Marbury Plaza: 1500 Tenants End Two-Year Rent Strike

Real trouble began about five years ago. A young girl and her mother were killed by an explosion at Marbury Plaza in Southeast Washington, DC, and several people were injured. Investigators believed that thieves had tampered with natural gas lines leading to laundry equipment inside one of the two highrises in the otherwise garden-style residential complex. In response, the management company, The Lightstone Group, put all laundry off limits to residents, who reacted by forming a tenants' association to respond to the crisis, prevent future recurrences and improve quality of life at the apartment building. Then in October of 2008, they staged a rent strike, placing their rent money in an escrow account in the city's charge. Now, five years later, a new management company is taking over, and a $5 million capital budget will be available to restore the complex to normalcy with rent checks once again rolling in.

Despite the agreement announced yesterday, April Goggans, President of the MPCTA (Marbury Plaza Concerned Citizens - Tenants Association) is only vaguely optimistic. In her four year struggle to bring tenants to the forefront of concern, she has been disappointed repeatedly. Now that Urban Investment Partners (UIP) has reached an agreement with the MPCTA to manage the 672 rental units and their 1500 disgruntled residents, Ms. Goggans remains skeptical and more than slightly on the defense. "Just give it 6 months. When UIP attempts to purchase the building again, the Association will be 110% ready to exercise their TOPA [Tenant Opportunity of Purchase Act] rights," she wrote in a November 2009 letter published on the MPCTA's blog. In her letter she cites previous attempts by UIP to buy the property, which affords views of downtown Washington and spacious floor plans. At the same time, according to East River Magazine, Ms. Goggans noticed that the property really began to deteriorate when the owner, A&A Marbury, LLC , stopped trying to sell it in 2007.

In her testimony against A&A Marbury and the Lightstone Group, Cassandra Payne, a Marbury Plaza tenant as of 2004 stated that when she first moved into her apartment "(1) The hot water was sporadic and would often be turned off without any notice to the tenants. (2) Her apartment had holes in the walls. (3) The 'plumbing was bad.' (4) There were roaches and 'rodents' in the hallways. (5) When she moved into the apartment there was no carpet on the floor and a stink that provoked an allergy attack. (6) The building had holes in the hallway walls." After a 17% rent increase, she sued the company under a claim of a violation of the The Rental Housing Act of 1985 but failed to bring documentation of the reported issues to the hearing. The Act places nearly all rental units built before 1975 in the District of Columbia under rent control regulations, which do not allow spikes of more than 10% in annual rent in most cases.

The Office of Administrative Hearings (OHA) ruled in favor of the housing provider because the rental ceiling adjustment corresponded to the CPI-W (Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers), and Payne failed to provide sufficient evidence to support her claims. Tenants were not the only ones suing; the owner also unsuccessfully sued tenants when they refused to pay rent.

"I've sacrificed tremendously. It can be a 24-hour a day job advocating for justice. Tenants will start seeing some relief, and the Attorney General will oversee the whole process. We have worked so hard to get here, and the outlook is finally promising." Goggans talked to reporters, community agencies, and even bought law books to navigate the complexities of housing advocacy. "It's been a learning experience," she reflected. Voicing concerns about elderly, disabled or single parent members of the Marbury community, she said she is glad she has had the energy to pursue solutions to the problems that have been plaguing the residential complex over the past four years.

But with the support of Peter Nickles, DC Attorney General, Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander, as well as Councilmembers Muriel Bowser and Kwame Brown, Chief Tenant Advocate Johanna Shreve and Bread for the City Legal Clinic Director, Vytas Vergeer, the tenants are finally being vindicated.

The Lightstone Group lost ownership over Marbury Plaza when it defaulted on a $41.1 million loan from New York Community Bank in 2004. Since then it has not been making mortgage payments on the property and has been generating operating losses. A refinancing of the property took place in 2005, generating $14.1 million in revenue. A sizable chunk - $10.2 million - went to investors. Overall the company has been operating at a loss averaging approximately $2 million per year on Marbury with additional losses in the millions on its other residential and commercial properties and coming close to foreclosure.

"We are committed to working with them" stated April Goggans about UIP's new management in a recent interview. "They came into a hard situation, but ultimately, the owner holds the purse straps." Negotiations between the MPCTA and A&A Marbury have yielded an agreement, announced on Tuesday, of $5 million in capital improvements to the property, which consists of two apartment towers and seven garden-style buildings. In an August 17th press release, Wout Coster of UIP said "We could not accept the assignment until we were assured that the owner was prepared to provide the funds necessary to improve the property." For now, at least, life will get a little better for everyone involved.

Washington DC real estate news

Costco Tantalizing DC's Gateway

Twenty years in the making, and plans to develop Washington DC's first Costco at Dakota Crossing are still trudging along. The stage set is a remote patch of forested land in the Fort Lincoln neighborhood, better recognized as the land opposite the Washington Times on Route 50. The players are likely to be Costco and Target, potentially Shoppers Food Warehouse and Staples, even Walmart was once in the lineup. The director is Fort Lincoln New Town Corporation, which brought in Peterson Companies to develop retail as part of a mixed-use, suburban-style shopping center with housing, offices, retail and acres of parking lots. When Peterson bowed out in 2007, Trammell Crow Companies stepped in to oversee its stock and store - big box power centers. All that is missing is the financing and wetland remediation plan approval from the city. And, of course, final commitment from at least one of the big retailers.

The site seems a developer's dream: 42 empty, contiguous acres, flanking one of DC's main migratory routes. Because it is situated in the residential Fort Lincoln neighborhood and nearby industrial uses are mostly defunct, residents pine for a major retail center somewhere, anywhere, in their quadrant. The plan shows 430,000 s.f. of retail served by 2500 surface parking spaces, connected to a 362-acre housing development planned across the street - The Village at Dakota Crossing, with 537 townhouses, 30 affordable workforce units, 500 more parking spaces and a pedestrian-friendly layout with wide sidewalks, tot-lots and community spaces. The land is a stone's throw away from the National Arboretum and within a 5-minute walk of the Anacostia River But development has hit two main obstacles. The first is getting retailers to commit to a large project in a suburban setting, which tests current financing models, although Costco has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent to occupy the property. The other is the dated nature of the plans: 20 years ago, paving over a large, unused plot in the city to build a regional shopping center would have easily passed city government hurdles, whatever the environmental or historic implications. But the contentious, yet sought-after site is now entirely forested and home to wetlands, filtering nearby industrial waste and acting as a natural barrier against flooding. "Our plans call for creating new, high quality wetlands near the retail center as mitigation for taking away the existing wetlands, which have been documented as very low quality, marginally functioning wetlands. 

