news

Falkland Chase Apartments, Chasing a Plan for Silver Spring

One of Silver Spring's largest and most ambitious real estate projects is ramping up for development next year. Though the urban planning vision is not yet complete, developers of Falkland Chase hope to submit a site plan to Montgomery County early this summer for a project that would greatly expand the densified downtown section of Silver Spring, adding high rises, 1250 apartments, a supermarket and retail to East-West highway one block from the Silver Spring Metro.

Michael Eastwood of Home Properties says the development team has not yet signed an anchor tenant but intends to serve up a final site plan to the county "by June or July." The county approved the preliminary plan last November, and Home has been working on tweaking the design that will develop the North Parcel, turning 182 garden apartments into 1250 new apartments in 4 new buildings along the Metro track and soon to be Purple Line. The new residential towers will rise up to 14 stories along the tracks and 6-8 stories along East-West highway, denser but "more sensitive to the neighboring community."

With financing for the property still not locked down, Home Properties has been seeking a full service grocer to help tether a financing partner, courting Harris Teeter since 2005, but still without an agreement. "We are trying to chase them down" says Eastwood, who notes that his team also has the capability of going it alone in a pinch. "We're a REIT so we could do it on our own and will be building in phases."

The northern boundary faces the Metro tracks and is the "locally preferred alternative" for the Purple Line. The property features a 40 foot right of way that could serve as a light rail pass-through (the site is only one block from the station so there will be no stop incorporated), as well as a bike path right of way. Design of the project is still preliminary, and while Nelson Byrd Woltz has been selected as the landscape architect for the project, actual design has not yet been achieved.
Home Properties acquired the land in 2003 and began planning for a quick turnaround, submitting to the county in 2006. Plans were "cued up and ready to go" says Eastwood, but market fundamentals sabotaged early plans. Locals then began a campaign to declare the property - inaugurated in 1937 by Eleanor Roosevelt when the New Deal was expanding, as now, the size of government and the area's population - as historic, an ultimately successful bid that changed the scope of the plans. With many of the apartments protected, Home Properties then doubled down on the northern section switched the architect from Grimm + Parker to Shalom Baranes, increasing the number of units while connecting them better to the street. "It really took from fall of 2007 to spring of 2009 to get the two south parcels on the charts for historic preservation, and get the north to come off the locational atlas" said Eastwood. The residential towers originally conceived would have encircled a private courtyard, the new design adds a street through the center, with street-oriented buildings. "Its a more urban design than what we had originally."

Eastwood says the projects will "definitely be" rental units. Retail - about 10,000 s.f. in addition to the supermarket - will front East-West, aided by a new traffic signal.

Silver Spring, Maryland real estate development news

CityCenter on the Launch Pad

Two months away: So say developers of CityCenterDC, for now downtown Washington DC's largest surface parking lot, who are poised to announce an official start to their transformative mixed-use plan to develop nearly 700 units of housing, 185,000 s.f. of retail, 520,000 s.f. of office space, and central shopping plaza, to replace the site left vacant when the forgettable convention center was demolished in March of 2005. Officials say they are nearly set to announce a late April or early May start date to the project, despite any lack of signed tenants to date.The upcoming groundbreaking is in keeping with the April start date Hines officials promised DCMud in June of last year, though it represents a slippage from original intentions to start construction in early 2008 amid the financial crisis. Current tenants such as Bolt Bus have been given until the end of March to vacate the site. With a spring construction start, developers should wrap up construction by late 2013, just as the Convention Center Marriott is nearly finished next door, a pair of events that should have a profound impact on downtown and Mt. Vernon Square, already a bottleneck for traffic.

Filling the chasm downtown, the Hines-lead team, chosen by Mayor Anthony Williams, will rebuild 10th Street and add an east-west oriented pedestrian shopping plaza, hotel, apartments (458), condominiums (216), parking (1500+ spaces) and two office towers. The central retail plaza will be framed by stepped-down buildings to encourage a naturally lit shopping thoroughfare, in what Mayor Adrian Fenty predicted will be a "bustling area where people come after work to shop or eat or to hang out, a city center." The whole site is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.Construction without an anchor tenant would be an important indicator of faith in the downtown commercial market, as DC's retail spaces show strong demand, financial markets stabilize and the Washington DC office market remains buoyed by an expanding federal presence. CityCenter's backers have been energetically courting large tenants to sign on prior to construction and have tantalized news purveyors that brand name leases are "in the works." Howard Riker, Vice President at Hines, told DCMud last June that the team was reworking some of the floorplans to make way for a major tenant, soon to be announced, and the team has been close to signing several tenants that could have anchored the project, a prospect that still might be close at hand, but there are "no signed leases to date" says Hines' Dawn Marcus. Larger office projects such as Monday Properties' 35-story office tower in Rosslyn have since broken ground sans lessee.

Gerry Widdicombe, Director of Economic Development for the Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) notes the difference 185,000 s.f. of retail will make for downtown. "This is really the capstone for downtown DC. We have about 5 million square feet [of buildable space] left on vacant lots or dilapidated office buildings...the old convention center site is about 2.5 million [s.f.] of that, 1.8 million is the air rights building, then we're almost built out." Widdicombe credits former city leaders with setting parameters of a strong residential presence rather than solely office space - despite the commercial's greater tax base value, and for fostering a vision of a retail center. "Everything's working pretty well. The thing we're lacking is retail, hopefully we'll have an Apple store, maybe a Bloomingdales, to get us over 500,000 s.f. of destination retail." He notes that when the BID formed downtown had 95 surface paking lots and 30 dilapidated buildings. "Now we've got 5."

Putting that concept to paper, and soon to ground, is the worldwide team of Foster + Partners, which created the master plan and is bookending the site with apartments (overseen by Archstone) and office towers, and Shalom Baranes, designing the interior condominiums and integrating the retail. Along with a new 10th Street and I Street, the plan introduces a new vertical pedestrian street ("9 1/2 St"), an east-west pedestrian promenade, and at their intersection an expansive public plaza encompassed by two-story retail spaces with street-level access. The dominance of retail is not lost on its designers and developers, who sloped rooflines downward to the plaza and raised ceiling heights, a major sacrifice in a height restricted city, while stacking an extra floor of retail and creating - if successful - a destination akin to the European fountain, albeit less historic. DC is a city without plazas, and the architects have their sites set on a remedy.

"The real focus of the project is the public realm and retail" says Robert Sponseller of Shalom Baranes, a design principal for the project. "If you take the architecture aside, DC has always lacked a critical mass of urban retail. We're stuck with low height, so our retail space is squeezed. Here the ceiling heights are 16-22 feet, with a 2nd level of retail around the public plaza area...these are literally modeled on the best European street designs of Barcelona and Berlin." Sponseller says the alleys, or "intimate pedestrian streets," in his words, are 24 feet in width beneath residences that stoop to 4 or 5 stories above the plaza. "The Foster plan is remarkable for its clarity and simplicity. There is great pedestrian access, its really an intense, mixed-use project" says Sponseller.

The northern tier of the lot will be filled by a public park on the western margin, a hotel north of I Street in the middle, still just conceptual and without a flag, and a lot on the east owned by Kingdon Gould that has no firm plans for development at this time. Gould obtained the land in a swap with the city, giving up real estate at the Convention Center Marriott to get the northeast parcel of CityCenter.

Hines is a Houston based, privately owned real estate investment firm with offices in 68 U.S. cities and 15 countries. Old convention center photo courtesy Wrecking Corporation of America.

Washington, DC real estate development news