West End Hotel Construction Begins

OTO Development has begun work on the Hilton Garden Inn at 22nd and M Streets, in DC's West End neighborhood.  The project had been on hold for years as a previous team sought to put a fashionable "1 Hotel" on the site, but failed to get the project off the ground.  Turner Construction, the general contractor on the project, began site work last week.

OTO, based in Spartanburg, SC, is one of the three developers partnering to build the West End Hilton, along with newly-formed partnership including Starwood Capital Group and Perseus Realty, LLC, a partnership that brought the financing needed to start construction.  Shalom Baranes of Georgetown is architectural firm designing the terracotta and brick, 10-story, 237-room hotel, which will feature a second-floor, landscaped courtyard, meeting rooms, a rooftop garden and pool and a green roof.

West End Hilton Garden Inn, Washington, DC

The 15,600 s.f. lot at the corner of 22nd and M has been dormant since 2008 when the site's original developer demolished the Nigerian Embassy to make way for a boutique hotel.  Starwood then planned a luxury hotel but failed to secure financing for the concept.



In 2011, developers sought permission to modify the site plans and instead of a boutique eco-luxury creation, they announced plans for a Hilton Garden Inn (a brand categorized as upscale mid-priced) with 237 rooms, along with Shalom Baranes and OTO Development as a third development partner.  Although neighbors complained about the "fanny pack crowd that would frequent the hotel, the choice proved easier to finance.

The hotel will also feature a ground-floor restaurant and bar with indoor-outdoor seating opening onto the street on the corner of 22nd and M, and is the beginning of Hilton's play into more urban areas.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

West End Hotel Ready to Start Construction

The future Hilton Garden Inn in DC's West End

In a deal that marks a step forward for a hotel project at 22nd and M - on hold for four years - developers are set to close Wednesday on construction financing for the project, OTO Development CEO Corry Oakes told DCMud.

If the deal closes today and construction moves forward in a few weeks as developers expect, deep-rooted weeds on the prominent corner in DC's West End neighborhood may soon be gone, salving neighbors' ire.

"We're very excited about moving this long-awaited project forward and becoming part of the community," Oakes said.  He said contractors would break ground on the Hilton Garden Inn, planned for 2201 M Street, within weeks.

Turner Construction will be the general contractor on the project, Oakes said.  OTO, based in Spartanburg, SC, is one of the three developers partnering to build the West End Hilton Garden Inn, a partnership which also includes Starwood Capital Group and Perseus Realty, LLC.  Also Wednesday, the three partners were due to close on a deal consummating their joint venture agreement.

Shalom Baranes of Georgetown is architectural firm designing the terracotta and brick, 10-story, 237-room hotel, which will feature a second-floor, landscaped courtyard, meeting rooms, a rooftop garden and pool and a green roof, according to a project architect.

The corner of 2nd and M has been an empty lot for years

The 15,600 square-foot lot at the corner of 22nd and M hasn't seen action since 2008 when the site's original development team demolished the Nigerian Embassy to make way for a boutique hotel. Developers later abandoned plans for a Starwood "eco-luxury hotel", billed as a "1 Hotel", when they couldn't secure financing for the structure.  They settled on the Hilton Garden Inn brand instead, but by the time developers applied to revise their permits, many neighbors and West End leaders had already gotten excited about the "1 Hotel" concept.    

"During the zoning hearings, I was not shy about my disappointment that the concept switched from the 1 Hotel to the Hilton Garden Inn, as I felt the West End really didn't need more hotels and at least the 1 Hotel was interesting, both as a destination concept and architecturally," West End ANC2A commissioner Rebecca Coder wrote in an email to DCMud Monday. "However, at this juncture the neighborhood simply wants the corner activated."

Developers abandoned plans for this "eco-luxury" hotel

In the project's beginning, developers included Starwood and Perseus with Oppenheim as the architect.  Original plans for the site called for a 150-room, 23-suite hotel, under the Starwood Capital "global eco-luxury" hotel brand "1 Hotel", featuring an organic day spa among other features built to LEED standards.

Years passed.  The lot sat empty, but D.C. wasn't the only place so-called "eco-luxury" hotels, envisioned to cater to a niche market of über-wealthy lovers of greenness and light, weren't sprouting.  According to HotelChatter.com, Starwood's plans for a 1 Hotel in Seattle were withering too, along with the economy. Starwood started excavations for a 1 Hotel in Seattle, but later re-filled the hole and the lot reverted to a parking lot when it couldn't secure financing for the project, according to the Seattle Times.

