The Shape of Mt. Vernon Triangle

At least some second waves are a good thing (too soon?). A new hotel in the center of DC's Mt. Vernon Triangle is adding to a surge of openings in the neighborhood, as Marriott prepares to open its AC Hotel near the Washington Convention Center at 6th and K Streets, joining a soon-to-be Holiday Inn, the recent opening of the Lydian apartment building by Wilkes, and on the retail side, restaurants RASA, Melange, and Baan Siam all debut their unique styles, while Stellina will soon take the historic and relocated Waffle Shop.  Once dim in the shadow of Penn Quarter, the neighborhood has come into its own.

click on photo for image gallery

Marriott's AC hotel program, like its Moxy brand (already located just a few blocks away) aims for a more boutique feel but at less boutique prices.  The hotel is accepting reservations beginning October, but already improves the neighborhood with a geometric design that makes a statement among a fleet of newly designed apartment and office buildings.  The project was developed by Douglas Development, designed by FILLAT, and built by CBG, expedited with the help of DC's velocity program, a pay-to-play program that grants review and approval in as little as a day for a hefty fee to the DC government.  The site was once home to a historic gas station, which Douglas preserved and moved across the intersection to the southeast corner.  The new hotel will feature a ground floor cafe that will spill out onto the sidewalk, and a subterranean lounge.  Kenyattah Robinson, the energizing head of the Mt. Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District, says the neighborhood is well positioned to lead the city's resurgence, given its residential component and commercial mix.  "We're still growing!"  Indeed.

Project:  AC Hotel by Marriott

Address:  601 K Street, NW, Washington DC 

Developer:  Douglas Development 

Architect:  FILLAT + Architecture

Construction: CBG Construction

Use:  235 key hotel

Expected Completion:  October 2020

Washington DC retail and real estate development news

We're Back

We're back!  Really, it was us, not you.  Its been a long, strange road, and much has changed since DCMud last published our love letters to the city, not the least the city itself.  Back in 2012 downtown DC still had plenty of surface parking lots, a brand new convention center, the Navy Yard was getting some of its first apartments and factory conversions, and Douglas Development was starting its Ivy City Development.  And while development has continued, DCMud took a break from the high expectations we had for ourselves, consumed as we were with first-in-time reporting and from-the-source research.  And while our format was simple, the effort, coordination and resources that went into this humble blog were monumental, consuming more resources than it generated.  It distracted us from ordinary commerce, and what started as an impulsive post on a hastily chosen blog domain (DC Dirt not being available) soon became a heavy labor and then an obsession.  But the community that supported and absorbed us always counterbalanced the cost of our efforts.  We missed our interactions with you, and some of you even missed us.

Among the changes was the dissolution of my old company, DCRealEstate.com, that supported this blog, and much more recently the creation of my new company, City Grid Real Estate.  I have spent the interim years in the business of commercial real estate, representing many of the regions more recognizable retail tenants and restaurants (if you're curious), marketing for landlords and selling commercial real estate, and City Grid represents a return to the independent, creative roots that started DCMud.

The intent of the new DCMud is not to replicate the previous format. I have always been immensely proud of the site, having generated more than 10 million page views and earned a Washingtonian "Best of" in the process.  But as I move through the city marketing and analyzing commercial property, I will also be photographing, documenting the change that never stops.  There are now ample alerts about zoning decisions and groundbreakings (ceremonial, mostly), so my attempt will be capture and display the construction as it happens, changes that often take us by surprise as we pass a new building that seemed to appear spontaneously.  I hope you find this helpful, and I look forward to your contributions - photographs, information, comments - as part of this new endeavor.

Arlington's "Not So Big House"

Q and A with Krista Minotti Schauer
by Beth Herman


Descended from a designing family, Principal Krista Minotti Schauer of KMS Architecture believes the profession is in her genes. At age 18, her grandfather labored on NYC's Chrysler building and then became a builder; her father studied architecture and building sciences at Clemson University; and her mother is an artist whose finely detailed work informs Schauer's.

