Q & A with Mary Oehrlein

Q & A with Mary Oehrlein Historic Preservation Officer for the Architect of the Capitol By Beth Herman 

On February 28, Mary Oehrlein became the second historic preservation officer in history for the Architect of the Capitol. In her new capacity, she oversees 17 million s.f. of existing buildings within the Capitol jurisdiction in what she calls “a constant state of upgrade,” including the Capitol, Supreme Court, Botanical Gardens and all House and Senate office buildings. Oehrlein joins a legion of 2,600, including skilled tradespeople and artisans, who comprise the behemoth staff. As founder and president of Mary Oehrlein & Associates in 1984, a D.C.-based firm specializing in historic preservation, Oehrlein executed the restoration of many dozens of Washington and regional landmarks including St. Matthews Cathedral and Peterson House (where Lincoln died). The firm oversaw the exterior restoration of the damaged wing of the Pentagon, the stone conservation of the Washington Monument, and preservation of the historic buildings at Jefferson/Clara Barton residences, Terrell Place Offices and Residences, Lansburgh’s, Gallery Row and National Institutes of Sciences. It also renovated the General Post Office - the first post office of the United States - in its transition to the Hotel Monaco. DCMud checked in with Oehrlein about her new role. 

DCMud: The position of historic preservation officer for the AOC wasn’t created until 2006. What precipitated it?

Oehrlein: One of the goals of the AOC is preservation. It’s always been an underlying thought, but until 2006, no one had expressly written about preserving these buildings, along with their landscapes and art, monuments and memorials, paintings, murals and decorative painting, beautiful bronze railings and monumental bronze doors. There’s a great wealth of material, and it wasn’t a stated policy that among the AOC’s missions was to preserve all of this. 

DCMud: Mary Oehrlein & Associates is among D.C.’s preeminent historic preservation architecture firms and has been in existence since 1984. What led to your decision to close up shop and accept the position of historic preservation officer for the Architect of the Capitol? 

Oehrlein: I haven’t entirely closed my firm, but it all happened very fast. I’d been thinking for some time that I’d like to do something different and not continue to run my own office forever. I’d joked with the person who was in this office previously, Bill Allen (long time architectural historian who’d held the newly-mandated position since 2006). I said, “Bill, I really want your job. I can’t think of anything that would be more fun.” He always told me to wait until he retired. DCMud: And when did that occur? 

Oehrlein: He retired last year, and the job was posted. I wasn’t really looking at that point, but submitted my qualifications by December and it all fell into place. I had to decide what to do with my firm. I love what I do, but some days the management aspects were a lot to handle. It’s time consuming to deal with contracts and proposals and personnel issues and office leases – everything that goes along with running an office. I was ready for a change. 

DCMud: How has that change manifested for you? 

Oehrlein: This is just ideal. I am working in the best building in the country, doing pretty much what I love to do, which is preservation. My job is to review projects that are happening here and set policy for preservation of the buildings. I identify what’s significant and what needs to be retained and preserved: It’s everything from policy, management and implementation to specific project review and writing specifications for preservations and maintenance. 

DCMud: Can you provide some specifics about the day-to-day and long range aspects of your job.

Oehrlein: There’s always a lot going on with these buildings – a lot of projects underway. These include a range of tasks from replacing light fixtures to major mechanical overhauls. Replacing all the plumbing piping in the Capitol is a project that’s in the planning stages now. 

DCMud: What are some of the inherent challenges?

Oehrlein: Well, how do we do things without impacting the really decorative finishes, artwork and decorative arts in the building, or the ornamental plaster or marble floors. How are these projects accomplished in the best way possible with a minimal amount of intervention and impact? Those are the big projects, but sometimes it comes down to something as simple as the masonry shop wants to point a building, and they ask about materials and procedures. Issues range from technical to planning. 

DCMud: In your few short months in the position, is there anything you’ve observed that you’d like done differently? Oehrlein: I would like there to be more ongoing maintenance. I’ve always been a proponent of maintaining buildings rather than allowing them to deteriorate, and then having to spend a lot of money to repair and restore them. One of my goals is to increase the focus on basic, good quality cyclical maintenance of all the materials we deal with: historic windows; exterior stone; all the beautiful bronze that’s here; artwork; decorative arts. 

DCMud: Is there a particular project on which you are currently working that might raise some eyebrows?

Oehrlein: I’m working on a major project currently in the predesign phase: a total rehabilitation of the Cannon House Office Building. The last major intervention was in 1966, and it involves all new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Forty-five years is a long time for systems to continue to operate, and work is slated to begin in another five years in 2016. 

DCMud: For your first job working for a construction company that was doing restoration work, before preservation architecture was even practiced, you once said you spent months in the stacks at the Library of Congress researching historic preservation materials and procedures. Those were the days that the public had largely unlimited access to the stacks, which it no longer has. As historic preservation officer, presumably you will once again have access. Had you thought about that? 

Oehrlein: (Laughing) I have to say that’s one of the things I thought about when I accepted this position, that wow, I’ll have access to the stacks again. 

DCMud: And what about your own firm? 

Oehrlein: It’s still functioning and probably will be through the end of the year. I’m at the AOC during the day and working nights and weekends to keep up with things privately. We are also clearing out 30 years’ worth of project files, books, records, drawings and photographs from the firm that need to be disposed of, moved, packed and/or stored. Some of the work is going to the D.C. library, and the Washington Historical Society is taking some of the photographs as we always took them before we started our work. 

DCMud: Is there anything we haven’t asked about which readers may be curious? 

Oehrlein: Everybody is asking me if they can have a tour of my new offices. I tell them they can, just as soon as I can find my own way around these buildings without getting lost. I also tell former clients they can continue to call me. The advice line is still open!

Washington DC commercial design news

Industry Insight: Cecilia Cassidy, Rosslyn BID Executive Director

Cecila Cassidy has been Director of the Rosslyn Business Improvement District for 17 years, during which time most would agree that Rosslyn has changed, for the better. She spoke with DCMud this week about development, elevated sidewalks, traffic, and the only skyline DC has to offer.

DCMud: Why don’t you tell a little bit about yourself and your role here in the Rosslyn community. 

CC: I'm the Executive Director of the Rosslyn BID. I am also Executive Director of our sister organization, Rosslyn Renaissance which was started in 1992 based on a recommendation of the County Board when they approved the Rosslyn Sector Plan. The Rosslyn Sector Plan included two recommendations. One was to create a special zoning district that would encourage developers to redevelop Rosslyn. It was very well-tenanted at the time and developers didn’t have any incentive to redo their buildings. In 1996, the County Board created the C-O-Rosslyn Zoning district, which allowed developers to build up to 300 feet and a ten F.A.R. density, in exchange for a package of community benefits. The second major recommendation of the sector plan was to create a funding mechanism, in addition to the zoning, to implement some of the amenities that were called for in the Sector Plan. That was the creation of the Business Improvement District. Those discussions for the creation of the district took a long time and it finally started up in 2003. 