Then, sometime between the nadir of the financial crisis and the birth of Occupy Wall Street, developers decided to change course on plans for 22nd and M after Perseus contacted more than 40 lenders, all of whom declined to finance the West End 1 Hotel project.

In 2011, developers sought permission to modify the site plans and instead of a boutique eco-luxury creation, they announced plans for a Hilton Garden Inn (a brand categorized as upscale mid-priced) with 237 rooms.  The new incarnation now included Shalom Baranes as the architect, and OTO Development, a hotel development company based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, as a third development partner.  Changes included a redesign of the exterior façades, an increase in the number of rooms and a three-foot reduction in height to 107 feet, and 53 parking spaces in a valet-operated garage.  There were neighbors who balked.

Plans for the Hilton Garden Inn at 22nd and M, West End, DC

"Some neighbors have already said they fear the new hotel will attract "the fanny-pack crowd" to the West End neighborhood," the neighborhood group West End Friends wrote on their web site last year after an ANC2A meeting when developers presented their new plans.

But if hotel site plan changes sparked West End fears of fanny packs, site developers and project architects maintain there is no need to fret about that.  "This is very much upscale for the Hilton Garden Inn brand," lead project architect Patrick Burkhart said.

Burkhart said the hotel would feature a second-floor, landscaped terrace with outdoor seating areas, and a lobby with a fireplace, monumental staircase, and a water feature with plants cascading from the second-level terrace.  The hotel will also feature a ground-floor restaurant and bar with indoor-outdoor seating opening onto the street on the corner of 22nd and M. Burkhart said the hotel marks a move by the Hilton Garden Inn brand into more urban areas, including D.C. where he said it would be the District's third.

West End Hilton Garden Inn, Washington, DC

With a new hotel, the corner will see more activity in years to come.  Demand is up for hotel rooms in the District.  According to Jan Freitag,  Senior Vice President with STR Global, a hotel industry benchmarking and consulting company based in Hendersonville, TN, data shows 10.5 million rooms were sold in the first five months of this year in the Washington, D.C. market, 1.5 percent more than last year.  "More people are coming to DC."

At least some of those people may soon be destined for 22nd and M.  Lucky for the West End, even fanny packs can be luxurious too.

LCOR Making Progress at North Bethesda Center

The last beam has been placed on the 14-story, $131 million office building that will accommodate 1,300 General Services Administration employees who work for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The new home of NRC is one of at least eight buildings planned for LCOR's 32-acre development North Bethesda Center, named for its location.

In July of 2010, construction began on the NRC building, which will be ready for initial occupancy in May of 2012, and finished for good in September. The NCR building was designed by HOK, is being built under general contractor Turner, will be LEED Silver upon completion, and is located just east of the White Flint Metro.

When finished, as there is still plenty of work to do after "topping out," the NRC building will join LCOR's previously completed component of the North Bethesda Center, the Wentworth House, an 18-story, 312-unit apartment with a green-roof Harris Teeter which, when finished in 2008, became the first of its kind. Mike Smith, VP of LCOR, says the Harris Teeter is doing well, and feels that the grocery amenity is one reason why LCOR has a healthy retention rate of residents at Wentworth - along with quick Metro access.

The 32-acre LCOR development site, formerly a golf course, is located between downtown Bethesda and downtown Rockville; an area surrounding the White Flint Metro that has grabbed the attention of several developers in the last several years, including Federal Realty (Mid-Pike Plaza), and JBG (North Bethesda Market).

Maryland real estate development news

MLK Jr Memorial Unveiled Today

The recently finished Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, located in West Potomac Park at the intersection of West Basin Drive and Independence Avenue, SW, is officially open to the public, as of 11 am today.

The Memorial is the work of design-build team McKissack & McKissack, Turner Construction, Gilford Corporation, and Tompkins Builders Inc.

This week will play host to a number of events in advance of the official dedication on Sunday, August 28th, at 11 am. The dedication ceremony will be free and open to the public - preceded by music at 8:30 am and followed by a free concert, at 2 pm.

