Goodbye Benning Library

Demolition of the Benning Neighborhood Library, located at 3935 Benning Road NE, began early this Monday morning and is expected to continue for four weeks until the site is completely leveled. Plans for the new structure are still undecided; the original design has been ditched and the architects for the site, Davis Brody Bond, have been forced to go back to the drawing board.

What is clear is that the new site will be the home of a 20,000-s.f. standalone library costing an estimated $14 million - including demolition, design, construction, equipment and supplies for the new library. Sources close to the process indicate that although a final design of the library has not yet been decided upon, the project management team is striving for LEED Silver certification, the third highest rating for "green" buildings. A community meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, October 23 at the library's interim site, 4101 Benning Road, to garner public input on the final design of the future structure.

Broadcast Center One Gets the Signal from DC

The DC Zoning Commission approved the application this Monday for Broadcast Center One, a 300,000 s. f. mixed-use development on 7th and S Streets NW, a long-sought ruling that is expected to add impetus to the regeneration of the Shaw neighborhood.

In tandem with the Planned Unit Development zoning application, developers Four Points LLC and Ellis Enterprises also submitted a Land Disposition Agreement to the office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development last Friday for review by the DC City Council. A hearing is anticipated by mid-November.

"We are happy to report that we have concluded land transfer and subsidy negotiations," said Steven Cassell, project manager at Four Points LLC. "Radio One has both accepted a subsidy offer from the city and signed a letter of intent," Cassell added, referring to Radio One, the country's seventh largest radio broadcasting company which will be moving back to DC and into the new digs once the Broadcast Center project is completed. The $128 million development has been in the pipeline for over two years, but if all goes well at the hearing next month construction would begin soon. "Our objective is to be in the ground and digging by February," declared Roy Ellis, CEO of Ellis Enterprises.

The Broadcast Center One complex, with over 21,000 s. f. of retail space, 180 residential units for rent and 103,000 s.f. of office space, will be a blessing to many including the Shaw district at large. "Whenever you bring a company into a neighborhood, you've got real economic opportunity. It's the best thing since sliced bread," added Ellis who, amongst others, sees this development as having a drastic revitalization effect on the local Shaw community.

None will be happier about the deal's approval than Cathy Hughes, founder of Radio One. "Radio One was built with the good will and support of the citizens of DC. I cried for six months when we had to leave," said Hughes. The old Radio One headquarters, located on Nebraska Avenue, had lived out its lease almost ten years ago. Since then, Ms Hughes has awaited the day her company could return to its roots in the District.

Construction of Broadcast Center One will require a convergence of the minds for project managers from five separate companies: joint developers Four Points LLC and Ellis Enterprises, Jarvis Company who is acting as an equity investor in the project, Devrouax & Purnell who will be designing the office building and Eric Colbert & Associates, the architect behind the Broadcast Center residences. The targeted completion date for the project is in the second quarter of 2010.

Senate Square Closes Sales

Broadway's ambitious Senate Square Towers project, which closed its sales office doors last month vowing to reopen in a few weeks, has quietly revealed that it will cease to sell condominiums in its 432-unit project, and will now finalize the construction to turn the project into a "luxury" apartment building. The 12-story towers at 201 I Street began sales in September of 2005, but as of the date of closure had no more than 150 units under contract, and was at least 6 months behind schedule for project completion. The first settlements had been anticipated to take place in November.

As the first residential project on H Street, NE, the New York-based developer had faced the daunting hurdles of selling a "luxury" building in a scrappy, low-density location that had yet to feel the effects of revitalization now taking place, just as the condo market was beginning to wane. Broadway eventually hired Shvo, a Manhattan-based condo marketing firm, to bolster the marketing efforts of McLean-based Mayhood, but sales remained lackluster, inevitably forcing prices down. Speculation had long pointed toward the project converting to a rental apartment building, and the developer had entertained offers to sell the entire project, and has now quietly changed its website to reflect its new status. And while other residential projects queue to break ground in the immediate neighborhood, Senate Square joins a long and well documented list of projects that could not garner sufficient selling prices to justify construction, turning instead to the fast-growing rental market, taking yet another whack at the shrinking supply of condos.

H Street End to Get Revision

Bids have closed on a major District Department of Transportation (DDOT) project which will replace 200 feet of Maryland Avenue with a half-acre public park. The new park, dubbed “Starburst Intersection,” will replace a number of scattered traffic islands and leftover bits of sidewalk that currently sit on the pavement. This project is the first step in a $20 million DDOT program which will transform the H Street corridor from 14^th street to Oklahoma Avenue.