DCMud: As you mention, Rosslyn was designated by several urban planning groups as how not to build a city. How would you say Rosslyn has changed since then? 

CC: In the 1960’s and ‘70’s, there were some buildings that didn’t have visible entrances. The retail is hidden away. The sky walk system was part of ‘60’s planning to get people off the street because Rosslyn was a thruway to D.C. So the way Rosslyn has changed is that the buildings that have been improved since C-O-Rosslyn was passed in ’96 have all contributed to fixing up that approved image. Several of them have been completed: The Waterview building was approved in 2000, the Turnberry Tower was approved and has just been completed. Abdo built the Wooster and Mercer Lofts, which have been award-winning residences. The Hollady Corporation has built 1800 Wilson Boulevard. 

DCMud: How are they different? What have they done to change that image besides just building a new building? 

CC: The main thing is that they’ve begun to pay attention to the streetscape and the pedestrian experience. So all of those buildings include retail at the ground-level. They meet the street in a different way than the former buildings. They allow for wider sidewalks. The rooftops are more interesting. And there are amenities that were not thought of when Rosslyn was first built. Among the amenities that we’ve negotiated are an observation deck, the only one in the region, atop JBG’s Central Place project (pictured at left). We also negotiated the re-use of the Newseum space as a cultural center. That project was part of Monday Properties’ site plan approval for 1812 North Moore (below at right), which is a 34-story building ready for construction. 

DCMud: Are they having financing delays? 

CC: Well, like everybody else, the economic situation is affecting both of those projects. The existing buildings have been demolished so they’ve completed the demolition stage. 

DCMud: Rosslyn has some of the highest numbers of commuters that pass through each day. Do you see that as a blessing or a curse? 

CC: Oh, it’s absolutely a blessing. This is the most highly-used metro station in the system. It drives the work force. Those are people that are coming to work in Rosslyn. Arlington has a day-time population of 200,000. Rosslyn is a major work center for Arlington. All the commuters are definitely a blessing.

DCMud: Rosslyn has been fairly retail, restaurant, and super market challenged. Not that long ago the Arlington Planning Commission said that Rosslyn has “very little presence or impact.” Do you think that’s changing? Or do you think that’s going to change now especially since a lot of retailers are cutting back? 

CC: We should probably talk about our new developments that have been approved, such as JPG’s Central Place, which is in the heart of Rosslyn. Here’s the metro station, right across from Metro. 1812 North Moore, the Monday Properties’ project. When this is built, it will be ringed by retail. We hope that there will be a variety of white table cloth restaurants and other retail at Central Plaza which will have 45,000 s.f. of retail. 

DCMud: Have they secured any tenants in advance? 

CC: No, because we don’t know when they’re going to start construction. They’re hoping that the economy will loosen up and the financial markets will loosen up so that they are able to begin next year. It’s all a waiting game. 

DCMud: And you’re hoping that it’s white table cloths? Are there any plans for any other supermarkets in the area, even a smaller one? 

CC: There was a low-rise project that was approved at 1716 Wilson Blvd. It’s next door to the 1800 Wilson Condominium that was developed by Holladay. They designed the space so that it could accommodate a smaller Trader Joes, for example. You know we have the Safeway at 1525 Wilson—the underground Safeway that was developed in conjunction with the retail for that building. 

DCMud: How is Rosslyn becoming more walkable, more drivable? You have a waterfront location. Is there an effort going on to make that more accessible, more walkable? 

CC: We have to talk to the National Park Service about that. In terms of the waterfront, one fantastic asset Rosslyn has that nobody else can claim in the region is the nature preserve—the sanctuary that is Roosevelt Island. Roosevelt Island is accessible by foot, directly from Rosslyn. The foot ramp is right next to the I-66 ramp. You walk 5 to 7 minutes away, but it is an incredible asset for Rosslyn. The same goes for the grounds or the Iwo Jima Memorial. Between those landmarks and Key Bridge, we are surrounded by green.The walk over Key Bridge to Georgetown is another wonderful pedestrian experience. On the streets of Rosslyn itself, the BID has undertaken an extensive beautification project. We have literally taken over all of the traffic islands and done plantings that are just lush and beautiful. Our customer satisfaction survey cites our beautification program as the number one improvement that the BID has undertaken since we began. We’ve made a real effort to green Rosslyn. We put plant containers on the streets as well as trash and recycle bins. We have also developed a wayfinding program. The first part of that program is a parking program that we’ve just installed. The pedestrian part of it will be installed as soon as we name the cultural center. It’s all ready to go, the fabricator has the design, but the cultural center is going to be named in the next few months. So when that is done we’ll install the pedestrian way-finding system. Following that, we will install a vehicular finding system. Gensler was our contractor on the wayfinding system. 

DCMud: And as far as making it safer for people to just cross the street, are you working with the Virginia Department of Transportation to make sure you have signaling, you have signage, to make it a safer intersection for people? 

CC: Transportation planning’s a part of every site plan. So you’ll see the sidewalks around the Waterview, for example, and around the Turnberry project, the sidewalks and crossings are all very clearly marked—you can not miss if there’s a crosswalk around Waterview. All the crossing signals are all timed. We also installed a lighted street sign program. Rosslyn is one of the few areas in Arlington where the street signs are illuminated. We paid for it, and worked in cooperation with the County to get the signs installed. That goes a long way to helping drivers know where they’re going. 

DCMud: As far as parking, what is the plan? You said you'll have more signage. Are there plans to have more on-street parking or garages? 

 CC: There has been a lot of on-street parking added during the last five years — we made a real effort to find every nook and cranny where we could cram in a parking spot and have done that. The fact is there are 12,000 parking spaces underground in Rosslyn and the challenge is for people to be able to find them.

DCMud: I was happy to find on here this morning. 

CC: We put up big blue P’s, universal “P’s for Parking” on five buildings with parking spaces that are available to the public. It was a matter of identifying those lots so that people understand they can park there, since many lots are private. 

DCMud: I saw an article in the Washington Examiner about trying to extend the Circulator Bus instead of the Blue Bus. Have you been involved in this process at all? 

CC: We have been a partner with the Georgetown BID since the year 2000, when they began the Blue Bus. Rosslyn Renaissance raised $100,000 already to go toward the support of the Blue Bus. The Blue Bus was always intended to be a pilot project and what it has demonstrated is the viability of having a bus that goes back and forth across Key Bridge from Dupont Circle down to Georgetown through Rosslyn. So the initial funding used to finance the bus was Federal dollars to enable workers in the inner-city to get jobs in the suburbs, “outside of the District” and it has succeeded that way. There are workers at the Key Bridge Marriott who live in the District and take the Blue Bus to work. Absent a metro stop in Georgetown, it’s really a critical part of the transportation infrastructure that has been provided privately by the property owners of Rosslyn—and primarily Georgetown. Rosslyn gave a relatively small donation, but it was a donation that helped serve as a matching fund needed in order to receive Federal money. So it was a very critical component. We have always had a very cordial and close working relationship with the Georgetown BID. So we’re very pleased that the Circulator is going to take over that route. 