Entrance to the memorial begins at one of its principal symbols - the "mountains of despair," a reference in King's "I Have a Dream" speech. The twin granite slabs frame the entry, a pair of 30-foot stones 12 feet apart, appearing to have been sliced and parted, with inscriptions from the 1963 speech. Emulating the civil rights struggle, despair will lead to a path beyond, and having passed through it emerges the view of a single stone, the "stone of hope," appearing as if cleaved from - but beyond - the struggle.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Green Public Housing Opens in Southeast

The Community Preservation & Development Corporation (CPDC) will lead a grand opening ceremony today for Wheeler Terrace, a public housing project in southeast DC renovated to hit green new green levels. Once a crime-plagued and filthy tenement, the seven-building project reopens today with expectations to redefine public housing standards.

Wiencek + Associates redesigned the buildings to achieve both LEED and Enterprise Green Communities certification, the first DC public housing project to do so. The 116 affordable housing units at 1217 Valley Avenue, SE will feature clean-air systems, white reflective vinyl roofs, a green roof demonstration project, and heat supplied by a geothermal pump: 100 wells 350-450 feet deep, utilizing a glycol anti-freeze that brings up water at a constant 55 degrees.

Plans to redevelop the blighted project date back to 2006, when the residents of Wheeler Terrace exercised their right to purchase the land under the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). The Wheeler Terrace Tenant Association then selected CPDC as developer shortly thereafter. Turner Construction lead the renovation efforts at the 133,000 square foot site. Tenants of the project were relocated during construction and are now being repatriated to the updated complex. Time will tell if the green label keeps the crime at bay.

The celebration will be held today at 10am.

Washington DC real estate development news

North Bethesda's Latest Project to Break Ground

North Bethesda better brush up on its knowledge of protons and neutrons because there will be a lot of particles moving around when construction starts this summer on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission building. On Monday, developer LCOR received a final approval from the Montgomery County Planning Board to build a new 362,000 s.f. office building at North Bethesda Center Metro, a.k.a. White Flint, a.k.a Rockville. About a year ago, LCOR, in a partnership with USAA Real Estate Co., won out over several competitors for the opportunity to build the project for the General Services Administration and in October signed a lease that will make the new building home to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for at least 15 years. According to Mike Smith, VP of LCOR, the project should begin construction in mid to late May; a formal groundbreaking will take place May 17th.

Approximately 1,300 NRC employees will occupy the new 14-story building, across from the NRC campus, which has been designed by HOK to meet LEED Silver certification. The new government building will join LCOR's residential project, Wentworth House, which delivered in 2008. That project brought 312 units and a brand new Harris Teeter to North Bethesda, on a 32-acre site approximately halfway between downtown Bethesda and downtown Rockville. In total, LCOR's project are to bring eight highrise buildings to the area, encompassing eight city blocks (when subdivided), and will include 1,274 multifamily housing units at its completion, but little has happened on the site, which remains nearly in the state as it was when it served as a golf course.

Smith was hesitant to predict the future of any of the other buildings, saying "we are waiting for market conditions to improve" before beginning work on the "next residential or another commercial project." The developer has not filed any plans with Montgomery-National Capital Park and Planning Commission for additional developments on the site.

CB Richard Ellis and Transwestern represented the LCOR-USAA joint venture (officially North Bethesda Center Office One, LLC) in the lease transaction, commercial real estate tenant rep firm Studley represented the GSA. Turner Construction will serve as general contract.

North Bethesda real estate development news

FDA Blooms at White Oak

The General Services Administration (GSA) is gearing up for Phase 4 of the $900 million (and counting) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Headquarters Consolidation at the former site of the White Oak Naval Ordnance Laboratory off New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring, MD.

More than 4,500 FDA employees have already taken up occupancy within seven completed White Oak campus buildings designed by KlingStubbins and RTKL and built by Tompkins Builders (a subsidiary of Turner Construction). Assuming additional government funding comes through for the 2.3 million square foot facility, construction on the final building should wrap up in 2013. Upon completion, about 8,000 employees from 39 leased offices across DC will relocate to White Oak, uniting at long last the likes of Center for Devices and Radiological Health and the Center for Veterinary Medicine, and fostering what FDA Commissioner Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach promised in a 2008 Consolidation Report will be a new spirit of "scientific collaboration."

Phase 4 of the project is slated to begin construction this February. This $130 million portion of the project will add 560,050 s.f. of office, laboratory, and research space to the campus in two buildings and will ultimately toss another 1,159 FDA employees from the Office of Regulatory Affairs and the Office of the Commissioner into the FDA party mix.

Bids for subcontractors are scheduled to be released any day. Until then, FDA Press Officer Chris Kelly tells DCMud that the FDA will be keeping mum "about the construction project, as it is procurement sensitive."