 These plans are currently being reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA, and will be reviewed by D.C. DOE once the federal regulators finish," said Cel Bernardino of Fort Lincoln New Town Corp. He also noted that the current plan "envisions a model 'green' shopping center with cisterns, green roofs, green walls, and other LID (Low Impact Development) measures." Costco has been eying this site for the past ten years. Target and Shoppers do not lag far behind in enthusiasm. They might all benefit from TIF (tax increment financing) subsidies from the District, which has supported the development as a neighborhood improvement initiative. Costco alone expects $15 million in TIF financing. But the District must mediate between the environment, small business owners who have fought the behemoth onslaught of all-in-one-for-a-portion-of-the-price big boxes, and competing revitalization projects throughout the city. "The Office of Planning has worked very closely with the development team to ensure the project is green and pedestrian friendly," reported Victoria Leonard, Director of Policy and Strategic Communications in the office of Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. The District likes it so much it plans on paying $3 million upfront to build retention ponds to offset the 3000 new parking spaces. The funding would come out of the D.C. libraries capital budget, an initiative spearheaded by Council Member Thomas, who noted that "the Shops at Dakota Crossing have been in the books for a decade" back in April of 2009. The funds are being transferred from a Ward 7 libraries project, which should begin to see repayment in 2011. Ward 5 library services will remain unaffected.

According to data on the Deputy Mayor's website, Dakota Crossing envisions that residents would walk to the shops from the Villages, suspending disbelief that shoppers at Costco and Target could buy anything that could be carried by hand. An additional wrinkle is that HUD approved an Urban Renewal version of the Fort Lincoln Redevelopment Plan in 1972; amended in 1990, the plan requires 3000 units of housing, 2463 units more than Fort Lincoln New Town's current proposal. Cel Bernardino recounted the various phases of housing that have already been built under the 1970s Urban Renewal Plan for the Dakota Crossing site. About 1370 residential units, including condos and rentals were built at Fort Lincoln New Town during the 1980’s and 1990’s, with most of the rental units built for senior citizens. The 127-unit Wesley House seniors apartments opened early last summer, and 209 "Dakota Crossing" town homes were completed last month. "We have two additional planned residential developments (town homes and condos) that construction hasn’t started on yet – the 334-unit 'Village at Dakota Crossing' across from the shopping center, and the 50-unit 'City Homes' development at the corner of Bladensburg Road and Eastern Ave." Robert King, Commissioner on ANC 5A12 (Advisory Neighborhood Commission), has been involved in planning Dakota Crossing since the 1970's. He's seen developers come and go, and has remained a reliable supporter of the plan, representing the leading voice of the commission he heads: "The project is finally on track. Some of the first residential units to break ground will be dedicated to firefighters and school teachers, and I am happy about that. The neighborhood is bracing itself for the development of Costco, which is expected to bring jobs, but also increase traffic." He believes the 1970's plan calling for 3000 units of housing was too ambitious and needed to be scaled back in a neighborhood of just 4000. "There is a significant retirement community in Fort Lincoln, and I am concerned about access to the retail site." Mr. King said he has been trying to organize a bus service to transport seniors across Fort Lincoln Dr. and 33rd Place. Although a contender for a Dakota Crossing spot a few years ago, Walmart is out. The city refuses to provide subsidies to the union-shunning employer. Nevertheless, word on the street is that Walmart may yet settle into the neighborhood, but now on triangular site bounded by New York Ave., Blandensburg Road and Montana Ave., the site of the Abdo project that fell apart earlier this year. From a traffic perspective, the development of two big box retail sites in such proximity could produce a tangle at what is already a busy thoroughfare. In an area that lacks Metrorail, the arrival of the big boxers and all the parking infrastructure that comes with them does not foreshadow a favorable future for TODs (transit oriented developments). The architects of the proposed retail development at Dakota Crossing, Bignell Watkins Hasser, with offices in Annapolis, MD and Vienna, VA, have built several local retail centers at both the neighborhood and regional scales. The big box retailers would create what is estimated at 800 new jobs by establishing what developers hope becomes a regional destination, capturing incoming and outgoing DC traffic at the entrance of the Baltimore-Washington corridor. "I want everybody to know from here to Timbuktu that Fort Lincoln is getting ready to complete plans for Costco. We want to make sure we can tap into every dollar for the city and create as many construction and other jobs as possible" said King, who echoed concerns about the wetlands and retention ponds on the new development site. Area residents seem enthused. "I think its hard to argue against development in one of the last development holdouts in DC" said Hans Posey, who moved to the neighborhood recently. "Its a very established neighborhood, but everybody, everybody, in the neighborhood is gunning for something bigger, something more than the kind of stores that are there now." Cel Bernardino estimates an August 2011 groundbreaking for the retail part of the development. "I’d say Spring 2011 would be the soonest we are likely to break ground on the shopping center. We have 'solid' commitments from our anchor tenants. No leases signed yet." The current site plan/design for the shopping center received concept design approval from NCPC on June 3, 2010. 