DCMud: I was under the impression that they're just lobbying for it to do so. 

CC: It had been our understanding that it was going to happen. But we aren’t as close to it as the Georgetown BID. They really take the lead on dealings with the DC government. We worked with Congressman Moran on this because he’s been very helpful in supporting the project. 

DCMud: Do you want to tell me a little bit more about the two biggest real estate projects in the works, Central Place and Monday Properties? 

CC: JBG's Central Place project is split into two towers, an office tower and a residential tower. The office tower will have 549,00 s.f. and the residential tower will have 350 condo units. 

DCMud: And they’re still slated for condos even though the market’s leaning toward rentals? 

CC: As far as I know. I don’t know that that decision has been made. It will include 44,554 s.f. of retail. The other benefit is a 27,000 s.f. public plaza between the two buildings. So where Metro Park is now, on the opposite side of the Metro Station, that park will almost triple in size. We worked very closely with the landscape designer - Michael Vergason Landscape Architects. The architect is Hany Hassan with Beyer Blinder Belle. The most significant amenity that is part of that project is an observation deck which has a 360 degree view. It will be a major tourist attraction. It has a view of the monumental core, of the Potomac out to Tysons Corner, over to the Iwo Jima Memorial…it will be the Washington Monument of Virginia. But it was designed so that it would not compete with the Washington Monument. It will be spectacular.

DCMud: So, right now they're just trying to decide when they're going to start construction, but they have all the zoning approvals? 

CC: Two of the three buildings on the site have been demolished. One remains because it is immediately adjacent to the skywalk that runs between the Rosslyn Metro Center building and the International Place building. That skywalk will be taken down when they begin construction. 

DCMud: And Monday Properties... 

CC: We don’t have all the particulars, but the most significant aspect of that project is that it’s the first LEED Platinum commercial office building in Virginia and it’s one of only 50 in the United States. 

DCMud: And its also pending financing. 

CC: Yes. Going back to the question about making the streets more pedestrian-friendly - one of our goals was to break up the super-blocks in Rosslyn because they’re long, long, blocks. So that was the reason for having the park between JBG’s two buildings. The original plan did not have that. As it went through site review, the community helped develop that park. The 1800 North Moore Street building has a walk-through - so the park for Central Place is on this side of the street, this is on the other side of the street - you can walk through this lobby and go over to Fort Myer Drive. It will be very accessible. The pathway from Central Place over to that building will easily be seen and there’s retail at the bottom. There will be some kind of retail environment around the Virginia Power Sub station, so everything is very retail and pedestrian-oriented for 1812 N. Moore. This whole streetscape is part of their site plan approval so that it’s highly pedestrian-friendly. And it is 569,000, almost 570,000 s.f. It will have 11,000 s.f. of retail and it will be 384 ft or 30 stories. The architect is Davis, Carter, Scott 

DCMud: What do you think Rosslyn is going to be like in 10 years? 

CC: It will be unbelievable, with the cultural center, the observation deck, and the Synetic Theater, which is now the resident theater company in the Rosslyn Spectrum. We’re saying Rosslyn is going to be the next hot place. With our proximity to Washington, the nexus to transportation, and the kind of amenities that will finally come to fruition, particularly with the arts, it will be terrific. The Cultural Center will have Synetic Theater, Washington Shakespeare Company. Hopefully, there will be a well-known restaurant. There are negotiations that are going on that fit in with that type of activity. The Ellipse Art Gallery will move into the Center. There will be the largest ball room outside of Glen Echo. There will be all types of dance activities. And the Dome Theater will have music events and all kinds of activities - it’s a 200 seat theater and there’s also a small 36-seat film theater. There will be a high-end craft center run by, I think it’s the Artisan Center of Virginia. Until we get to that point, the other thing that we do is "Alive in Rosslyn." What’s happening now is that where we do not have the infrastructure the BID has taken a major lead in providing amenities to the community. We have a free movie series for the summer, the I Love the 80s movie series. It packed in 1,500 people at Gateway Park on Friday nights. Sometimes it would only be 1,000 people, but huge crowds. Our lunch time concert series in conjunction with our weekly farmers market runs from May to October. We have music in our restaurants called the Restaurants and Rhythms series. We pay to have performers go into restaurants and they draw crowds. Our jazz festival is renowned throughout, not just in the region, but I think its on the map of the great jazz festivals that have evolved. We just had our 19^th annual festival this year, next year’s our 20^th anniversary. We put on a lecture series called Room with a View, to take advantage of the views. Until we have the observation deck, we bring people into private rooms they wouldn’t necessarily have access to. We have had Cokie Roberts, editors from Politico, a whole range of people who have helped us show off what Rosslyn is all about. 

DCMud: Anything else you want to add? 

CC: There are other major events we participate in. The Marine Corps Marathon comes to Rosslyn the last Sunday in October and brings tens of thousands of people. Eighty to 100,000 people just jam the streets. The last thing we have is our skyline. We have the only skyline in the Washington Metro area. And over the holidays we light up the rooftops. We have a lighting ceremony the first Thursday after Thanksgiving. our homeless services program works in conjunction with our light-up program. We have a gala benefit [for the homeless] that many Rosslyn businesses contribute to. We also run a warm, winter clothing drive in conjunction with that. So there's a social service component to our work as well.

Arlington Virginia commercial real estate news

Industry Insight: Gabe Klein

Gabe Klein, Mayor Fenty's pick to steer the future of transportation in DC, began his post as Director of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) in February 2009. Klein comes from a progressive, private sector background where he cultivated a reputation for partnering innovative businesses with government programs. He served as the DC regional Vice President of Zipcar from 2002 to 2006, making DC the nation's largest car sharing city by both membership and vehicles. He then co-founded and most recently served as the Chief Executive Officer of On the Fly, a boutique food-service company with retail, wholesale, catering and events businesses all-in-one whose green smartkarts are spotted throughout the city. Having achieved a quasi rock start status among urban planners and other pointy-heads for his entrepreneurial, progressive approach to greener transportation and development, Klein has quickly made Washington DC a leader in non-carbon transport options. Klein recently discussed with DCMud his plans for the future of DC transportation.

DCMUD: So it’s been almost a year at this point since you started at DDOT.

GK: Almost…I got appointed in December but I started February 1st. Nine months.

DCMUD: What do you think is the biggest problem with the city’s transportation right now and what are you doing about it?