“Starburst Intersection is the complicated junction of six roadways - H Street NE, Florida Avenue NE, Bladensburg Road NE, Maryland Avenue NE, Benning Road NE, and 15th Street NE,” according to the DDOT website. Describing the junction as complicated is an understatement; the intersection doesn’t seem to be working for anybody. According to Karina Ricks, Associate Deputy Director for Transportation Policy and Planning, it has been nearly impossible for pedestrians, cars, bicyclists and transit vehicles to make efficient use out of the six-street connection.

“Our primary objective was to create a livable community and to support the local economic development,” said Ricks. In order to exemplify the blight of the current interchange, Ms. Ricks discussed the convoluted path that local senior citizens must walk to get from their senior center, located at the northwestern-most point of the intersection, to the local stores just a few blocks east. “The seniors are in a very livable place where these amenities are so close,” Ricks said in reference to the nearby CVS Pharmacy and Hechinger Mall, “but they might as well be across town.”

The current intersection requires the crossing of three extremely busy, main streets in order to get from the senior building to CVS Pharmacy – a task not unlike Frogger - a game of threading traffic without getting squished. The new design will reorganize traffic in a manageable way, re-time the traffic signals to allow more time for pedestrians to walk and will force seniors to cross only one busy street in order to purchase their necessities. “It’s not just about the seniors,” Ricks added, “but they graphically illustrate the need for this improvement.”

The park will feature an 8' high, 30' long terrazzo panel commissioned by the DC Commission of Arts and Humanities, which will be surrounded by a number of recreational areas and fixed game tables where pedestrians can unwind. Additionally, the DDOT has included provisions for a large water fountain in the overall design. Although the DDOT will be providing the capital investment for the water structure, project leaders are still seeking a neighborhood organization to take stewardship over it. Starburst Intersection will also include a multitude of Low Impact Design features, making it an eco-friendly addition to the H Street Corridor. The Starburst Intersection is projected for completion in early 2009, and should be followed by the stalled trolley plan for H Street, but more on that soon.

Glebe Park to Get Face Lift

Last week, the Planning Commission for the City of Alexandria unanimously recommended the approval of special use permits for a development proposed in Glebe Park. The total development package involves the construction of six new buildings, evenly divided between the fronts of Old Dominion and West Glebe Roads in Arlandria.

The properties currently existing on the site house 152 residential units, about a third of which serve as public housing, divided amongst three parcels of land. The construction process includes tearing down 120 of the existing residential components and rebuilding 78 of them as a combination of subsidized and market rate rental housing. The master plan also includes the renovation of two existing buildings on Old Dominion Road which will be absorbed into the development

The new plan is the result of an out of kilter real estate portfolio held by the Alexandria Redevelopment & Housing Authority (AHRA), a chartered housing organization created by the State of Virginia, which owns the land. The initial Glebe Park development was uniquely planned so that the market rate units, which made up a majority of the housing, would subsidize the public housing units. Unfortunately for ARHA the market rate rental receipts have not accrued enough revenue to refund the current $6 million mortgage.

To solve their financial troubles ARHA partnered with Eakin Youngentob & Associates (EYA) in a joint effort to analyze their public housing portfolio to make it profitable. The findings of this collaboration resulted in a two part resolution involving two separate properties owned by ARHA: the current Glebe Park property and the James Bland Community - a 194-unit collection of residences which occupy five contiguous blocks on N. Alfred Street. The first step involves the sale of land under the non-public housing units, located on the James Bland property, to EYA. AHRA would then use the proceeds of that sale to finance both the redevelopment of Glebe Park and the $6 million mortgage behind it.

The arrangement is not cleared for construction yet; sources close to the process speculate that the Planning Commission might deem the construction density too high, concerns which will surely be raised this Saturday, October 13, at a public hearing before the Alexandria City Council.

Official Ground Breaking at Park Potomac Place

Ground breaking on the new Park Potomac Place office building is officially set to commence tomorrow. The colossal development site, spread out on more than 50 acres in Montgomery County off I-270, will host the ceremonial event where the site's largest office structure will stand. Already more than 60% of the building has been leased to Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker P.A., a Maryland -based law firm, which reserved over 65,000 s.f. The office compound is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

The Park Potomac Place, when finished, will be a massive mixed-use collection of structures encompassing: six condominium towers holding 450 luxury living residences, 150 individual brownstone townhouses, a 156-room hotel, 145,000 s.f. of retail space and a total of 570,000 s.f. of office space. Foulger-Pratt Companies, the developer for the site, will be building the condominium and commercial portions while Eakin Youngentob & Associates will be constructing the brownstones. Both companies are working together with SK&I Architectural Design Group to complete the entire complex by 2014.

