Planned Community for PG County Line

Bethesda developer The Artery Group will be back before the Montgomery County Planning Board tomorrow afternoon to vie for final approval of a sprawling 314-acre "planned community" at the Prince George’s County line in Burtonsville.

Bounded by Sandy Spring, Greentree and Old Gunpowder Roads, the so-called Fairland Community will bring 365 homes, a community center, public open space, "an extensive trail system," and a new, 11-acre elementary school site intended to divert students from currently overcrowded Burtonsville Elementary. A dramatic metamorphosis from its genesis as a golf-centered townhouse community, the project will include 46 moderately priced dwelling units of affordable townhouse and duplex residences, according to Lisa S. Schwarz, Senior Planning Specialist for the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs. The rest of the homes on site will be detached, single-family units, to be built in three phases.

The history of the development dates back to 2004, when it was first approved by the Planning Board with a plan calling for a golf course and 400 homes on the Montgomery side of the county line. Despite support from area residents and inroads on a proposed land swap with Montgomery County for construction of the golf course, the project’s encroachment into a neighboring jurisdiction led to a veto from the Prince George’s County Council. With the developer getting a mulligan for the golf plan, tomorrow’s hearing concerns Artery’s recently amended, links-free development scheme; Planning Board staff have already lent their approval to the proposal - a move usually indicative of an impending green light from the Board itself.

The Fairland Community is precisely the kind of large-scale development Artery typically pursues in the metro area's far-outlying suburbs. In conjunction with Clark Capital Realty, they were responsible for The Pinnacle, a $55 million, 328-unit garden apartment complex in Germantown. The developer is also currently working on Arora Hills, another 1330-unit “neo-traditional” planned community in Clarksburg, with Beazer Homes and NVR.

JBG Discusses Plans for Bethesda Row

With preliminary approvals from the Montgomery County Planning Board in place as of last Thursday, the JBG Companies say they are now actively in development on Woodmont East, the large-scale, mixed-use project set to usurp the last vacant parcel adjoining Bethesda Row. Since first going public with the project in 2007, the project has lost one key component - a planned hotel that has since been revised as 208,579 square feet of office space. Meanwhile, the Capital Crescent Trail that bisects the site will remain open for, at the very least, most of the construction period.

"The amendment to the project and preliminary plan amended the use of that southern bit from hotel to office. Otherwise, not much changed…We did some modifications to the open space based on comments from the community. We did some modifications to the building, but not much. The envelope and the height have been pretty much intact from 2007 on,” said Matt Blocher, Senior Vice President at JBG. “It’s within the same density. They’re both commercial use and they’re both the same size buildings. It was purely market driven. “

Located at the intersection of Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues, Woodmont East will feature one tower of office space and a second with 250 residential units and 9,000 square feet of retail. Dividing them will be a landmark well-known to area outdoor aficionados - the Capital Crescent Trail.

“The trail will come right through the two of them,” said Blocher. “As far as what happened at the hearing, [the approval] permits us to close the trail for up to five days at a time if there is significant construction procedures. At this point, we’re not sure if we'll need to close it, except for at the end of the job when we have to do the paving.”

Joining JBG on the development team are Shalom Baranes Architects, as well the developers of neighboring Bethesda Row and owners of half of the Woodmont site, Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRT). Though both developers had initially filed separate site plans for the project in 2007, Kai Reynolds, a Partner at JBG, tells DCmud that the two have been working closely together since the development was first proposed.

“It was the same site plan [that was filed]. That’s just part of the venture. We have been together with FRIT on these efforts for about nine years now. It’s definitely a joint venture,” said Reynolds.

While Bethesda-ites and the developers alike are certainly hoping for repeat of the success of Bethesda Row, both will have to wait for development to get physical. Though nearing the end of the formal approval process, JBG concedes that there are still several key components that need to be worked out before construction can proceed.

"It’s still pretty far off because we haven’t yet begun to design the building beyond the site plan guidelines required by Montgomery County. Design and permitting is anywhere from 12 to 24 months, and then construction is 24 months,” said Reynolds.

Bethesda, MD, real estate development news

Georgia Commons Starts Up in Petworth

The contractors of Meridian Builders joined Mayor Adrian Fenty and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser yesterday to oversee the demolition of an old Petworth carpet store at 3910-3912 Georgia Avenue, NW. It’s a site that will soon host the Georgia Commons – a 30,000 square foot, mixed-use project from Jair Lynch Development Partners and Affordable Housing Partners with 119 out of its 130 new apartments geared towards working families. But the developer stresses that this is not your typical affordable housing project.

"It’s generally for families of four making 50, 60, 70 thousand dollars – that’s the market we’re talking about. It’s much different than the general impression of what people think low-income means," said developer Jair Lynch. "We think the remainder may be higher in the 80 to 90 thousand range. It’s not a drastic change.” 