GK: Well, it depends on if you look at this part of the region or if you focus more on just the city itself, I live just five blocks from here.

DCMUD: Do you walk to work?

GK: I walk to work or I bike to work. My commute on foot is about 9 minutes. So you know, from my personal stand point, we have a wonderful transportation system - a very walk-able, ride-able, transit-oriented city. So if you live, work or play in the city, I think it’s wonderful. I think if you’re commuting in - I was talking to one of our guys today - he lives in Baltimore, so his commute, total is between 2 and a half to 3 hours a day. So for folks that live in the region, I would say the traffic during rush hour is a huge problem.

Here in the city I think we need to make sure that the city is as safe as possible for people, particularly when people want to not be in their car. You know, forty percent of the people in the city don’t even own a car.

DCMUD: By safer do you mean as in a transportation perspective on the street as in walking?

GK: [It needs to be] safe for people to walk, to bike, to drive—and so you know we have a big responsibility in terms of safety and we’re looking hard at that, at how we want to arrange our safety resources in the form of a team so that they’re as responsive as possible to the public. Right now we’re looking at the fifty worst intersections in the city and trying to make sure that we focus our efforts on making them safe. In terms of your readers, I think what’s important is that if you’re developing at one of the worst intersections in the city—like Donatelli’s at Minnesota and Benning—what are we doing to make that safe, so his mixed-use development really attracts people to live there. It’s very important to the city to have smart growth, to have transit-oriented development of which that will be both, right, so there’s going to be stores, offices, and residential. And the problem is if we don’t create a safe intersection so people can cross to the grocery store, are people going to want to buy there? Is the real estate going to be worth what it could be? We’re very focused on that. And there is obviously a renaissance in DC, as there is in many urban quarters, and we’re very aware that there are many more children in the city than there used to be. There are people like you and I who are, well I don’t know where you live, but there are people like us who at this age are saying, “we want to live in the city and maybe raise a family,” and the mayor I think is doing a phenomenal job at trying to better the schools; I think our job is to make sure that people feel their neighborhoods are safe from a transportation standpoint. And a lot of that is pedestrian safety. One thing I’ve noticed - I’ve had one hearing season here - and when I go in front of council, the majority of the people who are testifying are testifying about safety - particularly pedestrian safety. So we’re really focusing on that. We’re also going to be launching an expanded bike share program.

DCMUD: Bike share has been pioneered during your tenure, can you address that? Also, I recently spoke with DDOT Transportation Planner Jim Sebastian and he said you’d be expanding the program from 10 bike stations to 90. When can we expect that?

GK: Right now we’re going through a contracting and procurement process, so we’re going to have everything nailed down, I can tell you soon we’ll be making an announcement about our expansion of the program. It will be a significant expansion. We’re hoping to take it to 100 stations. And a thousand bikes, it could be a little more, a little less, and our hope is to create a transit system with bikes

I just went to Montreal about a month ago on vacation…[and]…I wanted to go…to actually see the bike share system. We were the first in North America to launch our system, but they have the biggest system in North America, I think something like 3,000 bikes. Just recently they dropped in 3,000 all at once. It’s very interesting to see biking go from a sort of secondary mode of transportation to a primary mode of transportation and really become its own point-to-point transit system. So we’re very excited. And I think for developers it’s exciting because we can park one of these [systems] right in front of their development. And depending on what system you go with, we’re looking at a few options. It may even be a mobile system, meaning that we can move it seasonally or just move it periodically, you may have seen the SmartBike system out front. That was a construction project, we put that in the ground. We are looking at some other options which will allow us more flexibility in moving them and we definitely will be doing some outreach to the development community to talk about placing them on private property.

DCMUD: Would that be part of their PUD (zoning change) application?

GK: It certainly could be. It could be something that we do after the fact. So yeah, we’re very excited about working with the private sector. I think there’s so much we can do together. And you know one of the great things about our Mayor and working with the Mayor is that he really gets the synergy between the public and private sector - think how more you can accomplish when you’re working together.

DCMUD: Okay, and then regardless of bike sharing stations, in order to have bikes, or Segways, we need a useful infrastructure—bike lanes, bike paths. You said before you’re goal is to level the playing field for bikers, how do you plan to do that?

GK: One of the things I’ve been focusing our staff on around here is the fact that we’ll be launching this expanded bike share system which in many ways is going to hopefully make cycling a primary mode of transportation. It will also be institutionalizing it and bringing it to the masses. You know the early adopters of bike sharing, like the early adopters of car share, are people who are really into it so to speak, or environmental. Then you get the mass adoption, and when you hit mass adoption, you have to make sure you have safe and secure infrastructure. And again something I’ve seen in other countries - and they’ve been working hard on in New York and Portland and some other progressive cities - is dedicated bike-ways, cycle tracks, contraflow bike lanes, etc.

DCMUD: So not just a painted line?

GK: Not just a painted line, although I think we can do more with a painted line, the painted line could really be a painted bike lane, which may actually keep cars out of the lane. And you know, we really want to create a safe infrastructure for cars too. So we’re looking harder at a signal system, signal timing, we’re making significant upgrades on New York Ave. We’re going to have five very large projects, totaling…over $100 million in investment to make sure that some of the main arterials that allow people to get in and out of the city, whether you’re a resident or a commuter, that they are in tip-top shape with the best technology to move as many people as possible. So I think striking a balance also doesn’t mean ignoring vehicular traffic, it means supporting the best technology for vehicular traffic, best infrastructure, it means investing in transit through metro through our own transit system and it means creating new transit systems like bike share and making sure we have the infrastructure so people can safely ride. One of the things I’ve been talking about with my staff is that we’re going to have 75 year-old folks getting on the bike sharing system because we’re bringing it to the masses. So we need these separated, dedicated lanes for people.

DCMUD: How are you planning to bring it to masses? Are you thinking advertising or what is your plan for making it more approachable?

GK: Well, you know I come really from a marketing and operations background. I’m a private sector person. I’m used to doing a lot with a little, first of all. And I’m used to having to market without a lot of resources. At Zipcar we actually had no marketing budget for probably the first two or three years—I mean literally nothing. And we were very effective at leveraging partnerships, and grass roots, guerilla marketing to get the word out. So we’re going to bring a lot of those marketing strategies to DDOT. We’re also going to leverage technology quite a bit. We’re going to have new web site that we’ll be launching probably in the winter. We’re using Facebook and Twitter. So we’re reaching people in new ways. And we want to pair that high-tech strategy with feet-on-the-street and continuing to make sure we do a great job - as DDOT really always has - in going to meetings in the community, engaging the public, engaging the business community. We’re aggressively working with kids.

DCMUD: And about car sharing, what are you doing to encourage that, obviously you don’t work for Zipcar anymore but how are you incorporating that into the DDOT plan?