Washington DC real estate development news

JBG Announces Partner, Groundbreaking on 14th Street

JBG announced on Friday that it will partner with Grosvenor, an international real estate firm, to develop its condominium project in the Logan Circle neighborhood of DC, with site work to start as early as next month. It was unclear what role London-based Grosvenor would play in the joint venture on a site JBG has controlled since 2008, but JBG described Grosvenor as a "capital partner." The project will offer 125 condominium units available in early 2012 and a full level of retail. The 14th Street site, home to the Whitman-Walker Clinic, is among DC's more vibrant retail scenes, but has not scored the start of a new residential project in four years since Citta 50 was built, which only recently sold out. JBG will incorporate the century-old, 4-story clinic into the 7 story building, but had previously been only tentative that construction would be underway this year. It now says demolition will begin "within the next month," with construction to follow in October. DC-based Shalom Baranes is the architect, and JBG announced earlier this year that Toronto-based Cecconi Simone would design the interiors (a revised rendering just released is above). Developers described the new building as a "five-story projecting glazed bays on a terra cotta and brick façade" and have promised a "highly-amenitized" condominium. This is the first project in the area for Grosvenor, unlike JBG, which is based out of Chevy Chase and has extensive residential development experience. "We wanted to bring our expertise and vision for vibrant mixed-use urban development to Washington, D.C., part of Grosvenor’s focus for future development projects," said Mark Darley, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Grosvenor. Local developers have shied away from starting projects in the neighborhood; developer Scott Pannick of Metropolis Development backed out of the Whitman-Walker site in 2007 over concerns of a market gone south, and others projects like UDR's Nehemiah Center project and Georgetown Strategic Capital's apartment building one block north have been stalled indeterminately. Update: In response to a request for comment on this article, JBG submitted the following statement:

JBG has a breadth of experience developing projects in the DC area, including other luxury residential projects. However, the 14th & S project will be somewhat unique for JBG in that it will be more of a boutique building with a more modern European design aesthetic and smaller, more efficient units. The project is now fully entitled and designed, but JBG believes it can still learn a great deal from Grosvenor’s extensive worldwide experience investing in and designing similar urban luxury projects.

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Library From the Future Set to Land in Southeast

At first look, it's fair to wonder if the ghost of an argyle-sweater-totting Payne Stewart or a checker-clad circus clown helped design the soon-to-be-built Francis Gregory Library at 3660 Alabama Avenue SE. But like the progressively designed Washington Highlands Library, London-based David Adjaye is responsible for the ultramodern architecture that is slowly giving a hip new face to the District's libraries. Construction for the two-story, 22,500 s.f. building is set to get under way within the next two weeks, becoming Adjaye's second attempt to pass a glass box off as public library, after his "Idea Store" in Whitechapel, England put his atypical architectural acumen on the style map.

When designing the Washington Highlands Library, the size of the plot gave architects ample room to play with. Houses in the surrounding neighborhoods and on-site land elevation changes dictated many of the design decisions, but in the case of the Gregory Francis Library, architects were still expected to provide space for the same program requirements, and gifted much less area to perform on. This forced planners to push the building to the edges of the lot, leaving little room for landscaping or parking. Fortunately the site is surrounded on three sides by tree-filled parkland, so Adjaye and his design team were inspired to create a pavilion-like structure, blurring the boundary between outside and in. The glass walls are endowed with a checkerboard pattern, alternating squares of translucent glass and mirror to provide the ability to see in and out, while also reflecting the surrounding nature. This theme of open sight lines extends to the interior, as colored, transparent glass boxes help delineate program elements within, such as the children or teen sections of the library. Other interior boxes take on a wood grain finish to evoke the natural setting just steps outside the library walls.

A large overhanging canopy extends above the main glass structure to further conjure the image and feeling of a pavilion, and provide shade and protection from rain, snow, and ice. The roof is equipped with a louver system, enabling staff to adjust fan blades to allow more or less natural sunlight to penetrate through the ceiling, depending on the preferred temperature and time of year, much like the roof of the Verizon Center. Given the incredible amount of precipitation dumped on the Metro area last winter, engineers were forced to tweak the angle of the roof to make sure accumulated snow and ice loads could slide safely off. Thick, insulated, high performance glass forms the main structure of the building, coated with "low e" to reduce soar gain. Impressively, architects say the limited temperature transfer is comparable to a brick building.

Developers had hoped to incorporate walkways and design elements that more directly connect the library with the elementary school to the west and the park to the east, but the design team received little cooperation from either entity. What little room there is between the library walls and the property lines is landscaped to mirror the checkerboard pattern of the building frontage, hexagon cement pavers alternating with grass planters.

Although there was some complaint that these designs had been stealthily rushed through the ANC and community forum process without adequate public announcement, Zoning eventually approved building plans, and the Southeast is now set to receive a truly unique public building, set to open next summer at a cost of $13.5 million. Appreciated or not, Adjaye's postmodernist architectural vision will not end with the conclusion of the District Library's construction and renovation projects, as his firm is one of several firms involved in bringing another unusual design to life with the building of the Smithsonian's new Museum of African American Culture.

Washington DC real estate development news

Carr Hospitality Gets Hostel In Southwest

In an unlikely chain of events, Carr Hospitality has outsourced their design process to a futuristic parallel universe where Ridley Scott is devising hotel schematics for architectural firms instead of directing movies. And although sources for these facts remain unconfirmed, the early renderings of a proposed hostel in Southwest DC bare out these claims. Indeed, the half hostel, half hotel "officially" designed by Gordon Godat and his team at Baltimore-based JP2 Architects would be more at home on the set of Blade Runner than in DC's Buzzard Point. The preliminary plans for the Carr-developed 110 room hostel were presented to the Zoning Commission on July 29th under the guise of "Tiber Creek Associates, LLC"; and although a new hearing date was not set down, the Commission agreed to entertain the applicant's proposal as a contested case, as long as several minor conditions are met prior to the next meeting. More detailed plans are likely to be hashed out and presented later this fall.

Located at 129 Q Street SW, the six story, 73,975 s.f. "C Hostel & Hotel," rising sixty plus feet, will house nearly 500 beds for "youth travelers, families, and budget-minded groups." Half the rooms will be outfitted with a single queen or twin beds and blessed with private bathrooms, while the other half will be filled with dormitory-style bunk beds. With families as an exception, floors and communal showers will be segregated by gender. Hotel amenities will include an open air rooftop courtyard; a large communal dining area and complimentary continental breakfast will be provided, but guests will be encouraged to bring and prepare their own food for lunch and dinner using the hotel facilities. The dining area will also host evening social hours for travelers in search of friendly conversation and newly forged companionship. A library, cyber lounge, and game lounge are all also included in the early stages of planning. The building will rest atop a single level of below grade parking, offering twenty-seven spaces for travelers arriving by automobile. Upon completion, developers are ambitiously predicting a LEED Platinum Certification.