Washington DC retail and real estate news

Zoning Moves to Extend Comments on Capitol Place

As a result of testimony from Stanton Park Neighborhood Association (SPNA) and Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C and 6A in an October 1 hearing, the DC Zoning Commission moved to keep the record open for input on the Capitol Place Project, a proposed residential project on H Street's 200 block. The commission decided to keep the record open in an attempt to allow comments from the community at large to be documented before the board.

The SPNA has been reviewing the project in an effort to resolve community agitation over the density of the development straddling both the row house neighborhood on 3rd Street and the commercial H street corridor. The project, which has been conservatively valued at over $150 million by sources close to the development process, has endured two and a half years of review, suffering major architectural critiquing from neighborhood and community organizations. Designers for the Capitol Place are encircled by three distinct architectural contexts: the row house architecture adjacent to the proposed structure on G and 3^rd streets, the modernist Kevin Roche-design of the SEC building on the opposite side of the road and the stonework motif used in the creation of Senate Square on H Street. The Capitol Place project team is being encouraged to incorporate all three milieux into the design of the 390,000 - s.f. edifice by the local ANC; a daunting task that Zoning is still evaluating.

The dilemma surrounding the proposal has progressed into an unprecedented zoning quandary. The square on which Capitol Place construction is to take place is comprised of four separate zones: “R-4, which is a zone for attached residences or row houses, C-2-A and C-2-B where some commercial uses are permitted and building height restraints and construction density are limited and C-3-C with much larger height and density restrictions,” explained Drew Ronneberg, the Chair of Economic Development and Zoning Committee for ANC-6A. This is the only instance Ronneberg or the Zoning Commission could recall where R-4 and C-3-C zones were in effect on the same square.

Zoning for the Capitol Place building allows the project team to build up to 110 ft. in the most northwestern corner of the square, and permits a high density of construction to take place within those 10 stories. The zoning commission, however, has required the plan to incorporate a gradual decrease in height along H street, diminishing the structure to just 55 ft. at the easternmost point. The G street façade is proposed to shrink down to a stature of just 45ft in order to avoid dwarfing the flanking row houses. The zoning contrast is quite drastic, “It’s the only place in the city where zones for two to three story row houses, are sharing the same square that permits a 10 – 12 story building,” added Mr. Ronneberg, “They’ve done as good a job as you can to put a 389,000 s. ft. building on that lot.” Many sources close to the process think the two zones are incompatible, thus it is the zoning commission's movement to allow further community input; the record is now scheduled to close on October 22.

St. Martin's Housing Project to Break Ground in February

After an onerous battle between residents of Eckington and the parish of St. Martins Church, plans are being finalized for groundbreaking on the new 178-unit workforce housing development on 116 T Street, NE, projected for completion in the first quarter of 2010. The apartment complex, totaling 241,000 s.f., is being designed as a Class A apartment building. It will hold 50 junior one bedroom units reserved as public housing for residents earning 30% of the Area Median Income with the remaining 128 units being comprised mostly of two bedroom apartments, available to residents who earn 60% of the Area Median Income. The project should break ground in February of 2008.

Upon completion, the project will serve as “the largest affordable housing project in DC,” said Reverend Michael Kelley, the pastor and leader of the project. “The bad news is that no one else is doing this type of thing,” he added. The reason for a lack of affordable housing developments in the District might be due to the clamor that these types of undertakings tend to cause within the community. St. Martins serves as the perfect example: when some of the neighboring residents discovered what was being constructed on the corner of Summit and T streets, a massive amount of lawyering commenced; they found a way to get an old convent, which would have been destroyed to build the apartment complex, classified a “Historic Building” with the Historical Preservation Society, effectively halting the development process. According to Reverend Kelley, some of the neighbors had a problem with “greed, race and class.”

Most of those community problems have been assuaged thanks to some tricky engineering and cunning design strategies by project architect Grimm & Parker and development manager NorthStar Consultants, who found a way to include the now historic convent (pictured) into the project by moving the massive structure 80 feet eastward. The move will be so astounding that U.K. based documentary program Mega Movers contacted Reverend Kelley to film the convent’s relocation. If the development schedule for the project can coalesce with Mega Movers’ production schedule, St. Martins could appear on the History Channel’s new season of the hit show.