GK: Well when I was at Zipcar I had the opportunity to work with Dan Tangherlini and the folks at DDOT and bring car sharing to the masses and a lot of that - I mentioned we aggressively marketed on the street and in people’s neighborhoods - but we also formed a partnership with the city as we did with Arlington county and actually placed cars on the street. It’s very important to make a new transportation option high-profile. That’s what we did with car sharing. I think the car sharing program needs to be rejuvenated a little bit. Our TDM Program (Transportation Demand Management Program), we plan to enhance that and put more resources into it. We’ve got one great person running that TDM Program, but we need to give her more resources. We plan on doing that next year. Which will allow, not only the promotion of car sharing, but bike sharing, the bike station, our DDOT store that we’re working on…so there are a whole lot of projects. I’m actually working on a slightly different work chart structure which is going to have an Innovative Transportation Services Division. And that Division will receive Street Car, our Mass Transit Group, and what were core partnerships that are incubated through our Policy and Planning Group, but now that we have a critical mass of them - we’re getting up to about six or eight - we’re working on an electrification program so that people can charge their cars curb-side. So as we build more and more of these units we need people that can really manage these contracts, and manage these as business units, which includes marketing.

DCMUD: Street Cars: the overhead wires, you’re making progress on laying the tracks on H Street, but NCPC doesn’t seem to be buying into the idea of having overhead wires. How do you think that issue is going to get resolved and when do you think that’s going to happen?

GK: Well, the first thing I’d like to say is that there seems to be a lot of drama out there about the over head wire issue—for lack of a better term. NCPC, they’re great folks over there, we have a good relationship with them. We don’t publicly talk about this all the time, but we meet with them on a pretty regular basis. We’re working on a compromise of sorts that will protect their interests and protect our interests. We in no way want to upset the North/South “viewsheds” around the monuments. We are working on alternative technologies which include electric, battery-powered vehicles that can drop the wire. So for instance, let’s say that NCPC was okay with us having the overhead wire on H Street but once we got to K near the monuments, they wanted the wire dropped—if that was a concern for them, these cars this new technology that is looking to be built in the US in Portland, Oregon, we could drop the wire for up to a mile. And that’s just one of many different technology options. The roof of the car would be lined with battery. So it would charge while it was attached to the [overhead contact system], when it dropped it would run on battery power—similar to a Toyota Prius which uses gas and charges and then when it’s stopped or coasting it just goes to battery power.

DCMUD: So street cars were purchased for Anacostia. How will this fit into the picture? Do you need new cars? Are those the cars…the cars that will go on H Street, will there be a difference in cars between those [at H Street] and those that go into Anacostia?

GK: Well, we have a Street Car Division, now—a dedicated team that we’re building to work just on Street Car. And that’s very important because I don’t think the Street Car program has historically been treated as its own large-scale project with its own team—the way we’ve treated the 11th Street Bridge, which is a large $300 million dollar infrastructure project. The first thing is that we’re building a group of people to manage it. Second of all, we have an operational segment in Anacostia. The H Street/Benning portion was designed as a Great Street, and we said, okay, if we’re going to do the construction let’s put in the rails. But we are challenging ourselves and the Mayor is challenging us as well to make that an operational segment in the same timeline as Anacostia.

DCMUD: Which is when?

GK: Well, right now we’ve said about 2012. But we’re working very hard now that we have a team in place to speed that up - pretty dramatically. So hopefully, you’ll see an announcement in the next 6 months that gives people an update and hopefully it will be a good update - that we’re going to get up and running more quickly. I actually spent the morning out touring the city looking for maintenance facility locations near H Street. We have a number of places we’re looking at, existing infrastructure we can use - so we’re very focused on this project, we’re putting a lot of our own in-house resources into it. We want this to be, you know, a real win for the city.

One of the things that’s really made me passionate about this is learning the history of Street Car in Washington. The fact that we had over 200 miles of Street Car in and around the city - every major arterial, they all had Street Car. It was the primary mode of transportation in the city. In fact, if you look at old pictures, you see very few cars. You see bikers, walkers, and Street Car. So what’s so funny is that people think, “Oh you know, this agency or that agency is progressive with its New York DOT or Portland DOT,” and you know we’re just trying to put back what was here.

DCMUD: So new buildings in DC are required to provide parking minimums. But there’s nothing in the building process that requires people to do car-sharing, or bike benefits—it’s all like an addition or a community benefit—at what point will that change, or is it going to change? Do you see this as being at odds with your role in integrating transportation?

GK: It needs to change. I’ll be honest with you, this year, I have so many projects, it is probably not something we’re going to be able to attack. But, I mentioned earlier that we want to build our TDM resource capability. I would put that in the TDM category. We want to make sure that we’re heavily involved in the PUD process, in zoning, in making sure that we give builders alternatives to building parking which can be up to $65,000 a space as you dig down into the ground. So why are we incentivizing people to dig garage spaces? There was an article in The Washington Post about how nobody is using the garages there [in Columbia Heights]. And the fact is, whoever built that spent a lot of money doing that. So we would prefer that people invest in transit and alternative modes and facilities and infrastructure, to encourage that rather than building parking spaces.

DCMUD: We wrote an article about H Street and how the Steuart Investment Company has a new development underway there. They’re changing their plan to have one-level parking and .7 parking spaces per unit. We had a lot of feedback that so much parking wasn’t necessary. I don’t know that there’s enough information out there about alternatives to parking.

GK: I think 97% of people live within a few minutes of a bus stop. We’re working hard to upgrade buses, particularly with our own DC Circulator, to make it more on-par with something like the Metro or Street Car. I think, 1.5 or 2 spaces per unit, it’s just old school. We need to move into the 21st century. And we don’t live in Reston. And one of the beauties - I mean, I’m not putting down Reston, I like Reston, it’s a nice place. I don’t want to get any nasty letters, but - what’s nice about living in a city, is that you don’t need that 2.2 cars per household, that you can walk to the grocery store or jump on a Trolley. I mean, that’s what makes the city a city. So if we’re trying to recreate McLean in DC, I think that’s a huge mistake. Let’s take advantage of the positives. And it’s a huge cost. It’s just wasteful. One of the nice things about a down economy is that people can’t afford to waste.

DCMUD: So pedestrians, bicyclists, and car drivers all need different kinds of infrastructure to make their lives easier. How do you prioritize different projects for different users and how do you balance all of those needs when you’re redesigning a street, how do we want to approach transportation in the city?