The mostly concrete building will take on a c-shape to allow for a central cutout that gives the building a more interesting look, as the change in depth breaks up the typical flat rectangle frontage. The landscaped rooftop courtyard is situated in the setback, amidst

the surrounding hotel walls. A subsection of each half of the building, making up the walls of the courtyard, is layered with "fiber cement panels" that take on a faux-wood grain pattern, contrasting with the largely gray color scheme. Colorful and oddly shaped windows, abstractly strewn across the building, give the building an ultramodern and artsy flavor. The ground floor facade is accentuated by aluminum framed glass store fronts that stretch nearly the entire block. The pattern of the building is asymmetrical, but very geometric and rigid in its strict adherence to the use of rectangles and right angles. Taking the place of a dirty, dilapidated auto shop, this unique design will be a bold addition to this otherwise neglected and under-appreciated part of the city.

Developers have admitted that the estimated $28 million project faces steep challenges before it will break ground, the main problem being the "need to overcome lenders' perceptions of the neighborhood." But the team remains confident that upon secured financing, the building will be delivered within 24 months.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

"The Avenue" (Park Morton Phase One) Unveiled

Once again, neighborhood-blog fiends have a reason to saturate the online comments board with rabid debate over the merits of affordable housing. Yes, more Ward One "workforce housing" construction is set to get under way early next year, as the DC Council recently approved a loan injection of $16.5 million to jump-start the Park Morton redevelopment project. With a bit of pomp and optimism, developers have officially dubbed the first phase of the project "The Avenue." The much neglected area could certainly use an infusion of pride and confidence in addition to this desperately needed residential development. Located on the southwest corner of Newton Place and Georgia Avenue, 83 apartments will be built on three parcels of vacant land. Twenty-seven units of the 7-story building will be reserved as "public housing," while the remaining units will be classified as "affordable housing," serving residents with up to 60% of the area median income (AMI). Last month, in accordance with the Georgia Avenue Overlay District, The Avenue was reviewed and approved for construction by the BZA.

The broad-scoped $130 million, 500-unit Park Morton redevelopment project is a dual partnership between the Warrenton Group and the Landex Companies. Wiencek & Associates Architects & Planners are currently completing the designs for the phase one building. General contractors Hamel Builders will carry out the construction, which could begin as early as December 1st. But in all likelihood, ground will break sometime in January of next year. Once started, construction is expected to last 14 months. The PUD application process for the subsequent phases of the redevelopment plans will begin in tandem with initial construction, with the goal of transitioning rather smoothly and quickly from phase one completion to phase two construction. The general intention for the entire redevelopment project is aimed at securing quality living quarters for the current public housing tenants (phase one) that will allow the construction of the new higher density residencies (later phases) - the proportion of purely public housing in the area diminished as the planned mixed-income projects come to life. Upon the completion of all phases, the new housing will follow the rule of thirds, units divided evenly between public housing, affordable or workforce housing, and market rate housing.

The hope of developers and the design team is to amass a work of architecture that exudes modernity and sophistication, to challenge preconceived notions about "affordable housing" by using high quality materials and employing an elegant design on the exterior as well as the interior. The focal point of the design is the central corner of the building at the intersection of Georgia and Newton, where a two-story glassy entrance way, accented by a timber curtain wall, attracts the attention of the onlooker. A cutout top level terrace disrupts the plain single-box shape of the brick building, giving texture to the building, and drawing the eye up along the cornerstone of the design (pun intended). When addressing the Georgia Avenue frontage, like any good painting, the canvas is partitioned into a foreground, middle, and background, or more appropriately a bottom, middle, and top. The bottom floor is pronounced by large glass and metal, protruding store fronts that will house retail upon completion. The brick middle section is accented by boxy, extended bay windows, while the top of the building dissolves plainly and gently into the skyline. The opposite building frontage along Newton Place is an asymmetrical doubling of the Georgia Avenue design elements. The bay windows are stepped down to the first three levels so as to better transition the building across the alleyway and into the neighboring townhouse facades. This allows for a milder, friendlier, more residential feel on Newton place, and a slightly bolder, urban flavor on the more commercially-geared Georgia Avenue.

Amenities for The Avenue building include a spacious entrance lobby, featuring a wide, monumental staircase, leading up to a glass walled fitness room on the second floor. The interplay of elevation change, sight angles, and visible space provide for an open feel. The building will also feature an open and exposed internet lounge, complete with computers and printers - enabling work but also encouraging networking and social interaction. An elevator to the roof will access two landscaped rooftop terraces, one of which will be outfitted with numerous planters for community gardening opportunities. This green roof will not only provide residents a chance at producing healthy produce, but also lower the energy bill by decreasing the solar load on the flat building top. Other sustainable aspects include the exclusion of carpet and all mold-propagating building materials, floors will be a combination of wood and tiles, and bathrooms will be purely ceramic tiles. The steel frame of the building will be reinforced with insulating sheeting to prevent temperature transfer and help maintain a consistent indoor climate. The building will be equipped with high efficiency heat pumps, and solar energy panels on the roof will provide hot water for a communal laundry facility. Builders will replace all sidewalks with brick pavers, granite curbs, and two rows of continuous planter strips, where trees, shrubs, and flowers will bring shade, color, and life to the public space. Classic twin-fixture lighting will illuminate the sidewalk along Newton in the evening, and the elimination of two curb cuts will allow for increased on-street parking. Also included in the plan is a 29 space below-grade parking garage.

Developers admitted there are challenges to producing mixed-income projects, including the task of overcoming negative perceptions about the neighborhood and the stigma of mixed-income residencies. But architect Scott Knudson explained that such a test is most effectively bested by setting a lofty bar of excellence. "The way to overcome such notions is by setting a high architectural standard and creating a building worthy of residents of all income levels," said Knudson, arguing that quality and style were not sacrificed here to meet budget. The designer's commitment to excellence extended to their refusal to compromise on small details like ceiling height and top-of-the-line kitchen appliances. Knudson says the design process for each new building will be approached and evaluated on a project by project basis; and new designs will refrain from replicating too closely the appearance of the first apartment building; "neighborhoods are richest when developed over time, and this phased process encourages both consistency and a sense of texture and variety."