The $41 million project will take the convent, which once served as a housing complex for nuns who taught at the St. Martin’s grade school, and merge it into the design of the apartment building. In 1990, the age-old convent was leased to DC-based Catholic Charities for use as a recovery location for drug-addicted mothers. Then in 2001, Catholic Charities began using the space as subsidized housing for recovering homeless men who needed supportive services and were unable to afford rent at market price. Now, Catholic Charities and St. Martin’s parish have decided that the building, which appears increasingly dilapidated with each passing day, the parking lot and the rest of the property would bode well as affordable housing for struggling adults. According to Reverend Kelley, it fits with the church’s mission – public outreach and social stewardship. Reverend Kelley added, “This speaks volumes about how the Catholic Church is putting Gospel beliefs into practice, or how we say here, taking our faith to the street.”

DC May Get its First Green Hotel in West End

DC-based Perseus Realty, LLC has announced further details about the hotel it is building with partner Starwood Capital Corp., collaborating to build DC's first LEED-certified hotel, a 180-room hotel in at the corner of 22nd and M Streets (pictured above) in the city's West End neighborhood, as we reported in June, and the pair has now stated that the building will be a 5-star hotel and released renderings.

Connecticut-based Starwood recently began its new "1" chain of hotels with the groundbreaking in June of its first development in Seattle. The DC site will be the third hotel in the chain, following New York and Seattle, and the first hotel project for Perseus, but unlike its sister hotel in Seattle will have no retail or condominium element. In addition to seeking LEED certification through the U.S. Green Buiding Council (USGBC), Perseus intends to make this only the 2nd five-star hotel in the city after the Mandarin Oriential and the first in Northwest. This "will be the first luxury, eco-friendly hotel chain in the country, " said Gabrielle Kornely, Director of Marketing for Perseus, adding that one percent of profits will be donated to local environmental organizations.

Perseus expects to break ground in mid 2008 on the land it purchased from the Nigerian government, where the now-vacant Nigerian Embassy still stands, for which it reportedly paid $15.5m. While the developers have not yet opened any of the hotels - Seattle will be the first in early 2009 - and the DC site will not contain any independent retail, Kornely says the chain will provide appropriately luxurious services, including a "high end restaurant" and bar, and will be managed by Starwood when it opens in 2010. Construction is being coordinated by the architectural team of Leo Daly and Miami-based Oppenheim Architecture and Design.

Perseus Realty was formed in 2003, and broke off in 2004 into 4 real estate groups, each retaining the name Perseus in order to confuse real estate bloggers, but Kornely says the other Perseus entities are capital investment teams that do not develop on their own. Perseus (you know which one) is also in development of the YMCA property at 1235 W Street, NW, on which it will break ground next year. The YMCA include local retail, incorporating the historic row houses that front 13th St. The building housing the current Y will go away, but its facilities will be replaced and co-located with the retail. Perseus is also under construction on the Argent, a 96-unit condo in Silver Spring which broke ground this summer.

Alexandria Gives Thumbs Up To New Park

The Alexandria Planning Commission yesterday recommended approval of the master plan for a 13.7-acre bio-friendly park, creating two 86,000 s.f. athletic fields and public facilities between Duke Street and Eisenhower Avenue. The entire $62 million cost is being footed by the federal government to compensate Alexandria for the problems associated with redevelopment of the Woodrow Wilson bridge and 7 ½ of miles of beltway. The final plan will be presented at a public hearing by the City Council on October 13th at 9:30 AM.

The Witter Property at 2600 Business Center Drive will accommodate the two athletic fields, one multi-use baseball field, 141 surface parking spaces and a multitude of pedestrian amenities. The master plan calls for three unique solar powered structures: two open air pavilions and public restroom facilities, totaling over 1,800 s.f. Although the structures are far too small to qualify for LEED certification, the nationally recognized benchmark for “green” buildings, the entire facility has been designed to be proactively bio-friendly. The three buildings will house solar panels or photovoltaic roofing shingles in conjunction with an efficient use of natural and low-voltage light to reduce electricity consumption. The plans include bioretention systems throughout the facility to collect and reduce rainwater runoff coupled with dense rain gardens on the southern edge of the property to help absorb and filter the water, a “natural” way to continually recharge the soil in the park with clean, recycled water.

The property was purchased in 2006 by the City of Alexandria for $12 million, but reimbursement of the acquisition price and construction of the facility are being provided by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in a mitigation effort involving the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project. The FHWA began work on the Wilson Bridge traversing the Potomac River and connecting Maryland and Virginia via the beltway, in 1999, finishing earlier this year. Along with the replacement of the existing bridge, the plan called for upgrades to four interchanges along the corridor, with the underlying theory being that the rampant traffic issues that plague the area would be alleviated upon the project’s completion.