GK: Well, inherently, a huge amount of our program and our budget goes toward asset maintenance. And a lot of our assets are vehicular-focused assets. So by default, we spend probably 70-80% of our budget on asset maintenance, you know, bridges, tunnels, roads, sidewalks—all these things. I think our biggest challenge, though, is when we’re looking at redesigning, re-building, maintaining these facilities, let’s balance the system. So when we’re redoing a road in Columbia Heights, let’s do a wider sidewalk. Let’s create bike lanes. When we’re building a plaza in Columbia Heights, let’s make sure that it’s functional, but that it’s beautiful - which it is. So I don’t think it’s so much about prioritizing one aspect. It’s really about making sure we’re addressing everybody’s needs when we’re out in the field doing our work, and I think for far too long, nationally, we focused too much on cars. So we’re trying to focus on beauty of the public space, sustainability—you know we take care of over 140,000 trees in this city—so every project, we now look very hard at the urban tree canopy. We actually have an arborist over in our permitting office. And we make sure that we’re addressing the needs of pedestrians and cyclists for their safety.

DCMUD: You’ve already answered question how do you get to work, but do you do bike sharing to get here or do you use your own bike?

GK: So bike sharing’s great. I worked in the car sharing industry and the way it works now is you take a car and you’ve got to bring it back to where you found it. So it’s good for leaving home, going shopping, you bring it back. The great thing about bike sharing is it’s point to point. But generally you don’t have a bike [share station] at your house. But the goal is that when we locate more stations, we can actually push them out into the neighborhoods so that people can use them more for commuting. My bike’s down in the garage, so I ride my bike or I walk. If I have to do something immediately after work like in Virginia, I might bring my car. I have a little Smart Car.

DCMUD: You don’t have to defend your car.

GK: Well, you know. I don’t really need it to be honest, but I like it. It’s a cute car.

DCMUD: Do your friends ever complain to you about commuting and transportation in DC? [Do you get complaints like] “It took me 20 minutes to get to work today, you need to fix this…”

GK: Oh, my friends will text me and say, “I think the signal timing’s screwed up at 18th Street.” And yeah, I take all the feedback from friends and people that aren’t friends. Whenever people write us and they want us to look at something we always look at it and we always respond. But yeah, your friends can be your biggest detractors.

DCMUD: Is there anything else you wanted to add about DDOT or your plans for the future? Or what it’s been like to have had this position?

GK: Well, it’s been great. I need to thank the Mayor, Dan Tangherlini, and Neil Albert you know for giving me this opportunity. It’s something I never thought I’d be doing—working in the government. It’s just a great experience. I feel like we’re doing a lot of great work. And it took me probably 6 months to get my feet under me. And now I feel like I’m really putting together a strategic vision for the future that we’ll be able to execute over the next 24 months. So you’re going to see a lot of new energy, and direction, and work out of the agency over the next two years.

Industry Insight: Ali Honarkar

Ali Honarkar, an architect and condominium developer, has been a forceful voice for modern architecture in Washington DC. Ali sat down with DCMud to speak about his projects, the state of architecture, design and, of course, shoe design.

DCMud: Tell us about Division 1

AH: Division 1 was something that me and my partner, Mustafa, started, at UMD, back when we were undergrads, it started as a side job, turned into what it is now. At the time we wanted to have something cutting edge. We were at a very conservative university, kind of the same thing we are doing now professionally, we came together we figured it was better to stick together. We started in '94, doing a lot of interior spaces and restaurants, which is the best way to get your work out there. We always wanted to get more into the residential market. It took us 6, 7 years to do that, but after doing a bunch of restaurants we were able to establish ourselves to get some of the larger, better projects.

DCMud: And you did Lima…

AH: Yeah, We’re not doing too many restaurants now. We did some of the more upscale Charlie Chiang's, which is now called Charlie Chiang’s Ping, one is in Shirlington, opened about a year ago, we do about one restaurant a year – by choice. We also did 18th St lounge, Dragonfly, Local 16.

DCMud: Who or what was your inspiration to become an architect?

AH: My family has been in construction for hundreds of years so…

DCMud: Hundreds?

AH: Yeah, back in Iran, where I’m originally from, about 300 years, so its in my blood. The rest of my family went into medicine, I stuck with it. Some of my influence, still, is Thom Mayne, who was an architect from the west coast, with Morphosis. An Austrian firm called coop-Himmelblau, some of the influences in the late 80’s, 90's, when I was in school. What they did - it was at the same time as grunge, it was part of a whole movement, everything was related: art, music, architecture.

DCMud: Why choose DC?

AH: My family moved here, after the revolution. You know, why not DC? I was just having a discussion with another architect, locally, who wasn’t really fond of what we do, in DC.
We’ve always been known have to fight for our clients, for our principals, you know, whether its historic preservation, ANC, etc. We don’t pick a fight, we just feel like there should more be diversity. People always want to label things, ‘this is historic,’ but across the street it's not historic. I think its because we’re such a young nation, we only have a couple hundred years of history. I come from somewhere where there’s thousands of years of history. So the question was asked, ‘why do you have to change DC? Why don’t you go somewhere else?” My answer was, we wanted change. We elected Obama for change, we didn’t ask him to go to another country; change needs to happen here. And we’re not alone, I think DC has great potential. There were a lot of things done, not in a good way, that people label as ‘modern.’ I think people, when they don’t understand, and they see glass, they think, modern architecture, and all architects have to take the blame for that. I like putting our own spin on the city.

DCMud: How do you label yourself?

AH: True modernist. I don’t pull into a colonial house - I live in the house I designed. It’s a whole lifestyle. Modern is being always on the cutting edge of what’s going on. In DC we are more traditionalist. I have no problem with preservation – its great – but you take a lot, and put something that belonged 200 years ago, that’s what I have an issue with. The thing with traditionalists, they always forget, everything was modern at one time, and it takes time for that to mature, like good wine. When the Victorian era came up, it was a departure, and now it’s protected. You’re starting to see things, not even as far back as Frank Lloyd Wright, 50s, 60s, getting historic.

DCMud: Any favorite buildings in DC?

AH: My favorite is the original German embassy, built in, I think 1964, that’s my favorite in DC

DCMud: With the exterior skeleton?

AH: Exactly. Imagine, that was 1964, that’s by far my favorite in DC.

DCMud: Tell us about some of your projects – you're working on the Lacey Condominiums right now.

AH: Yeah, the Lacey was a great opportunity for us, the client found us from our house around the corner, the W Street residence we did. It’s the largest ground-up building we’ve done. We’ve done a full city block in Silver Spring, with a lot of renovation, but this was the first ground-up. The design, inspiration comes from the client. The history that place has, being right next to the Florida Avenue Grill – the parking lot for the Grill. That started in 1944, just the idea of an African American business in 1944, it was so progressive thinking, we wanted a tribute to Lacey Wilson Sr., and Junior, who bought the place from his dad. It doesn’t mimic anything around it, its not contextual, but we found the best way to pay tribute in the same spirit of what he did in 1944, for us to do in 2009, yeah, we wanted to do something that honored that. We need to be able to educate the developer, its okay to do a little more, it will come back to you. We feel that everyone that’s bought there, they’re paying for it because of the design. We designed in some social issues there – you want the neighbors to be able to engage each other, you don’t just walk in to a long corridor, and go into your own space, and never see anybody. This forces people to know each other – the atrium spaces, the common spaces.