Silver Spring real estate development news

Clarendon Condos Close Out

The Keating Group has closed its Clarendon sales center for the Phoenix Condos. Another developer gone out of business? You might think so, with gloom over real estate this year's bumper crop, but that would be incorrect. Keating sold the last of its 181 condos last week, and will now focus on selling its commercial remaining commercial space in the project it began building in 2005. The Pennsylvania-based developer renovated and expanded the historic Post Office on Washington St., now on the Federal Register of Historic Places, adding 52,000 s.f. of office space, retail, and of course the 11-story condominium on what had been a surface parking lot. Located 2 blocks south of the Clarendon Metro, the Phoenix was built by Turner Construction, and began selling more than 4 years ago, with prices originally running from the low $300's to the $700's. Construction completed in the summer of 2007. The project received approval by the Smart Growth Alliance - a mix of various smart growth and environmental groups, for its transit-oriented historic adaptation. The Phoenix condominium was designed by Dorksy Hodgson Partners, the main architects, with Oehrlein & Associates as the preservation architects. Keating will be going postal again, next time in Bethesda, where it plans another post office conversion with adjacent condo project. No timeline has been offered for that. 

Arlington Virginia real estate news

Bread for the City to Rise in Shaw

Local non-profit social advocates and medical clinicians, Bread for the City (BFC), are just weeks away from breaking ground on an 11,000 square addition to their Northwest Center at 1525 7^th Street, NW - a project that will double the size of the facility that is currently forced to turn away patients daily.

"Our clinic schedules 15 new patient appointments every week, but these slots are taken daily within minutes of opening our phone lines," said BFC Director George Jones in a prepared statement. "We turn many people away for lack of space, and they're likely to go without care or turn to a hospital emergency room - both costly and dangerous alternatives."

BFC has partnered with developer Jair Lynch and architects Wiebenson & Dorman (who also designed BFC's Southeast facility) for the $8.25 million build-out of their Shaw location. Once complete, BFC projects that their patient capacity will triple – good news for the more than 2,700 District residents who receive their primary medical care at the center. New improvements will include a “bigger and better” laboratory, a new waiting area, twice the current number of exam rooms and handicap accessible features throughout. BFC’s food bank and social services programs will occupy the facility’s first floor, while the medical and legal clinic will be housed on the second.

"This summer we held a party in our parking lot, and canvassed the neighborhood inviting people to come and talk about the expansion and what it means to us here in Shaw,” said Kristin Valentine, BFC’s Director of Development. “A little over 50 people from the community showed up to meet with board members, clients, and staff so we could address any concerns. The design was also approved by the ANC2C."

The project is made possible in part by a recent $1.35 million grant from the District of Columbia Primary Care Association. That sum, and an earlier donation of nearly $3 million, were both made under the auspices of the Medical Homes DC initiative – a movement “designed to increase access to consistent, affordable medical care for underserved DC residents.” At present, BFC is seeking the remainder “through individual, corporate and foundation grants.” Those contributing gifts of $15,000 or more will have a piece of the new facility – anything from a computer station to food pantry, depending on the amount - named in their honor.

According to Valentine, “The project is not yet fully permitted, [but] we expect to receive the building permit and start construction by April of 2009.” BFC expects construction to be complete by the spring of 2010. Turner Construction will serve as general contractor.

Operation Facelift

In the coming months, three major landmarks - the Pentagon, the National Museum of American History and the US Capitol - will reveal their newly improved works to the public after years of intense and deliberate construction. In each case, the changes are by no means minor and should represent a sizable influx of interest in sites sometimes taken for granted by locals.

The newest monument/memorial in the metro area will be unveiled this coming September 11th, the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks that befell New York and Washington in 2001. The Pentagon Memorial occupies a 1.93 acre plot at the site of the attack and cost approximately $22 million, with another $10 million in projected costs for maintenance. Funding was provided by the Ford Motor Company, Chrysler LLC, AECOM, CSC, Adobe, Cisco Systems Inc. and Intel, as well as through private donations.

Although several smaller memorials have already been erected in and around the Pentagon (including the America’s Heroes Memorial and a chapel – both in the reconstructed portion of the building where it was struck by American Airlines Flight 77), this will be the first large scale project with individually dedicated cenotaphs to each victim. Those will take the form of cantilevered benches inscribed with the remembered individuals’ names and arranged according to their ages when they lost their lives. The space is to be augmented by a perimeter wall, several fountains and approximately 80 Paperbark Maple trees.