 

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (ODMPED) selected the development team – which also includes EDG Architects and Frank Schlesinger Associates - two years ago following a competitive solicitation process. With features including a green roof, high efficiency heating and cooling systems, and "green screen" shielding, the project received an extra boost courtesy of the LEED Neighborhood Development pilot program, which acknowledges green and neighborhood-building features for buildings that fall short of traditional certification. "This is one of the few projects in the country that was admitted into it," said Lynch. "They're moving towards acknowledging and certifying projects that are beneficial to neighborhoods, rather than just giving ratings for a building's efficiency...I think there are only three or four [such projects] in the District versus a pool of under of fifty across the country."

The seven-story, $35 million development will also feature a new ground-floor location for Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care– its third in the Washington area – that will provide physical, mental and oral health services. With “guaranteed care” and twice the patient capability of their current locations, the new facility will not be just a free clinic, but a primary care center for both middle and working class residents alike. Sharon Baskerville, CEO of the DC Primary Care Association described it as “a means of leveraging the city’s investment with private dollars.”

Apart from gathering those community benefiting features together under one roof, the past 18 months did provide some other unique obstacles for the development team. While ODMPED had to provide $5 million in gap financing to get the project moving, a laundry list of issues had to be addressed before construction could proceed. Said Lynch:

Whether it was the 18 lawsuits that the Deputy Mayor’s office worked diligently on for a year and a half, whether it was getting the permits out of [the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs] with Councilmember Bowser, whether it was the mandatory exclusionary zoning that we anticipated coming, whether it was the collapse of the financial systems for the last six months, this project has persevered time and time again. We’re not quite there yet, but we hope in the next month, now that [the Housing Finance Agency] has their board members, [the Department of Housing and Community Development] is committed and the rest of our partners are here…we’ll start be able to this wonderful new project.

Georgia Commons is just one of numerous Georgia Avenue projects that have steamrolled ahead in recent months. This past March, the Neighborhood Development Company opened the 72-unit Residences at Georgia Avenue, while, in approximately a month and half, Donatelli Development will hold a ribbon cutting for highly the anticipated Park Place project. To Mayor Fenty, himself a former Ward 4 councilmember, it’s evidence that change has taken hold on the prominent Northwest thoroughfare and in the surrounding Petworth neighborhood.

“On this four block stretch, you’re probably talking about 400 new apartments…For seventy years, not one new apartment was built on Georgia Avenue,” said Fenty. “Just in the past couple years and leading into the near future, there has been lots of development…When [this project] is finished, it won’t only be attractive. It’ll be a fantastic asset and resource for the community.” Georgia Commons is tentatively scheduled for a fall 2010 opening.

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Live/Work for Alexandria's Main Drag

Virginia architect-cum-developer Gaver Nichols is gearing up to begin work on a new trend for Alexandria’s main drag, a project he is calling live/work housing. The Lofts at Del Ray Village - a three-story, 14,096 square foot development that will resuscitate a vacant lot at 2707-2711 Mount Vernon Avenue - will add much needed rental apartments, and offer tenants the opportunity to work from home from ground floor office space.

"It’s a unique mixed-use structure and the first form-based, code-designed building on Mount Vernon Avenue with a living/working space concept. It’s a brick structure with aluminum...roofs, aluminum panels at the top and rooftop decks," said Nichols. “Conceptually, it’s like the traditional neighborhood warehouse that’s been renovated with a modern top.” Residents of the apartments are not required, however, to utilize the commercial space below them.

Standing on The Lofts’ top two floors, the four rental units will range in size from 2,053 to 2,949 square feet and each include two bedrooms. The ground-floor will include 4,500 square feet of office space (plus basements) that Nichols says would be well-suited to a small office or bank, a corner plaza at Raymond and Del Ray Avenues and a 16-space surface parking lot. It’s a development scheme that Nichols has been pursuing since initially acquiring the property in 2005.

“We took an empty lot that none of my developer clients wanted,” he said. “I decided to buy it with a couple of guys, took them through the development process and the city rewrote the zoning concept for us to allow for the live/work use concept.”

Having already been awarded approval by the Alexandria Planning and Zoning Board, Nichols now awaits building permits, at which point his in-house general contractor will begin construction. “I could have them as soon as two weeks from now, if everything goes well…All these permutations make [the project] very unique, but it's very difficult to get through the process,” he said. The build-out is expected to be underway by July with construction slated to take at least a year.