DCMud: So its all about the Social Element.

AH: Yeah, absolutely, you engage with your neighbors. Its not for everybody, more of a European feel to it, where people can come right outside and be able to socialize. I think that’s what we do – outdoor spaces push that idea.

DCMud: Tell me how exterior came about.

AH: It looks like a simple building but there’s a lot more to it. A lot of people use zoning and height restrictions as a way of limiting themselves. We went the other way. We looked at all the guidelines, what could or couldn’t be done, we maxed out everything. I hear that a lot, ‘we had to max out the area, so we couldn’t do much with it.’ We made a lot of double story spaces; that was the idea behind having indoor-outdoor spaces coexisting. The exteriors stairs, we made that into part of the design element; you need the two forms of egress, but it became for us the design showcase, it becomes this whole volume of its own and brings a different dimension to the building.

DCMud: Lacey has gotten attention inside DC, but also outside DC. What do you attribute that to?

AH: Yeah, I don’t know! (laughs). We designed it to get attention, that’s what you do. We’re not going to write a hit song and apologize, you want it to be played. Actually we’re getting more national than local attention. I’m a little disappointed with the local media, and I think it may be driven by sponsors, this very conservative southern town. You would think the Washington Post, as local media, should know what’s going on around here. We’ve seen the Lacey in New York blogs, LA blogs, and architecture blogs, and I’m always amazed how they find us. But they don’t have to find you here, we’re here, they should know what’s in their back yard. I‘m a little disappointed, not with smaller magazines, but the Washington Post spends so much time covering other things, they should cover more locally.

DCMud: Thinking about next projects, do you have anything new coming up?

AH: We have some commercial projects, one of the projects I’m very excited about is that we’re doing a single-family in Dupont, a great client that really wanted to do green, but for all the right reasons, not cashbacks, but to do the right thing. They’re not even going to live there, it will be a rental initially. We were very excited by that, it’s a small project, but its already been approved by historic preservation. We’ve gotten to learn so much more about alternative heating, cooling, really incorporates everything into 2000 square feet of space. And we have an office building that’s ready for completion in about 4 or 5 months, very exciting, in Silver Spring, its been about 7 years in the works. Its a complicated design, there were a lot of major modifications, to the point that the county didn’t understand it anymore, they just said, ‘alright, just do it.’ We have an existing shell that we’re keeping, and putting a whole new modern building in it. We also have the Drost, a 4 unit condo building, we’re hoping to start in the spring, we’ll see.

DCMud: If you had an ideal client right now, who would that be, what would they be building?

AH: I’m probably more interested in designing a shoe right now (laughs), that would be the ideal thing, to do something different, we consider ourselves designers not just architects.

DCMud: A shoe?

AH: A different design challenge.

DCMud: I didn’t expect that answer.

AH: I’m being honest, I’d love to do something along that line.

DCMud: So green is not cheap, design is not cheap, how do you combine those two goods, and still make it affordable?

AH: Its hard, there are metropolitan cities, like NY would be the first, Chicago, San Francisco, LA, they have that. You put up a building anywhere in New York, they will still line up if its good. I think the DC culture, within the last 10 years has really changed, you see a lot more emphasis, not just on housing, but the restaurants, you see a lot more design, restaurants, bars, we’re getting there slowly but surely. We’re not very good at that, we just do it. There were so many ways to make the Lacy cheaper. But at the end of the day, the architect, the developer, have to be able to look back and be okay with it. The average life of a building is 25-30 years, we’d like to see the building there in a 100 years. Real estate is a long-term thing; we don’t do things for marketing purposes. With the whole green movement, nobody ever uses bad materials on purpose. Another way the AIA is using – you know when the record companies stopped using vinyl because it was no good – the same with the AIA, we achieved it in the Lacey, we’re doing it in a small residential project, you put a good project out there, people will follow.

DCMud: Any other architect out there in DC you really like?

AH: There are two guys are doing some great things, I guess they’re not really local. Sure, there are a lot of good architects here, many great single family residential architects. But I look to somebody like Jonathan Segal, Sebastian Mariscal, both San Diego architects, they inspire me. About 10 years ago he started, these guys also develop, so they practice what they preach. Its easy to design a $4m house, there’s not much risk. When you play with your own money, there's so much more risk. Developers are risk takers, when somebody has the guts to do that, its not just a business. If you put your name on it and try to sell it, that’s a whole new level.

DCMud: There aren’t a lot of architect-developers in DC.

AH: The way we look at ourselves, its not just the business, there are a lot of people that practice the business of architecture, but its different when you own it.

DCMud: No one local that you like?

AH: [Bill] Bonstra does some good work, but, some I don’t like. Take the Lincoln Condominiums in my neighborhood. Its brutal; it’s a big, stucco building, it represents nothing. I would rather stand for something. As an architect, you’re not sworn in, but you’ve got to give back to the community. I think Eric Colbert designed that, I wouldn’t have. Just don’t take the project. If you do and that's what you deliver, then you have to admit you’re in the business of architecture. You could be making shirts at that point. We get clients that come in and want to do certain things, and sometimes you just say ‘no thank you’, that’s not what we do. You can’t take every project. Especially at that scale – 10, 12 story buildings. You’re taking a big chunk of the block. It’s a crime to not care what you do, when it has such an effect on the city.

DCMud: What do you see as the future of architecture in DC?

AH: I’m always hopeful. When I was going to school there was not a lot of things you could walk up to and see; if you liked modern, you had to go to another city. But with the good, comes the bad, but I’d still take that, the diversity. Its art, you put it out there, its art, you just put it out there and let people decide.

DCMud: How do you compare DC regionally?

Well if you compare us to Wilmington, Delaware, we’re good. New York, well, there’s only one New York. But I’m hopeful. There are a lot of restrictions in DC. What upsets me is that we lose a lot of our talent, because there’s so many restrictions in DC. Some good talent starts here, then move to the west coast, or New York, so we’re pushing a lot of our talent out.

DCMud: Height restrictions and historic preservation?

AH: It’s partly that, but, no offense to attorneys, you do any work in DC, forget the ANC and historic preservation, but every other neighbor is an attorney. Its great to have pride in where you live, but people feel like they get to claim it, we see that all the time, we always feel like we don’t want to deal with it any more, but then we get a good client, who wants to do something different, and we say, okay, lets do this again. Its not historic preservation, I think its more the people in the neighborhoods that want to stop the process.

DCMud: Do you think the height limits are a good thing?

AH: I like them; I think you are most creative when you are challenged. DC is my favorite city, and you have New York for that. London, Paris, the scale is completely different, most European cities are like that. I like the height restriction where it is, we should just be a little more creative. We have suburbs to balance stuff out.