Washington Real Estate Development News

No School, All Play at New Bruce Monroe Park

Although reading, writing, and arithmetic may be on the agenda for future visitors to Bruce Monroe Park, for now it is just 24-7 recess at 3012 Georgia Avenue, site of the the former school, redevelopment candidate and now park. The DC government held a press conference last August to vaunt demolition of the PCB and asbestos-ridden school, and to announce that the city would issue an RFP "in the next few weeks" for redevelopment of the site. But the District's solicitation failed to materialize, and city has since spent $2m beautifying the site before releasing a new RFP last week.

Last week, Consys, Inc. finished phase one of construction at Bruce Monroe Park, and the site is now open to the public. Two basketball courts, a tennis court, a small parking lot, and a playground complete the landscaped park, almost entirely enclosed by wrought iron fencing. There is no timetable or specifics yet nailed down, but a small
community building is expected to follow. Originally only funded with $500,000, it looked as if the project would come up short of complete. But the community expressed their disapproval as the two basketball courts and tennis court sat idly, waiting for the necessary hoops, posts, and netting required for proper usage until Ward One Councilman Jim Graham secured an additional $1.5 million in funding for the temporary park, which has since undergone a vast improvement in just a few short weeks.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) has asked for redevelopment proposals for the site. Development teams would not be limited to strictly educational uses, as DMPED has asked that proposals feature both a mixed-use (half school, half commercial) option and an entirely commercial plan. The RFP does stipulate that property sales generated from a potentially all-commercial venture would have to be reinvested in the renovation and modernization of the off-site school where former Bruce Monroe students are now housed.

A significant conglomerate of involved parents had previously voiced opposition to the prospects of updating the current Bruce Monroe, and it was assumed that option had been unofficially taken off the table. But as made clear by the new RFP, the possibility remains alive. All proposals must be received by 3PM on October 14th.

Much is in the works for the long-planned makeover of the Georgia Avenue thoroughfare, including several nearby affordable apartment projects, but very little construction has gotten under way. So it remains undetermined whether the priority here is a quality educational facility, or a proposal with the greatest likelihood of immediate construction and hurried completion.

Washington DC real estate development news

Jefferson Pointe at Market Place, to Erase Memory of Addison Square in Shaw

Near CityMarket at O in Shaw, Metropolitan Development's never-built "Addison Square" development is now officially moving forward as "Jefferson Pointe at Market Place" - same specs, new brand - due to the $16.6 million purchase of the fully entitled project by the Jefferson Apartment Group last month. As was the plan in 2004 when Metropolitan purchased the property for $7 million, the development - with architecture by Lessard Design - will include 280 apartments (54 subsidized), 230 below-grade parking spaces, and 13,400 s.f. of retail space along 7th. Construction could happen as early as spring of 2012, after demolition of the seven vacant brick buildings on site (along the 1500 block of 7th) that combined were once the housing project known as Kelsey Gardens. 

  Washington D.C. real estate development news

More Residential Development for Alexandria's Carlyle Neighborhood

Atlanta-based Post Properties announced last week that it will begin construction on phase two of its Carlyle Square apartment project in Alexandria. The development company is confident that they will find enough Metro riders to overcome area's traffic congestion and fill the new 344-unit apartment building. Each unit at 601 Holland Lane will average 906 s.f. of freshly designed contemporary interior space, located not far from Ballenger Avenue in the southeastern corner of the increasingly dense Carlyle neighborhood.

Total development costs are estimated to top out at $95 million. Post is expecting to benefit from cyclically low construction costs, and will bankroll the project using its unsecured revolving lines of credit, it reports. Post hopes to deliver the first apartments in the spring of 2012, a time which the company predicts will present favorable rental conditions.

Architect Sami Kirkdil of SK&I Architectural Design Group received praise and an award from Builder Magazine for his massing arrangement on Post's last Carlyle building, elegantly blending a rather large building into the roof-lines of its smaller surroundings. SK&I will again shoulder the design responsibilities for phase two of the Post Carlyle. The new building will consist of a 4-story structure abutted by a glowing 14-story tower of metal and illuminated glass intended to suggest a glowing lantern. The residencies will be amassed atop 425 below grade parking spaces.

Alexandria Virginia Real Estate Development News

They Love Horses, Don't They?

by Beth Herman

In the shadow of the Appalachians, a young John Blackburn spent years observing his twin sister ride the family’s horses. “I played in the barn, I raced them across the field, but I had no real interest in them,” Blackburn of Blackburn Architects, P.C. confessed.

More than 40 years later, at the forefront of an architectural niche that courts the nation’s estimated two million horse owners and with 150 horse farm projects in his saddlebag, Blackburn is credited with raising the bar on barns to levels once inconceivable - elements such as skylights, recycled rubber, LED lights, solar panels, engineered bamboo and aerodynamic principles all hallmarks of his current and projected equestrian designs. What’s more, according to the firm’s projects manager, Daniel Blair, much of their equestrian construction would very likely qualify for LEED certification except that the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) doesn’t yet have a standard for agricultural buildings as they typically don’t rely on infrastructure.

The Trot

“In 1983 I was working at KCF Architects and a friend of mine and I started talking about a partnership,” Blackburn recalled of his shotgun wedding to equestrian architecture, adding that his friend went ahead and got a one-room office in Georgetown to work solo for a while. With Blackburn still not transitioned out of KCF, fate intervened and the two formally joined up when a call came pointing them toward a prospective client in Middleburg, Va. The client, as it turned out, had purchased one of Jack Kent Cooke’s early estates and wanted to start a thoroughbred breeding farm: two barns; staff housing; service buildings, but with the stipulation that construction would reflect the landscape, or have “the Middleburg look,” Blackburn explained. “We had nothing to show in our portfolio except garage additions and porches, so my partner, who was from Middleburg, took some slides of structures there that may have been 200 years old and we projected them onto the wall, talking about generic shapes, forms and materials that would fit in contextually. Somehow we got the job.”

We’re Cantering Now


At the same time, the client had retained Cambridge, Mass.-based landscape architect Morgan Wheelock, someone Blackburn said had previously designed horse farms and had many theories about buildings that responded to the natural environment of the horse. Among these were issues of natural light, which affects the cycle of the broodmare, so the way light fills the barn - how bright it gets - is of primary concern, as are critical ventilation factors due to horses’ sensitive respiratory systems and their predisposition to hay and dust allergies.