In an effort to modernize and make more functional a 1923 3-bedroom, 2-bath farmhouse in Arlington, Virginia, without adding a lot of space, Schauer said she was inspired by architect and "The Not So Big House" author Sarah Susanka, having heard her speak at an AIA Convention. Though some additional square footage was required, Schauer, like Susanka, elected to scale back the amount of new space favoring quality and function over quantity.  DCMud spoke with Schauer about the project.

DCMud:Tell us about the home and program.

Schauer: The original home was minimal in terms of any detail, but it had the character they liked -- 8'6" ceilings -- that old farmhouse motif. This needed to remain, but it needed to live in the 21st Century and accommodate a family of four. There was an addition on the back off the kitchen -- a full bathroom -- something useless and quirky.

The project started as the homeowner's idea for a family room on the back, not planning to redo the kitchen, and for a second floor master suite leaving the existing bedrooms intact. But once we got through the design portion, they understood that the flow/circulation of the house needed to change, which would involve the kitchen.

DCMud: But even with that information, much more changed for the homeowners at that point, correct?

Schauer: It certainly did. In 2009, during a time of inflated appraisals, though we already had a contractor on board and permit in hand, the client's financing suddenly fell through for the construction loan as the house didn't appraise the same way. The construction industry was also not on board with green building, which was a goal here. While we'd originally designed for the existing 3 bedrooms and 2 baths upstairs, we had to creatively change it to a 5-bedroom, 2.5-bath.

This was done by reworking a smaller enclosed porch on the side of the house, which had ultimately appraised for no value and which a previous owner had turned into a den. In the original design, we were going to take that living space and turn it into a long covered porch along the side of the house. We'd have had an extension on the back, and then the long covered porch.

DCMud: So how did this change?

Schauer: As the appraisal considered square footage over most anything else, along with number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms, we abandoned the porch idea and maintained the first floor's square footage by creating a TV/office space and half bath, so it could actually read as a spare bedroom. We then added more second floor to the existing second floor, on top of that space, creating another bedroom there. The result was two existing front bedrooms, the new one, and then the master -- a total of four upstairs.While it did add square footage to the second floor, it did not add to the property's footprint which made it cost and environmentally effective.

DCMud: Speaking of the environment, what sustainable elements are found in this redesign, along with choices of color, etc.

Schauer: Fairly early on, the owners wanted wide reclaimed oak flooring with color variation and a rough-hewn texture. We knew it would be a feature and focal point of the home. And going back to the Shaker-like minimalism of a farmhouse, I'd initially envisioned a neutral palette, interior and exterior. We replaced the exterior with Hardiplank because the original was in such bad shape. And it's got so many massing elements on the back, painting it white brought a cohesiveness to the home. Accordingly, I thought the interior would be the same -- light-filled and a light palette so as not to compete with the wood floors. But the owners wanted black cabinets in the kitchen, which did provide a nice contrast.


DCMud: The walls appear to be bold jewel tones, not the quiet colors you mentioned.

Schauer: When it came time to paint, the owner's vision was different than mine. She wanted lots of color, and she was right. We did one accent wall in a really dark green - almost black. That same color is in the TV room, but there's a glass door from the living room into the TV room, so that black becomes a background and visually balances the TV room with the black cabinets in the kitchen. With small spaces and small houses, having a visual window, so to speak, from one space to the next makes it feel much larger and more open. In this house, the dining room is a defined space off of the living room, but it's got a wide cased opening between the two so you still get that visual connection from one to the other. When you're in one space, your eye is borrowing space from the adjacent space.

DCMud: What did you take away from this project, which was apparently full of economic and architectural twists and turns.

Schauer: A piece of architecture works as a whole: the interior and exterior have to relate to one other. And, the most successful projects are a collaboration like this one when contractor, owner and architect work together under evolving circumstances.

Two Megabuildings Downtown in Pipeline for Gould

On the edge of Mount Vernon Square, where some of the last vacant lots in the downtown core still exist, plans for more office buildings are heating up.  One developer with a stake in the zone is Gould Property Company.  Gould has plans to build two oversized office buildings - a 380,000 s.f. office building at 600 Massachusetts Avenue and a 620,000 s.f. office building at 900 New York Avenue.  While both await tenants before construction will begin, sources say designs are done and waiting on the right tenant.