The entire Wilson Bridge Project, which has cost an estimated $2.5 billion to date, has caused “collateral” effects including noise pollution caused by the construction and additional traffic congestion along the corridor. The new corridor cut into the green pastures of Jones Point Park and led federal archaeologists to research and excavate the neighboring lots two blocks west of the entrance to the park where a lost cemetery was thought to have stood, in an attempt to preserve any archaeologically significant material. Development on the site dates back to the 18th century, when it was divided into separate parcels of farmland and a lone family cemetery. The Fruit Growers Express Company (FGEC) purchased it in 1926, using the land for the maintenance of railroad refrigeration cars. In 1989, CSX Transportation purchased FGEC and took ownership of the site, converting it and its existing structures for industrial use. Excavation of the site uncovered Freedman’s Cemetery, home to more than 1800 graves of freed slaves from the Civil War era. Dr. Pamela Cressey, an archaeologist for the City of Alexandria for over 30 years, thinks that this type of archaeology will become more prevalent prior to construction. “In the DC metro area and slightly beyond, we now have County Archaeologists that are operating as managers. As a result, more and more developers are doing archaeological surveys in all jurisdictions as a part of their county’s codes, practices and policies.”

The FHWA promised recompense in the form of a new recreation facility for the community and a memorial park for the freed slaves. Initially priced over $62 million, the new facility was intended to be built to the east as a massive deck above South Washington Street, serving as a screen where the local roadway crosses above the inner and outer loops of the beltway. Because of technical problems encountered in designing the massive urban recreation deck, the city scrapped the initial plans and divided the project into two developments: a smaller recreation deck screening the beltway, and a new recreation facility – the inevitable fate of the Witter Property if all goes well on October 13.

A. Morton Thomas Associates Inc., based out of Rockville, Maryland is the design engineer and sports consultant for the project, and. has provided their expertise on a number of large projects in the DC Metro area including the Atlee/Elmont Interchange in Ashburn, the Pentagon Renovation Program and the Watts Branch Watershed Restoration Study in Montgomery County.

Eastbanc To Start From Scratch On West End Project

In a public hearing yesterday, the DC Council unanimously passed a motion to reconsider the sale of property on the West End to Eastbanc Inc. The Council then passed a second motion proposed by Councilmember Jack Evans to table the property disposition, which effectively ended discussions on the deal. “The die is cast,” Councilmember Carol Schwartz stated, in stolid reference to the fate of a development process which has caused uproar for some concerned residents of the West End.

Had the deal gone through, Eastbanc Inc. would have constructed a new library, fire station and police station on the public land while redeveloping the adjacent Tiverton apartment building. The Council had initially resolved to approve the development plans "in the belief that [the Council] was protecting the rights of the Tiverton tenants," said Evans, but in the end the entire council agreed that the West End community did not have ample opportunity for public input.

Akridge Acquires Stadium Bus Site

DC-based Akridge Development has agreed to purchase a WMATA-owned bus garage and employee parking lot one block from the planned Washington Nationals baseball stadium in southeast D.C. The transit agency’s Board agreed yesterday to sell the 2.2-acre parcel containing a bus depot and employee parking lot to the John Akridge Development Company for more than $69 million.

Metro listed the M Street property for sale over the summer with the asking price of at least $60 million, receiving three bids by the end of August. The Akridge bid was the most advantageous in terms of price and leaseback rental, Metro managers said. WMATA said that revenue from the sale will help fund the construction of a new garage and proposed police training facility, the latter of which is expected to be built at D.C. Village in southwest DC, with construction set to begin within the next three years. Metro plans to vacate the current property by late winter, employees and buses will temporarily move to other Metro bus garages in the region.

The two parcels at 17 M Street, SW are just one block from the new Washington Nationals ballpark and adjacent to the Navy Yard Metro station. The parcels are 69,607 and 27,558 square feet and are separated by Van Street. The 71-year old bus parking facility has housed 114 buses for the agency.

DC Council to Halt West End Development Process

This week, several DC Council members pledged to rescind a resolution passed earlier this summer which would have granted the rights to purchase three separate parcels of land in DC’s West End to DC-based Eastbanc Inc. at market rate. The Council had passed the emergency measure in July, granting Eastbanc the right to develop the properties in exchange for its commitment to rebuild the fire station, library and the Tiverton apartment building. Eastbanc would have purchased the properties for the appraised value of the "highest and best use" of the land, less any improvements and services that the Council required as a condition of the transfer. 

Under the terms first passed by the Council, Eastbanc would have been required to build a new fire station and library to the specifications of the city, and provide an affordable housing component in what is probably the highest priced neighborhood in the city, on average. The Council also bestowed an interest in the project to a minority developer by requiring Eastbanc to grant 35% of the contract value to a "disadvantaged" local firm, naming several such firms in case Eastbanc's rolodex was short on minority business owners.