DCMud: Speaking of the process in DC, how would you change it if you could?

AH: If you go through third party review, it still has to go through DCRA at some point, it’s a little frustrating. I don’t see what the point is. Zoning, public space, transportation, should go through DCRA. But as far as electrical, mechanical and plumbing, I don’t see why it has to go back through the city. Third party review should be quicker, the process is very time consuming.

Interview: Michael Darby on the Watergate Auction and Monument Realty

A day after the Watergate auction, Michael Darby, principal and co-founder of Monument Realty, spoke with DCMud about the nation's most publicized foreclosure auction. The Watergate went to auction after lender PB Capital foreclosed on Monument and its former financing partner, Lehman Brothers.

DCMud: Tell us what is happening with the Watergate and where does Monument Realty fit in?

MD: The foreclosure auction happened and there were no bidders except for the bank, who purchased the property. Going forward we... have already put in an offer to the bank. We believe they should accept [the offer]. Whether they do or not - I can’t control what other people do, but they should accept it because we have the ability to pay more than what the bidders bid at the auction yesterday.

DCMUD: How did you feel when the gavel fell yesterday? There must have been a sense of relief.

MD: When I realized there were no legitimate bidders, bidding on the property? Yes it was a relief. I’ve spent 6 years working on this project, going through some turmoil and some unfortunate and unusual situations. So to lose it with all the knowledge and all the work we’ve done on it would have been frustrating It certainly would have left a bad feeling with me, because I know I can finish it. I’ve grown very fond of the building and the potential building.

DCMUD: You said you put in an offer - did you have an opportunity for extensive conversations with the bank previously about your future with the project?

MD: We didn’t have many conversations because previously we were partnered with Lehman Brothers. Because of Lehman Brothers's financial situation, the bank wasn't able to work with the lender to do anything. I have, through another investor that I am working with, informed the bank that we have the ability to move forward with something. But they didn’t want to talk to anybody until after the foreclosure sale. So we had to wait for that to happen before we could come back to talk to them.

DCMUD: How does monument see the development of its other large projects? Projects like Half-Street, do you feel that everything that happened with the Watergate affects them?

MD: Each one is really independent of the next. Different projects suffer in different ways depending on the financial structure, depending on what type of product they are, depending on where they are in the development cycle or process.

The Watergate, since it had a third party lender, and the lender was not Lehman Brothers, there was the potential that Lehman and we could lose [the property] to the lender, should the term of the loan run out. We were not able to pay off the loan and that is what happened. So in that situation, [the] goal was to be ready to come in after that event and try to negotiate a purchase price for the lender with whomever would be the logical partner....

The ballpark deals: Lehman and our other partner McFarlane are very heavily invested and we don’t have any firm timing yet, except of course on the office building; that’s going though the normal construction process, we don’t look at that the same way. We aren’t so involved in that aspect as the management of that development project... So that’s just an ongoing project that we have to look at in terms of what’s happening in the market today to work out the best way of creating value going forward. We’re looking at every day, trying to work out what we can do to create value going forward. As far as any of our other assets, again it depends on what the status of them are, who the lenders are, what they’re willing to do, who our equity partners are, what they’re willing to do and then whether we have other source of capital to do the best deal we can do.

DCMUD: So I hear you mention the office building on Half Street, that that was part of a giant project where there was a 2-acre hole in the ground, and had previously been told that construction would start in 20 months or so, what is the status of the project? You had said it depends on the financing on projects - was this one where you had third party debt...was it just you and Lehman or was it one of your other financiers?

MD: It’s Lehman, McFarlane and us. We dug the hole because it was cheaper to dig the hole while we were building the office building portion of the development with the thought that we would continue on at that point in time with the space available. At that point in time there was financing available-we were fine with financing. So when the world kind of stopped, the financing went away and obviously we had a hole in the ground. We managed to stabilize the hole, make sure it is at conditions satisfactory to the District of Columbia and obviously to us. At the right time we’ll begin construction again, with already having value from with what we’ve dug that ditch with. It’s stopped the project somewhat in midstream, [and] its a very visible space, which is a shame. But I’d rather stop it there rather than halfway up, or complete without any prospects of tenants. I’d rather be at this point in time than in the future. We own that property, free of debt, so we’ll sit on the property and wait for the right time to build the residential portion of the development. At that point in time, we will have created one part of the Half Street vision. And we can put in the retail that we expect to put in there and have whole bunch of great retail in line for the ball park.

In 1991 in the east end of DC we have the same situation where the Verizon Center is today, between there and 13^th Street, and north of Pennsylvania Avenue was pretty much a no-man’s land and you look at it today, it’s hard to believe that there were people who wouldn’t walk in those areas at that time. It’s a vibrant area that is great and everybody loves being down there. That would be the same thing with the ball park area, it will just take time to do that based on where the market is and where the economy is.

DCMUD: How do you think your story and the story of the Watergate compares to others in the industry and other projects in this climate?

MD: I don’t know how other people have structured their financial situation with their investment partners. We always structure it in a way where we try to minimize our liability on any project in case this kind of thing happens. And we do that so that we can hold cash and be available to fight another day when things happen. To tell you honestly, this downturn is certainly has been a good thing, from the standpoint that there’s a lot of people who have lost a lot of value, however as a developer you know we can’t make money unless there are opportunities out there to create value. Where the market was prior to this downturn, was at a point where there wasn’t much value to be created. It got so heated up that I wasn’t interested in doing a lot of deals because you were betting on something that was basically false inflation. And I don’t think that’s a good way of doing business.

So that fact that the market has been affected, gives us opportunity to go out and buy if it’s at the right price, and develop properties based on the right value, the right construction costs and be able to make money again. And that’s where we started from in 1997 when we started the company and that’s where we’re back to that situation. And some ways, again its taking a little while to sort things out, [for] those opportunities to become available- and they will become available and that’s great for us. We’ve got a great team here and we’re ready to go moving forward and buy stuff and develop. It’s a good thing from that standpoint. It’s not a good thing from standpoint on the value we’ve lost of the deals we do have up and going but it is good for the future as well.

DCMUD: So you think there is definitely a future for Monument Realty in development?

MD: Yes, absolutely. For the good developers in town that understand that there will always be recessions and slow downs, that understand what relationships are all about, and that building relationships early in your career is important so that there’s always capital sources available, there’s always people to do business with you going forward. Absolutely there’s always a bright future for those people.

For the people that are mired and stuck dealing with severe problems, they may not be able to buy new stuff in the near future while they get themselves out of these problems. For us, the problems started in the fall with [the] Lehman situation and we basically sorted through most of the problems even though it doesn’t look like it with the foreclosure of the Watergate. [It] was foreclosed financially [and] that was the culmination, so we could potentially move forward. [With regard] to our other assets, we are managing them and are able to look at other assets, that are becoming available on the market.