Gould Property's 600 Mass Ave. - Rendering courtesy CORE

Gould's "Z"-shaped parcel - nearly half the block at the corner of 6th Street and Massachusetts Avenue, was designed by Core Architecture + Design, also architect on the completed Gould project Market Square North.  The building's plan calls for 10 floors with ground floor retail.  In 2006, the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) first gave approval to the developer's concept to move two row houses it owns, 621 and 623 Eye Street, built in 1852, next to a cluster of other row houses on the southeast corner of the lot.  It also approved Gould's plans to demolish a row house at 627 Eye St. to make way for the building, and demolition has already taken place.  After the HPRB put its stamp on the demolition, a Mayor's Agent gave a final necessary nod to the plan in 2007.

Gould Property's 600 Mass Ave. - Rendering courtesy CORE

The design has also passed the Chinatown design review process necessary for buildings in the neighborhood.  "It is a very unique building because it is unlike most of Washington, DC where you basically feel like it is a box," Ron Ngiam, senior project designer with CORE, told DCMud.  With the site shaped like a "Z", architects also worked to meet the challenge of designing a building to fit a unique site.  The zoning of the site prevented a boxy, full, 10-floor building, so architects created a series of terraces.  "We were able to carve quite a bit of light and air into the building and produced a whole series of green roofs," Ngiam said.

"Instead of filling in the property with a box, we were able to do something architecturally interesting." Ngiam also said the building's setback on Eye St. respects the scale of that streetscape.  "We are quite excited about the project," he told DCMud.

600 Mass Ave. - Eye St. Frontage - Rendering courtesy CORE

The 600 Mass Ave project is not the only building in the pipeline for Gould.  The developer is also behind plans to develop a portion of the old Convention Center Site at 900 New York Ave.  The building is part of an $850 million dollar mixed-use CityCenterDC which started construction last year.  Hines and Archstone are developing most of the CityCenterDC master plan, which calls for condos, office buildings, apartments, and retail, replacing the 10 acres that were left empty after demolition of the old convention center in 2004.

For CityCenterDC, Gould is planning a 12-story building designed by Pickard Chilton Architects.  The design includes a center atrium that reaches the full height of the building's 12 floors.  The atrium is covered with a "unique free standing" glass roof supported by v-shaped columns.  Renderings also call for lushly planted rooftop terraces, nine-foot ceilings, and ground floor retail.

900 New York Ave. - Rendering Pickard Chilton website

Gould, run by real estate scion Kingdon Gould, obtained the site from the city in exchange for a parcel it owned 9th Street NW, which the city needed to make room for a 1,175 room Marriott Marquis through a 99-year lease agreement.

Gould is also behind plans with Vornado Realty for a massive redevelopment of Rosslyn Plaza that would replace six buildings with four new ones to include hundreds of new residential units, as well as hotel space. 

900 New York Ave. - Rendering Pickard Chilton website

At both 900 New York Avenue and 600 Massachusetts Avenue, the developer has the approvals needed to start, according to the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID).  Now all the projects need are good tenants.

ICSC Spotlight: DSW takes over D.C., L St. Borders site gains a future

DCMud’s man at the International Council of Shopping Centers Convention survived that shopping center jungle with a couple new updates, both conspicuously involving clothing …

•  DSW, the footwear retailer, plans to open three new stores in Washington, D.C. One will be in Columbia Heights, one in Friendship Heights and one on Connecticut Avenue. So anyone who has been stocking up on heels for the coming shoe drought can breathe easy.

•  Following the trend of transforming ex-Borders into things that have absolutely no hope of raising the national literacy rate (see: the Hamilton), a large but as-of-yet unnamed clothing retailer will be taking over the old Borders site on L Street.