The DC Library Renaissance Project, an interest group formed by Ralph Nader with the goal of maintaining the public interest in the District’s libraries, held a rally opposing the resolution. Members of the Library Renaissance Project communicated with both Eastbanc and the tenants of the Tiverton in an attempt to head off the resolution. Robin Diener, director of the DC Library Renaissance Project, commented on the tenants' position: “The residents of the Tiverton had entered into a contract to negotiate exclusively with Eastbanc, and the negotiations later broke down and were legally severed. According to the tenants I spoke with, the terms of the contracts offered by Eastbanc for the purchase of the building were not as promised. A non-negotiable requirement of the tenants was that they support the terms of the Planned Unit Development unconditionally for the ultimate development of Lot 37 by Eastbanc.”

The disposition of the 24^th and L Street property went to council on July 10^th 2007, where Council members voted on whether to approve Eastbanc’s acquisition of the public property. Councilmember Carol Schwartz, chairperson for the Committee on Workforce Development, halted the process, claiming in a letter to the general public that she “wanted citizens to have at least some opportunity to delve into the particulars of the proposed disposition.” She, together with Councilmember Kwame Brown, scheduled an emergency public meeting on July 3^rd after which she voted to approve the Mayor’s legislation in a rushed effort to protect the tenants of Tiverton.

In her statement to the public, Councilmember Schwartz stated, “now that the Tiverton tenants are pursuing other options that should protect them, there is in my mind no longer an emergency.”

Eastbanc has revitalized several neighborhoods in the District. Their past projects include a majority of the development around the West End and Georgetown, including both Ritz Carlton residences, 3303 Water Street and Cady’s Alley. Eastbanc is currently building 22 West, an 95-unit condominium fetching anywhere from $800 to $1000 per square foot, one of the highest selling properties in the DC area.

Montgomery County Median New Home Prices hit $1.1 Million

The Montgomery County Planning Department released a housing study today concluding that the median price for a new single-family detached home in Montgomery County crested $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2007. In a finding the department called "startling", the report determined that prices in the county for existing single-family homes and new townhouses decreased slightly to just above $500,000, but that new detached homes jumped from just $860,000 last year to $1.133m this year, and that average prices for all types of housing increased 8 percent in the first quarter while prices were flat, it said, for the rest of the Washington, D.C. area as a whole.

Researchers say that developers appear to be responding to current trends in the housing market by focusing on building high-end houses, demand for which remains strong, rather than adapting to more price-sensitive markets.

Although county law already requires residential developers to sell 12.5 percent of their new units as "moderately priced", as well as add "workforce housing" for any development of 35 or more new housing units near Metro Stations, the Planning Board was cognizant of the din this will raise among the public, and was quick to add that it "and other officials are working to provide affordable housing options...the Planning Board has placed even greater emphasis on the importance of affordable housing opportunities in the county, initiating a new housing study that will become a new element of the county’s General Plan."

The Board also announced, coincidentally, that late this month it would send new recommendations to the County Council suggesting the Council require developers to pay even higher impact fees to offset the costs of infrastructure, including roads and schools, required by brand-new homes. The new fees would equal approximately $31,000 in impact taxes levied upon the developer of most new homes, according to the Board.

DC Announces New Convention Center Hotel

Washington DC Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today that the District has signed an agreement with Marriott International to build a new hotel at 9th and L Streets, on the west side of the new convention center. Marriott had been planning on as many as 1400 units at the site, and has been expected to begin the project since at least early this year, but will now scale the project back a notch, building approximately 1140 rooms and not begin construction for at least a year. The hotel is expected to open in 2011.

The two-acre site, combined from 2 parcels separately operated by the Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA) and Kingdon Gould III, is currently mostly vacant and is being used as a parking lot. Gould's portion of the site is being traded for a portion of the old Convention Center site that the District now controls. Gould was not part of the agreement today, but has agreed in principal to terms of the transfer. Marriott has agreed to begin the planning process immediately, incorporating the land south of L Street and north of Massachusetts Avenue, along 9th Street. Sean Madigan of DC's Office of Planning says the site plan will no longer include the parcels north of L Street, which Marriott previously acquired in expectation of building into the final designs, but will likely incorporate the historic office building at the southeastern corner of the lot into the hotel. The utility building at the northeastern corner of the block will remain. Madigan said the transaction has been signed and will be executed "shortly", but would not speculate on a timeframe.

The entire transaction is valued at about $540m, of which $134m will be contributed by the DC government through Tax Increment Financing (TIF) in the form of bonds issued by the WCCA and repaid by taxes generated through the hotel. The city will lease the site to Marriott for 99 years, on which Marriott will build and operate the hotel.