The memorial was designed by Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman of New York, following a design competition initiated at the behest of the government. A press release from the Pentagon Memorial Fund describes this newest addition to the Pentagon landscape as “a place for reflection, remembrance and renewal.”

On a less somber note, the National Museum of American History will reopen its doors on November 21st after a two year, $85 million renovation. The architectural facelift is said to represent not only a change in facade and decorum for the institution, but an extensive reorganization of its collection as well. The design team for the project was led by New York’s Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP and constructed by Turner Construction Company.

The centerpieces of the newly minted museum are to be a brand new sky-lit, five story atrium and an architectural approximation of the Star-Spangled Banner made of 960 glossy, polycarbonate tiles (“the dawn’s early light”) that will be the gateway to the gallery that houses the original flag - Francis Scott Key’s initial inspiration for the song that would eventually become the National Anthem. Another prestigious addition to the museum’s catalog will be an original, handwritten draft of the Gettysburg Address (loaned by First Lady Laura Bush from the White House collection).

The Capitol too is undergoing a new addition to its grounds. Currently under construction on the Capitol’s East Grounds, the new Visitors Center represents the largest ever addition to the building’s original plans in its 215 year history. Measuring in at 580,000 square feet, the RTKL Associates-designed structure is currently projected to cost $554 million, after months of running over budget and behind schedule. The new Hill landmark will finally open its doors to the public on December 2nd – exactly 145 years to the day after construction on the Capitol was officially declared over (and 7 and a half years after the Center broke ground).

Intended to be waiting station for tourists as they await entrance to the Capitol itself, the Visitors Center is meant to also serve as an attraction in its own right. The features revealed so far include a museum, a cafeteria for both visitors and Hill personnel, two theaters and meeting and conference rooms for members of Congress and their various committees.

Measures, such as the choice of new center’s location on the Capitol’s eastern face, were undertaken in order to prevent the construction from detracting from landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s original plans for the grounds. Trees, fountains and other landscaping accents will be added in order to minimize any visual alterations to one of the few buildings instantly recognizable to all Americans.

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Bids Close Today on DC Food Bank Warehouse

Today was the end of the bidding phase for a project that will provide a new distribution center and much-needed office space for Capitol Area Food Bank at 4900 Sixth Street, NE, just three blocks from Providence Hospital, adjacent to the Fort Totten Metro tracks. Jair Lynch, the owner's agent for CAFB, attracted five bidders to the development: Turner Construction, Smoot Construction, Forrester Construction, Epstein Construction, Gilford Construction and E.E. Reed Construction - a winner should be announced in a few weeks. McDonald Williams Banks Architects designed the new distribution facility.

CAFB purchased the site in December of 2005 for $10.35 million with a little help from Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) in the form of a $1.5 million loan, and had help from the Department of Housing and Community Development. According to LISC: "The new facility will not only allow CAFB to expand programs now stalled due to space constraints, but will increase efficiencies of product movement, provide additional storage space for both dry and refrigerated food donations, increase truck access through a greater number of varied dock spaces, and install a re-packaging room that will allow them to accept bulk donations. It will also provide much needed administrative space that will allow for improved management of programs and general administration."

MWB has designed a 40-foot tall, 110,000-s.f. distribution center and found a way to use an existing 2-story, 25,000 s.f. office space for CAFB's staff by gutting and renovating its interior. "We will keep the existing masonry on the exterior of the current office and the interior will be maintained and restored, keeping a majority of the existing terrazo floor intact. In the warehouse, the exterior will be clad with metal panels and of course the interior will be concrete slab equipped with a racking system to store the foodstuffs," said Andre Banks, principal at McDonald Williams Banks.

The total project will entail 145,000 s.f. of renovation and new construction; an estimate puts a price tag at around $25 million.

CAFB claims they need the new site because they are outgrowing their old digs at 645 Taylor Street, NE. According to the US Census Bureau, more than 600,000 DC metro-residents are "at risk of, or experiencing hunger." CAFB's old site allowed them to serve about 275,000 local residents, but they're hoping with the larger spaces they can have a more efficient and widespread effect.

"The gist of why we're doing this is that the need is growing. A new facility will enable us to get access to more food, in and out to our member agencies. In addition, we will be able to significantly enhance and increase our outreach programs such as nutrition education, life-skills and empowerment," said Brian Smith, Chief Operating Officer at CAFB. The do-gooders hope to move in to their new facility within the next year.

Washington DC commercial property news