JBG's Woodley Park Residential Tower Reborn as 2700 Woodley

Construction on The JBG Companies' long-planned residential tower in Woodley Park, just east of the Marriott Wardman Park, is well underway with excavation nearly complete, and the project - formerly known as Wardman West - has been rebranded as 2700 Woodley.
Upon completion (delivery is anticipated in Q1 2014), the upscale David M. Schwarz Architects-designed tower will offer 211 rental residences. Ongoing speculation has centered on whether the project would be condos or apartments, and it turns out that developers have decided to go the "premier apartment community" route, a savvy decision considering the almost complete absence of new high-end rentals in the immediate area. Matthew R. Blocher, Senior Vice President at JBG, said a full-scale marketing campaign will launch in the fall. (Possibly from New York-based SeventhArt?)

A new rendering acquired by DCMud (top) shows a building structurally similar to the Esocoff-designed concept depicted in the earlier renderings (below, right), but with a vastly different, and more attractive facade. Whereas the previous design verged on minimalistic (if not outright post-Soviet Eastern Bloc), the new facade is more texturally interesting, and much more in keeping with the character of the nearby hotel.

While the 2700 Woodley tower will likely be successful, the building also represents something of a defeat for JBG. After buying the nearby Wardman Park hotel and its 16-acre parcel for $300 million in 2005, JBG and partner CIM planned to convert the hotel into residences, in addition to building the new tower. Marriott objected, the project stalled, and then the recession hit. The project lay dormant for some years before resurfacing in seemingly unrelated litigation between JBG and Marriott over a new Marriott hotel at the Washington Convention Center. After a JBG-affiliated entity filed suit to block construction at the Convention Center, a Marriott countersuit claimed JBG's suit was a mere tactic to force them to renegotiate regarding the Wardman Park hotel. JBG denied this, and eventually all suits were dropped.

Regardless of what it was really all about, the Marriott Wardman Park, the city's largest hotel, and onetime home to three former U.S. presidents (I'll buy you a drink if you can name all three without looking on Wikipedia), continues to operate, even as construction kicks into high gear just to the west.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Today in Pictures - Marriott Marquis

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









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

2011 Year in Review

Looking back on 2011, the year may be known in the real estate world as a year of binge-buying and construction of apartment buildings, or the year Walmart came to town, at least on paper. But with Washington DC's population growing and construction financing available, the city added many new restaurants, apartments (though condos still lagged) and even some office buildings. Here's a look at some of the many developments that shaped the year:

14th Street Rules
14th Street saw developers lining up in swarms as JBG broke ground on District Condos (Jan 10) and quickly leased up retail in the future building (pictured below), showing the commercial strength of 14th Street, though the building later converted to rentals, showing the relative strength of the apartment financing market. Nearby, Georgetown Strategic Capital readied to build Utopia at 14th & U, though JBG took that up too. Level2 Development got support for 144 units across the street on the 1900 block of 14th, UDR got underway on its 255-unit apartment building replacing the Nehemiah Center, Douglas Development got approval for 30 units on the 2200 block, Habte Sequar started work on his 30 unit project at 14th & R, while PN Hoffman began converting the Verizon building across the street into 40 condos. The Irwin neared final approval for 60 units on lower 14th Street, and Furioso put up a design for a 42,000 s.f. office in the 1500 block.

Virginia, Towering Above Others
Virginia went big this year: Dittmar submitted plans for 500 apartments in Virginia Square (Jan 11), though construction has not yet begun. The beltway's tallest building - at nearly 400 feet - got underway in Alexandria, another just a hare shorter got closer in Tysons Corner, both barely eclipsing the Rosslyn tower that poked above ground (pictured, left) just a few days ago. JBG contributed with its 474-unit Rosslyn Commons groundbreaking (Jan 6).

There was finally a kick start for Buzzard Point (Jan 17), thanks to Duane Deason, who is planning the first residential project in the largely forgotten area, with zoning approval secured in August. Not too far away, Camden Properties began their residential project on South Capitol (June 13) giving the area some momentum. A new bridge and streetscape on the way for South Capitol gave the area even more buzz.

Columbia Heights saw nothing like the boom that hit it in previous years, but Chris Donatelli began adding another building next to his two centerpieces at 14th & Irving.