Furthering DC's new legislation for the construction of 'green' buildings, Marriott has agreed to meet the District's standards with a building that will be LEED certified, meeting the U.S. Green Building Council's "Silver" standard. The hotel will include 100,000 s.f. of meeting space and at least 400 new parking spaces, but it is unclear if retail will be included in the new design.

NDC Breaks Ground on Georgia Avenue

Neighborhood Development Company (NDC) broke ground last week on one of the numerous projects along Georgia Avenue that are expected to revitalize the flagging area in conjunction with the District's redevelopment plans, approved by the DC Council in July 2006, to introduce development and improve public and private services. The Residences at Georgia Avenue, just north of the Petworth Metro station at Taylor and Georgia, is designed as a seven-story structure with 72 small, affordable rental apartments. The city is providing subsidies to enable NDC to reserve apartments for tenants at or below 60% of the AMI. The ground floor will be dedicated to retail, with a recently announced Yes! Organic Market as the sole tenant.

The project was designed by Weinseck Architects and will be built by Hamel Construction, providing 57 underground parking spaces when complete, likely in early 2009, at which point it should have good competition from numerous other new residential developments, including Donatelli Development's 148-unit Park Place at the Petworth Metro, a 57-unit condominium at the corner of Upshur, a 110-unit apartment building at 3910 Georgia Avenue by Jair Lynch (not yet under construction), and the Renaissance, a 105-unit condominium by Lakritz Adler, though NDC head Adrian Washington pointed out that this will be the first residential project on Georgia to complete. NDC recently completed the Lofts at Brightwood, and is a development partner on the CityVista project. The ceremonial groundbreaking took place in July.

Montgomery Mall Expansion May be Approved Today

The Montgomery County Planning Board at its meeting today issued a tentative approval to a revised expansion plan for Westfield Montgomery, better known as Montgomery Mall, a nearly 4 decade-old mall at Democracy Blvd. and Westlake Drive along I -270 just outside the beltway. The plan could include new retail, restaurants and parking structures along the entry streets to the mall. The Board has recessed temporarily, and plans to take a formal vote tonight to decide the matter.

The 60-acre project will expand to enlarge Macy's, relocate the Sears, and add a promenade with freestanding retail. The Board had been working over the past several days with a citizen's group to improve pedestrian access, and add a bike lane, shade trees, and a raised median strip. The the Planning Board originally approved the plan in 2005 to include 308,000 square feet of new retail, the new proposal includes approximately 60,000 feet of additional retail, including 25,000 square feet recently acquired from an existing strip mall.

UPDATE: The project was voted on and approved by the Board.

North Bethesda Square's First Building Tops Out

The nearly $900m North Bethesda Town Center project saw its first building topped out this week as the Wentworth House, an 18-story, 312-unit apartment building, reached its full height last week. The apartment building will house a swimming pool deck above the 18-story-wing and a “sunset” terrace above the 15-story wing, green roof, and 65,000 s.f. Harris Teeter for the "Whole Foods effect" on the neighborhood. Construction on the building began in June 2006, completion on both the supermarket and apartment is scheduled for July of next year.

LCOR, a large east coast development team headquartered in Pennsylvania, was chosen by WMATA as the master developer for the 32-acre North Bethesda Town Center Project, developing a master plan that includes approximately 930,000 s.f. of office space, 1,275 residential units, a 320-room full-service hotel, and 202,000 square feet of retail space at the White Flint Metro station. LCOR anticipates this project will generate 5,400 new jobs and almost 6,500 additional daily Metro trips, citing it as "the largest joint development project ever approved by WMATA." The project received a "Smart Growth" award from the D.C. chapter of the Urban Land Institute and The Smart Growth Alliance.

The Wentworth House was designed by Dorsky Hodgson Parrish Yue Architects (DHPY), with offices in DC, Cleveland and Fort Lauderdale. DHPY is also designing the Midtown Bethesda North condo project by Kettler.