From Wheelock, with whom he still collaborates, Blackburn learned about passive barn systems such as siting them perpendicular to the prevailing summer breeze, principles of lift, vertical ventilation and the like. Most barns, he and Blair explained, are sited parallel to the summer wind in order to open the front and back doors and catch the prevailing breeze, which allows air to traverse the barn lengthwise, a practice whose poor results are even exacerbated by the use of fans. “When this happens, the barn is sick,” Blair explained, because any illness a horse may have can be passed horizontally to his barn mates. Horses give off a tremendous amount of humidity, according to Blackburn, and in a confined space like a stall this breeds bacteria, almost like a Petri dish. When a structure is built to employ vertical lift, which includes the use of skylights, roof/eaves ventilation and heat from the sun on the roof to encourage lift (heat rises), the breeze then travels up and out through the opening and pathogens and allergens don’t have a chance to spread to other occupants.

Where lighting is concerned, Blackburn is adamant about not using artificial components because his signature barns, aptly named Blackburn Barns by a community of grateful clients, are built to maximize daylight. Except for a tack room and feed room in which the architects use compact fluorescents, and with the occasional exception of nocturnal arena use which some farms request, Blackburn said lighting is superfluous: not a good use of energy. At the same time, for arenas and for emergency lighting, the firm is investigating the use of LED lighting which Blair said does not attract bugs.

Learning to Post

When yet another recession hit and many architects were laying off staff, Blackburn and Blair put their heads together and like the horses for whom they build, decided the “fight” response was better than “flight.” Because the firm catered to the "upper 5 percent of people who could afford custom barns," according to Blackburn, it was time to create a more egalitarian process. The concept of adaptable, sustainable barn designs - a line of four pre-designed barns called Blackburn Greenbarns “for eco- and cost-conscious horse owners,” per the press material - was born during this period, with only the plans made available for purchase. “We said we would sell the plans and you can build it,” Blackburn recalled, “or we will take it and adapt it at some additional cost and help you build it. But, we then found that people couldn’t get over the next hurdle: How do you get to the point of getting the shovel in the ground?”

“We’d engineered it,” Blair said of the firm’s next step in enhancing and marketing the product, and making it more accessible, “but then the idea was to simplify and give people what they want, but also give them flexibility to make it their own.” With that, the idea of the four distinct green barns further evolved: two all-weather and two for Southern latitudes, each at a different price point ranging from $90,000 to upwards of $258,000, all with custom modification possibilities, but which were offered with the option of the additional services of two Blackburn-affiliated contractors: one based on the West Coast and one in Kentucky for the proverbial east and west of the Mississippi split.

Full Gallop

The barns, named The Hickory, The Sycamore, The Cypress and The Birch, each with characteristics such as low-voc paints, recycled rubber pavers, or maybe three walls or light colored roofing with reflective finish, are endemic in their features and use of FSC-certified regional wood to either Southern or more Northern climes. Technology that includes greywater and rainwater harvesting, solar power and even the use of engineered bamboo, which Blair said “looks fantastic and is among the most sustainable materials,” is available.

Aside from sustainability issues, Blackburn said the health and safety of the horse are always paramount. In every project there are three things: the site; the owner; the horse, he explained. Though the first two may change, “...the care and concern for the horse never does, and that’s the thread that goes through all of this. We’ve been riding that horse for 25 years.”

Takoma's Long Awaited Residences May Be Underway Soon

Long thought to be another dormant development, turned rental then stalled even after Domus Realty presold nearly half of 85 units in 2008, the Ecco Park project in Takoma, at 235 Carroll Street, is now reported to be back on track. Ellisdale Construction, responsible for mixed used developments such as Moderno and Riggs Place, was awarded the $13 million contract earlier this week to build the four-story building, containing 5-6 thousand s.f. of retail, and 70 below-grade parking spots. The building was designed and developed by Bethesda-based SGA Architects and will include a few environmentally friendly features such as a green roof and recycled materials, but is unlikely to receive a LEED certification. Even without the rating, architect Sassan Gharai confidently described Ecco Park as "the building equivalent of a hybrid car." Financiers are hopeful that it sells better than a hybrid car.

No tenants for the retail space have been selected, and the development team is still undecided on whether the building will be built and marketed as entirely rented units or for-sale units. Dan Ford at Ellisdale said a mix of rentals and for-sale condos is technically possible but not exactly the most attractive option from a marketing standpoint; however, their team has accounted for each scenario in their budgeting strategies, and SGA effectively opted for that on Capitol Hill when its Butterfield House condominium real estate project failed to sell all its units after 3 years of marketing and rented unsold units.

Patios or balconies are planned for a majority of units; and a combination of brick veneer, metal and glass paneling, and stucco siding will make up the palette of materials used in creating the exterior fenestration. The building will be a wood frame structure secured over podium slab. Ellisdale President Kevin Ash explained, "We’re really excited about this project; it really is what we do best. With the economics of construction what they are today, wood-frame buildings really hit the sweet spot between density and cost. We’re finding this building type to be the most able to be financed right now.” Dan Ford insisted that the wood frame technique has been perfected by their construction engineers to mitigate common problems such as fire safety and noise transference, enabling them to build safely and keep their budget slim.

A popular technique on the West coast for some time, podium slabs are now becoming a more common occurrence on East coast construction sites. An efficient design solution for up to 4-story residential projects with underground parking, like Ecco Park, this special type of foundation system effectively distributes the weight-load from the wood-frame above the slab to walls and pillars below. This technique is not only cost effective, but also environmentally responsible, reducing concrete usage. The cement industry is considered to be one of two principle producers of CO2, accounting for as much as 5% of worldwide emissions.