Getting Malled
It was a busy, if controversial year for the Mall: Eisenhower drew the most attention as Frank Gehry, the chosen architect, put forward 3 plans for a tribute. One was selected, but public discontent with the starchitect's vision was strong, and one arts group put forward its own competition. The winning vision was displayed, briefly. Three areas of the fading Mall were designated for a redesign (Oct 26). Rogers Marvel Architects was chosen as the designer for President's Park South (July 7), while DC residents begged for the reopening of E Street, and The Disabled Veterans' Memorial got nearly ready for construction near the U.S. Capitol (Oct 5). The Martin Luther King Memorial progressed from dirt piles to completion, opening this summer (Aug 12), and the African American Museum of History and Culture got nearly off the ground. Not to be outdone, Latinos pursued sites nearby for another museum on ethnicity and race (July 2).

NoMa boomed, again. Its second hotel, a Hilton, opened in April, Mill Creek Residential broke ground (March 18) on 603 rental units, Skanska purchased a lot in January and planned its largest office building in the DC area (Aug 10). Camden started off 320 units of housing in September, and MRP let slip that they intended to kick off Washington Gateway at NoMa's northern edge (Aug 29) after years of waiting. StonebridgeCarras started digging for phase II of Two Constitution Square (May 12) for 203 residential units and then broke ground on Three Constitution Square (Oct 18) on spec, like its predecessors. NoMa East, however, continued to idle.

Shaw had its day, again and again, as Four Points (officially, anyway) got to work on Progression Place (Feb 5), while the CityMarket at O got underway (pictured, below) two months after the Giant closed. New designs were released for the Wonder Bread buildings (Aug 30) Jefferson Apartment Group bought Kelsey Gardens (Oct 27), promising a quick start of removing the eyesores. Finally, Two more Marriotts were planned next to the Convention Center (June 22).

Take Me to the River
Construction was everywhere in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood in southeast with the construction of Canal Park (Feb 15), and a new bridge (Nov 21). Foundry Lofts opened to the public, reconstruction of the boilermaker building got underway for the area's first retail component, work on the Harris Teeter and apartment building commenced and Florida Rock demolition finally began. Other waterfronts made progress too as plans in Old Town and southwest DC inched along.

Elsewhere around the city, the CityCenter mega-project got underway in April, still without a tenant; GW faced a public outcry over its plan to demolish historic rowhouses on Pennsylvania Avenue, the Wisconsin Ave. Giant finally got the financing to go forward with the residential and retail project, then beat off the NIMBYs, and Dakota Crossing was purchased, facilitating a big-box retail development where a forest now stands. Tenleytown got an unsightly library, finally (Jan 19) and new school, Eastbanc unveiled its designs for the West End (Apr 8), and the Bozzuto/Abdo team broke ground for the 2nd big project in Brookland.

Bethesda, and its Northern Neighbor
In Bethesda, Bainbridge got to work on its 17-story apartment building, while the Trillium site was sold to StonebridgeCarras and Walton Street Capital (Mar 9), injecting the moribund project with hoped-for new life. Way up north in the neighborhood that no one can agree what to name, White Flint (aka North Bethesda, aka Rockville) got ready for a building boom as JBG and LCOR beefed up residences (1275 by LCOR) planned for the ongoing construction sites and Federal Realty planned 1725 residences. JBG already has the tallest residential building in Montgomery County, which it plans to surpass with its next phase (pictured, at right).

Projects that wanted to be on the 2011 list but will now have to dream of the 2012 list: anything in Fort Totten, Skyland redevelopment, Arlington's first LEED Gold apartment building, reconstruction of Babe's Billiards, the Florida Avenue / Capital City Market, the Adams Morgan hotel, the Akridge and Monument Half Street projects in southeast, and Howard Town Center, to name just a few.

Mount Vernon Triangle's Critical Mass

Mount Vernon Triangle may soon be a bit crowded. The small neighborhood, tightly encircled by L'Enfant's avenues, has been struggling for years to develop a critical mass of development, a moment that may now be at hand.