Downtown Bethesda Condominium Pair Gets First Stamp of Approval

The Montgomery County Planning Board staff has issued its report recommending approval of a site plan to jointly develop a pair of parking lots in downtown Bethesda into mixed-use, multi-family condominiums with as many as 250 residential units in LEED certified buildings, construction of which will require a closing and realignment of Woodmont Avenue south of Bethesda Avenue. Lot 31, now sporting a metered parking lot at the crossroads of Bethesda and Woodmont Avenues - on the west side - and Lot 31A, across Woodmont Avenue to the east, are now on track for development as the southern gateway to Bethesda (depicted above, looking south), a predominantly glass and brick duo with a combined 250 units (up to 146 in the west building and 97 in the east), 40,000 s.f. of retail space and as many as 1480 underground parking spaces. Both the 3-acre and the one-third acre lots are currently owned by the county, and will be jointly developed between the county and the development team, itself a joint venture between DC-based PN Hoffman and Stonebridge Development. The County will require 12.5% of the units built as MPDUs (moderately priced dwelling units) and an additional 35 as workforce housing. The conditional approval by the Planning Board will require conformity to a list of preconditions, including traffic, structural, public space, affordable housing, and bike trail accommodations, limiting the building height to 90 feet to the east of Woodmont, though stepping down to 65 feet at street level, considerably shorter than the 143-foot Seasons apartment building to the immediate east, and to a maximum of 54 feet to the west of Woodmont. Retail will accommodate outdoor seating, extending Bethesda Row to the south, and significant concessions will be made for the Capitol Crescent Trail, including additional bike racks and a "drop-off" point on Woodmont where bikers can unload from vehicles onto a new branch of the trail on the south side of the west building, providing an additional access point to the bike trail from Woodmont, which will be shifted to the west to line up Woodmont more directly where it crosses Bethesda Avenue. PNH and Stonebridge most recently jointly developed Chase Point Condominiums in Chevy Chase DC. The staff report is not final, but signals a likelihood the full Board will approve the project. A hearing on the issue will be held September 20th. 

Bethesda Maryland real estate development news

In Noma's Shadow, Eckington Mushrooms

As the next great construction site in the District, NoMa has attracted justifiable media attention as well as some of the heaviest-hitting real estate development teams in the area, Akridge, Douglas Development, Trammell Crow, MRP and the Wilkes Company, vying for the ability to write upon the blank slate of its startlingly empty surface. Admittedly not likely to be on any tourist agenda or history tour, the newly invented moniker still offers commercial developers an attractiveness that seems hard to have missed in the past - a downtown development site with major bisecting traffic arteries, a pair of Metro stations and a train terminus within walking distance of Congress.

Attracting decidedly less media attention, Eckington, its immediate neighbor to the north, has nonetheless been discovered by local developers not quite ready for an Akridge-sized purchase of air rights over railroad yards, but who view the more than 10 million square feet of commercial space being built on its southern edge as an invitation to develop the residential market. 

Bounded by North Capitol to the west, New York Avenue to the south, Rhode Island Avenue to the north and, of course, the proverbial railroad tracks, Eckington appears to sit on the right side of those tracks judging from development teams that have been quietly converting forlorn apartments into condominiums and vacant lots into loft-like housing for the inevitable office workers that will soon pour into NoMa. Zoned largely for residential and bounded north and south by Metrorail stations, the neighborhood has been populated by rows of single family homes, many of which still belatedly sport the once ubiquitous metal awnings, and small, forgotten apartment buildings, providing affordable alternatives to out-of-the-ground construction.

The area's conversion process began auspiciously when a joint venture between CSX and Fairfield Residential announced plans to build 650 condominium units, but braked in early 2007 as the condo market slowed as construction costs were rising. But by then other developers had used the momentum to build and sell condos like the Jordan (314 V St.), Eckington Heights (330 Rhode Island Ave.), and Basilica Lofts (1900 4th St.), adapting former apartment buildings and abandoned storefronts into modern homes even before the first ceremonial groundbreaking in NoMa.

With NoMa construction now underway, the pace of development in Eckington has now quickened, with new, modern projects now dotting the Eckington map, including Century Court at 14 S Street (14 units), The Indigo at 1901 Lincoln Road (30 units), Todd Place Condos at 302-310 Todd Place (12 units), Eckington Station at 1927 3rd St. (7 units), Capitol Overlook at 221 R Street (12 units), and the Winthrop at 1956 3rd Street (5 units); other buildings beginning construction include 219 T Street, 1921 2nd St., as well as a pair of buildings on 4th Street at V and U and several vacant lots, now under contract by developers. While the scale of development does not match that to the south due to height restrictions and its residential nature, real estate developments here seem more concentrated than any other existing neighborhood. 

"Eckington is is one of the rare neighborhoods in DC next to massive commercial development that has not yet matured, so the potential upside for buyers is tremendous", says Dan Lindsay, whose development team, Lindsay Development & Hillsborough Investments, recently completed a project on Capitol Hill and is now completing the full renovation of Todd Place. Most of the new projects have sold from $340 to $400 per square foot, a price that is difficult to match on the other side of North Capitol Street or anywhere closer to nearby Capitol Hill.

Washington D.C. retail and real estate updates