The site, adjacent to the Takoma Metro, formerly home to a truck rental facility, and a gas station before that, needed loads of contaminated soil replaced and the excavation of several rusted-out oil drums before it was properly suited for construction. That preliminary work was done over two years ago, and the dirt there has had plenty of time to sit idly by, pondering its future. But ground is expected to finally be broken this fall (somewhere between October and January). Constructions is anticipated to span approximately fifteenth months, meaning a delivery date cannot be expected until at least early 2012.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development

Whole Foods in Foggy Bottom

Various real estate blogs are reporting that Whole Foods has signed a lease agreement with Boston Properties to occupy 37,000 s.f. in their Foggy Bottom development. The site on Washington Circle, known as Square 54, has long been rumored as a prospective house for the upscale grocer, but Boston Properties had declined to comment on the possible tenant, maintaining a Whole Foods policy of not commenting on leases and plans.

The grocery store will be the closest full-service supermarket to many Georgetowners, providing stiff competition for the newly opened Safeway just north of Georgetown. The former hospital site will provide 335 apartment units and 440,000 s.f. of office space, on a 60-year lease from George Washington University to Boston Properties. The residences are expected to open in early 2011, with Whole Foods thought to open in mid 2011.

Washington DC real estate development new

Parkside Development In A Hurry To Break Ground

A pivotal development in northeast DC may get underway within a few months, say developers of a project that is expected to house a new senior center, health clinic, community college and townhouse development. Just this July, the Zoning Commission denied Parkside Residential's (aka Lano Parcel 12, LLC) "premature" request for an extension of their first stage zoning application, despite a bid by the developer to push back the timeframe, giving developers a little more than a year to start the project or lose approval. Now the development team is hard at work trying to push through the second stage zoning applications for the remaining few blocks of the original 10-block, 15.5-acre master plan for the land located just off the Anacostia Freeway. Earlier this week the Zoning Commission set down a public meeting to hear the applicant's contested request for changes to their original PUD, as well as approval of the second stage specifics for the newly hatched community college plans.

Developers have confirmed that they are in the last stages of editing closing documents on the Victory Housing senior living development set for block A. Final agreements will be sent to HUD for their signature within the next several days and construction is expected to begin in early October. The project will consist of a 98-unit, four-story senior living facility offered at 60 percent of AMI (area median income). Also approved (2nd stage PUD) are the development team's plans for 112 townhouses on blocks B and C, 42 of which would be made available at 80 to 120 percent of AMI. Developers claim that contractual negotiations with financiers should conclude by the end of the week, paving the way for land development, and eventually being turned over for construction early next year.

The centerpiece of the new second stage plan is the flagship campus of the Community College of the District of Columbia (CCDC). The college, initially planned as an apartment building set to range in height from 54 to just 90 feet, would rise to 110 feet along Kenilworth Avenue. The building would stand a modest 21 feet (one-story) along Kenilworth Terrace to better transition the roof-line into the adjacent neighborhood. The first floor would reserve a small portion of its space for retail, potentially including a place for caffeine-deprived students to jump-start their mornings, and a book store where students can fall deeper into debt at the hands of textbook publishers. And like all well designed colleges, the C-shaped design allows room for an open, green courtyard for suntanning and Frisbee.

Not only will the applicant request an increased height allowance for their now 1.1 million s.f. office project, but also for Zoning's permission to bump their residential buildings' height another thirty feet in order to make up for the residential square footage displaced by the alterations. Representing the wishes of Lano Parcel 12, LLC before the Commission, DC Office of Zoning official Joel Lawson argued that increased daytime population use as a result of the proposed changes would make commercial opportunities in the area more viable. This and the increased educational benefit to the community were justification enough, he contended, to accept the extensive changes and reduced residential offerings. The 1.1 million s.f. of office space also makes the project eligible to entertain GSA solicitations for the leasing of office space to the federal government, with a potential suitor being the Department of Homeland Security.

Also on the table for Parkside Residential is the second-stage and modification application for another part of Block I. These augmentations would also ditch the previously suggested high-rise residential building in favor of a "much needed" three-story health clinic. This application was not set down by the Commission at its public meeting of July 12, 2010, but developers are moving forward and hope to get the project scheduled for discussion soon. The proposed 430,000 s.f. clinic is intended to be a primary care clinic open to the entire public regardless of insurance coverage; it would be operated by Unity Health and sponsored by the District of Columbia Primary Care Association (DCPCA)

The Zoning Commission did not entirely reject the proposed changes, but said these plans as currently submitted were rather hasty and "woefully inadequate," barring further evaluation until a traffic study is produced and submitted. Zoning also requested a status update on the pedestrian bridge intended to connect the development with the Minnesota Avenue metro. The bridge has been designed by Boston-based transportation architects Rosales and Partners, but funding questions remained.

Chris LoPiano, Director of Development at City Interests, explained that the Commission doesn't normally entertain extension requests until less than a year remains on the timer. "We're very confident that as plans further materialize and second stage approval comes together for the community college and health clinic, Zoning will be more than happy with our progress...[T]his is why we originally partitioned the development plan into distinct parcels, so we could approach it project by project. We anticipated this being a five to seven year process." LoPiano stressed that the developers expect approval on these latest changes in autumn; at that point a request for a PUD extension would likely be resubmitted to a zoning commission that has been lenient in granting extensions to projects slowed by the recession.

The development team is a partnership between Bank of America Community Development Corporation, Lano International, City Interests, and Marshall Heights Community Development Organization.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development

Red Sox - 0; Nationals - 1

by Beth Herman

It would appear baseball’s loss is architecture’s gain. Right around the time most high school students are clomping through chemistry and considering calculus, Marshall Purnell of Devrouax & Purnell Architects and Planners was also considering Fenway, weighing an offer from the Boston Red Sox.


“I said no,” Purnell recalled of his junior year in Michigan. “It was the ‘60s, not yesterday, and there was no money in sports at the time: $10,000 a year with a $5,000 signing bonus. It was more money than my dad was making, but I just knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do. I wanted to go to college.” Four decades later, Purnell, the former high school baseball and basketball star, would stand beside the new 41,888-seat, $611 million Nationals Park in SE D.C. as one of its architects, the first ballpark in the country to achieve LEED certification.