If all the projects currently in the pipeline for the neighborhood are built, Mount Vernon Triangle will more than double its square footage of office space, add 1,570 apartments/condos and 380 hotel rooms, and increase retail offerings by 157,500 s.f. Despite its shortcomings - no Metro stop, convention center, or arena within its borders, it can claim close proximity to each, a fact that continues to fuel development.

Case in point: two new projects by The Wilkes Company and Quadrangle, with preliminary designs by Hartman-Cox, and targeting a 2012 start date for construction: 400 K (300,000 s.f. office space, 12,500 s.f. retail) and 300 K (500,000 s.f. office space, 25,000 s.f. retail - pictured at left). Both are part of the larger Mount Vernon Place development that started with a pair of condominiums. Two additional buildings by Wilkes and Quadrangle are also in the works for the area: 440 K (planned as a 234-unit apartment with ground-floor retail, but that could turn into office space) and 255 H Street, a 400-unit apartment building.

Numerous other large developers have projects on the boards - Steuart, MRP Realty, Bozzuto, The Donohoe Companies, Kettler, and Equity Residential - but few have pulled the trigger just yet, and Bill McLeod, executive director of the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District said those who don't take action soon, "will end up missing out." McLeod, who has been with the MVTCID - created by Mayoral Order in 2004 - for the past five years, added that investors have been paying attention to the area of late.

Equity also hopes to start construction next year on the 170-unit apartment and historic restoration project "Eye Street Lofts", originally a vision of local Walnut Street Development that was iced in 2007. Equity - the largest publicly traded owner and operator of multifamily apartment complexes in the U.S. - bought the land fully entitled a few months ago. Equity will go before the Board of Zoning Adjustment on December 13th. With the area designated as a historic district in 2001, the project received HPRB approval in 2006 (as pictured below) to restore two circa 1880, 3-story townhomes, a 2-story garage/ warehouse, and a small former blacksmith shop in the alley. The building currently leased by BicycleSPACE will be razed.

Nearly a decade after Mount Vernon Triangle was first targeted for redevelopment by the Office of Planning and ten major property owners in the area in 2002, existing apartments are 96-percent leased, condos are sold out, 230,000 s.f. of office space is leased at 455 Massachusetts Avenue and, notes McLeod, only the top floor of the 392,000-s.f. office at 425 Eye Street needs a tenant.

The Meridian, at 425 L Street, a 390-unit apartment developed by Steuart Investments and Paradigm, is now under construction. The topping out of the 14th (and final) story occurred this past September, the project will begin leasing soon and should complete by next June. Phase II of the project will be a 300-unit apartment located next door at 400 New York Avenue.

Next in the queue in Mount Vernon Triangle is Kettler's $80 million, 13-story, 233-unit apartment with 7,000 s.f. of street level retail at 450 K Street (pictured right), under construction next spring and delivering in 2014.

Of great interest to those invested in the area is the timeline of the K Street Streetscape Improvement, the contract of which is currently being finalized by DDOT. The 18- month infrastructure project should be underway early next year, said McLeod, resulting in a mid-2013 completion date.

The long-anticipated $9m reconstruction of K Street between 7th Street and 3rd Street will bring new paving, sidewalks, streetlights, and plantings. Streetcars are also in K Street's future, though the District's focus is currently on funding other legs first, i.e. the H Street Corridor.

Driving much of the current wave of development regionally is the gradually opening financing spigot and Washington D.C.'s perch on the top of the national real estate market. But Mt. Vernon Triangle has something else more rare in downtown DC: empty space. The Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) notes that only about 5 million s.f. of unbuilt space remains available downtown, 2.5m of that at CityCenter and 2m of that above the Center Leg Freeway. That leaves the equivalent of only a few office buildings that could be built downtown before growth has to expand outward, and Mt. Vernon is the nearest spot.

Yet if all projects currently in the pipeline are realized, Mount Vernon Triangle will max out its 600-room hotel capacity, reach 93-percent of its residential capacity (4,250 units), 87-percent of its office space capacity (3 million s.f.), and 84-percent of its retail space capacity (335,000 s.f.). Of the 380 hotel rooms planned for the area, 350 of them are contained in what was once one of the most talked about projects for the triangle, "The Arts at 5th and I" a mixed-use development on the corner of 5th and Eye Street, still considered a "top tier" priority by Mayor Gray.

Donohoe and Holland Development won the right to develop the site in September of 2008, but couldn’t finance the project (pictured below) in the face of the recession. This fall, Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins visited the ANC with a scaled-back, 250,000-s.f. building with two side-by-side hotels, one a 150 room boutique hotel and the other a 200 room extended stay offering 350 rooms above 10,000 s.f. of street-level retail.

In April, it was announced that art in the form of the Liberty North Community Market would be coming soon to the site. The market arrived this fall, and with no plans to begin construction within the next year-and-a-half, the market's vendors have the 2012 growing season to get comfortable.

Donohoe has yet to visit the DC Council for approval its plan, which includes a 99-year ground lease from the District, something that may happen in the next "two to three months," said Jad Donohoe, after which 12 to 14 months will be taken to flesh out the design by Shalom Baranes, complete the construction documents, get permits, and secure financing.

Yet another project is less certain. It will require a 30,000-s.f. floorplate over I-395 between K and New York Avenue to build a 10-story, 1.7 million-square-foot Washington Global Trade Center with a sleek, open-clam-shell globe design (to the right), a development that has been proclaimed a long shot.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

American Institute of Architects Opens New DC Center Tomorrow

How stressful is it for the architect chosen to design a new center for architects? According to the winning team at Hickok Cole, not that stressful. Hundreds of architects will have their chance to judge the design tonight as the DC chapter of the American Institute of Architects unveils the District Architecture Center. The new Penn Quarter showroom, an 11,000 s.f. retail space for architects and public education of architecture, will offer free admission to the public beginning tomorrow to "learn more about the importance and impact of architecture design and the profession," and will kick off the week with a series of public lectures throughout the week.

Hickok Cole won the design competition from 16 submissions to design the architecture headquarters, beginning a full renovation this May that is still wrapping up in advance of tonight's private unveiling. The remake transforms the two-story retail space on 7th Street - once the Obama souvenir shop - into offices, classrooms, and instructional space that serves to educate AIA members while pulling in foot traffic to engage and instruct with videos and links to DC's better examples of architectural design. The AIA wants you to appreciate the sense of transparency:

[the space has] two distinct volumes: a wood room that signifies solidity, and a glass room that suggests openness. Together, the two rooms produce a sense of warmth and openness. The use of glass walls and a glass ‘bridge’ for the center classroom in the heart of the building extends the feeling of openness and makes the building appear more spacious, while connecting it to the lower level. Natural daylight flows through the street storefront into the glass volume, and down to the lower level.

With interior walls composed almost entirely of glass, most of ground floor is visible from the street, back to the rear board room, filled in between with polished concrete and walnut floors and a two-story glass box that serves as offices (below) and a meeting room above. A floating glass bridge serves to connect the two meeting spaces while illuminating the subterranean office space. Exposed I-beams lend a design motif to the center, with railing stanchions and desks imitating the shape and color of the original beams. "We tried to create as much transparency as possible," said Tom Corrado, an architect with Hickok Cole that was responsible for executing the design vision.

The $1.9m makeover (about $400,000 over budget, alas) was contrived to achieve a LEED Gold ranking within the 1917 Oddfellows Building, and precedes, just barely, the 125th anniversary of the AIA that will be celebrated in Washington D.C. next year, drawing architects from around the country for the convention.

While conspiracy minded architects might note that Hickok Cole was not only the winning bidder, but also on the AIA DC board and judged the competition (and a major donor to the center), Michael Hickok assures DCMud that the competition was blind and - really, truly - judged as anonymous bids.

Hickok shrugged off the pressure from being judged on his work by the many architects that will use the space, saying the design was routine. "You do what you do. We didn't give this more attention" than other projects. Hundreds of architects are likely to be on hand tonight to judge for themselves if the inspiration was worthy of DC's public face of architecture. For those that can't make it to the center, check out the DC architecture app for your phone.