Matters of State


Plying his trade since 1978, the former federal agency liaison for AIA (“the greatest job in the world for a young architect”) had met his partner, Paul Devrouax, at a NOMA (National Organization of Minority Architects) conference three years earlier. Devrouax, who died of a heart attack on March 22 at age 67, had offered his prospective partner something none of the other firms around the country with which Purnell met when he left AIA had offered: a career instead of a job. “Paul basically understood where I wanted to go, and he wanted to go to the same place,” Purnell said. Reflecting on the beginning of their partnership, with contacts that included the Assistant Secretary of State in charge of foreign buildings, who was first an AIA boss, Purnell said he brought in two jobs the first day and spent subsequent weeks as a State Department knight errant in 15 degree-below temperatures in Moscow, Belgrade and T’bilisi. “We ended up doing cabinet drawings for the State Department for the next three years,” Purnell said, which he explained meant taking all the floor plans, elevations and the like for ambassadorial residences around the world and making sure they’re correct, putting them into English and standardizing metric numbers, for 87 nations. “It wasn’t glamorous, but it helped pay the rent,” the architect said.

State Department blessings withstanding, when Devrouax - who would become godfather to one of Purnell’s four children - and Purnell first fused professionally, they’d set up shop in an English basement near DuPont Circle. “I had just come from the AIA where I had a third floor office overlooking the courtyard, right over the president’s office,” Purnell said. “I left because I didn’t want to get too fat and happy without ever practicing architecture, but when the first snow came that winter and we had to look up over it, I told Paul we had to get out of there.”

A move two months later to 1215 Connecticut Avenue was undertaken with the two partners, an intern and a secretary (no real division of offices: just open space). Nine months later, the firm had grown to 16 people precipitating an eventual move to 717 D Street NW, where Devrouax & Purnell, with as many as 50 on staff at one time but currently settling for a navigable 18, has remained for 25 years. “Nobody in their right mind would move into this neighborhood for office space when we did,” the prescient Purnell said, reflecting on the tenuous downtown overtones of the 1980s. “But we saw what was coming. We saw the changes that were being planned for this area.”

Matters of the Heart

Claiming never to have argued in 32 years, Purnell said he and Devrouax could sometimes disagree on something but no one would know they were disagreeing. “We used to say we worked different sides of the street,” Purnell said. “Paul (who’d been a solo practitioner for five years prior to the partnership) had his base here in Washington and was an incredible supporter of D.C., and I brought in a federal and national element, but over the years they began to meld.” Responsible for some of the region’s most significant structures in addition to Nationals Park, including Pepco Headquarters, Prince George’s Sports and Learning Complex, the Walter E. Washington Convention center, MCI Arena, the Verizon Center, the expansion of Gallery Place and the garage at National Airport, and cited as the first African-American architecture firm to design a headquarters for a Fortune 500 company: the 190,000 s.f. addition to the Freddie Mac campus in McLean, Purnell acknowledged some early obstacles in their path. His take on race, however, is more Que Sera, Sera than The Sky is Falling. “We are who we are in this world. Race plays a role. Your gender plays a role in whatever you do, but you don’t build your life around it; you don’t build your practice around it and your talents are not based upon it.”

In a more profound example of the scars of race that Purnell recalls, however, when it came time to break ground for the 16,000 s.f. state-of-the-art King Greenleaf Recreational Center in SW, a Devrouax & Purnell project built in a public housing complex, hostility and organized protest quickly ensued from the surrounding community. Purnell noted residents were “up in arms because they thought it was the beginning of the end” – that gentrification like this may portend the end of public housing. Sitting in the stands at the ribbon-cutting, the architect said he was shaken by a woman who stood up and admitted that the reason she’d panicked when the building was going up – when she saw the design – was because she knew “no one in the city would build something this nice for us.” That’s what she said, Purnell frowned. “I was sad that she, in her life, had come to feel like that about anything – that they didn’t deserve it.”

What Matters Most

Designed in conjunction with the Kansas City-based former HOK Sport (architects), now Populous, and opening in 2008, Purnell said research for Nationals Park involved visiting a host of stadiums around the country including venues in San Diego, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Baltimore and Atlanta. “We saw a lot of good,” Purnell affirmed of his stadium safari with HOK’s Joe Spear, specifically about Baltimore’s Camden Yards. “I saw things that make that ballpark special, but I didn’t see a whole lot of things that I thought should be at Nationals Park. As an architect, and as a person, I’ve learned to look at what shouldn’t be done.”

For example, at Camden Yards, when on the concourse for food and other necessities, people have to look up at monitors to see the game. “I couldn’t stay connected to the field,” Purnell said. “A ballgame is a long process: You want to be able to get up and walk around sometimes” without losing that personal connection to the action. “The way we designed Nationals Park, if you get out of your seat for the restroom or a hot dog, or walk over to the third baseline or the first, you’re still very close to the field. You can still see the game.”

Where the locker room was concerned, Purnell recalled a visit to Giant stadium where Barry Bonds was playing at the time. Bonds had cordoned off a corner of the locker room, with his own Barcalounger and monitor, and all the other players knew it, Purnell had observed. “He was the greatest player, he was there on the team, but I didn’t like the idea of him setting himself apart like that.” Accordingly, in the seat of the nation, a few miles from the White House and in a nod to equality and shared values, the architects first created a round design for the Nationals’ locker room, which quickly evolved into a famous oval – for obvious reasons.


Reflecting on his high school baseball years in Michigan, Purnell said he believes it helps if you’ve played the game. Understanding distances to left field, right field, center field and what plays are exciting, as well as building either a pitcher’s park where the fences are a little further back, or a hitter’s park where they’re closer, are all integral to stadium science. At one point, Purnell said, they designed the Nationals Park fence at 14 feet all the way around, but by doing that it detracted from the excitement of the outfielder going up to catch the ball. “If you put in an 8-foot fence, he can jump high into the fence and prevent a home run. Let’s don’t take away one of the most exciting plays in baseball!” Purnell declared.

Speaking to his three-plus decades in practice, Purnell said that architecture is so much a part of his soul, he “doesn’t feel like (he’s) worked in 32 years.” With the loss of his valued partner and friend, he relies perhaps more heavily upon senior designer Anthony Brown who has been with the firm for 27 years.

“With Paul, I miss his voice, I miss his presence, and like in many marriages, we finished each other’s sentences,” Purnell said. “But with Anthony,” he said, brightening slightly, “we’ve been known to finish each other’s drawings.”