Alexandria Virginia real estate development news

Financing Trouble Adds Woes to Troubled Southeast Neighborhood

Residents of the beleaguered Washington Highlands neighborhood in Southeast will have to wait at least a little longer for the DC Housing Authority’s (DCHA) planned reinvigoration of the Highland Dwellings public housing complex. In 2007, DCHA selected New Market Investors and Southeast developers Crawford Edgewood Managers Inc. (CEMI) to construct the Highlands Addition – a project that would utilize a vacant 300,000 square lot as the site of a new “physically and socially vibrant neighborhood” with 138 units of mixed-income housing. With the project’s planned summer 2008 start date having come and gone, HR Crawford, President of CEMI and a forty year veteran of District redevelopment initiatives, tells DCmud that project is now locked in a holding pattern.

“It’s all over the place. We need to decide what's getting built and how we’re going to get there,” said Crawford. “Everyone is suffering right now…We have to re-ignite things a bit.”

Crawford, who previously succeeded in luring middle class residents back to Far Southeast with the gated Walter E. Washington Estates project in 1998, chalks the delays up to a lack of readily available financing and the need for infrastructural improvements in the surrounding neighborhood before work can begin. Nonetheless, he says that though the project may be in stasis, his development team – which also includes architects Torti Gallas and Partners and Hamel Builders – is ready to commence construction once those pieces fall into place.

“We had to go through the ritual of getting [US Department of Housing and Urban Development] approval and all the public hearings and those kinds of things…It’s fully approved. We’re ready to go. You might say we’re shovel ready,” said Crawford.

However, Crawford went onto describe the project’s timeline as “questionable” – an unwelcome piece of news for Washington Highlands residents and DC policymakers alike. In the intervening years since the Highlands Addition was first announced, the surrounding community has had to battle some of the District’s highest rates of both unemployment and violence; in 2007, the neighborhood accounted for one-third of all homicides in the District. Media scrutiny of the area only intensified when, that same year, 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings was shot to death by police inside the very same Highland Dwellings that DCHA has targeted for redevelopment. Despite its' troubled past, Crawford is confident that the area will be in for an image makeover (if and) when the Highlands Addition begins to draw in new neighbors.

“[We’ll be offering] both rental and for sale units. We’ll be a relatively innovative property, in that you won’t be able to tell who the renters are versus the owners,” said Crawford. “We’re going to integrate everyone socio-economically.”

N Street Hotel Prolongs the Agony

If Development Hell is a real place, surely the planned renovation of the former Gralyn Hotel and Woodbine Apartments at 1743-1755 N Street, NW holds a place in its ninth circle. Since purchasing the stately and historic Dupont Circle properties in 1988, Washington DC real estate tycoon Morton Bender and his N Street Follies Ltd. (NSF) corporation have pursued a variety of redevelopment schemes for the buildings - all of which have been vacant for more than a decade. First, it was going to be an office building and apartment complex - but, since that attempt fell apart in the late-1990s, NSF has been pursuing a hotel for the site. It’s not going well.

This week, NSF was back before the DC Board of Zoning Adjustment (their fifth appearance in two years) to request several variances for the project. Once again, the Board postponed their hearing, this time until October. According to ANC 2B05 Commissioner Victor Wexler, the BZA hearing is just the latest in an eternity of changes and stay requests that Bender and company have wrangled out of the system.

“It’s been going on for many years and I just walked into it,” said Wexler. “I don’t know what this Bender wants, but he’s been turned down by the Federal Court, he came back on appeal and now they want an extension. It’s beyond me…I think Bender would like it to go on forever, so he doesn’t have to pay taxes.”

And The Washington Post agrees. According to that outlet – which in 2006 described Bender as “a litigious developer” and “not a man who likes to negotiate” – the hullabaloo surrounding the N Street site is, in fact, based on Bender’s contention that the District has overvalued the property and charges him a tax rate far in excess of its intrinsic worth. It can't help the District recently raised its tax rate on vacant property from 5% to 10% of the appraised value; according to DC tax assessment records, they're currently valued at $12.5 million. In 2004, he told the Washington City Paper, he wasn't even sure if they had ever been added to the city's vacant property registry.

“What difference does it make?” said Bender. "The bills come in, they get paid.”

Perhaps to prove a point, NSF consequently let the six historic buildings at the site lapse into disrepair over the past decade. Since purchasing the century-old buildings for $8 million in cash in 1988 and finally vacating the final tenants from the 1755 N Street Apartments in 1998 (reportedly by slashing the tires on the last remaining occupant's car), next to no upkeep has been performed on the properties – leading to a 2005 citation for “demolition-by-neglect” from the DC Board of Condemnation for Insanitary Buildings and the site’s inclusion on DC Preservation League’s 2007 list of Washington’s "Most Endangered Places."

"They're not endangered," Bender told the Post following the site's inclusion on the list. "I maintain them." In the same article, he laid blame for the delays afflicting the project at the feet of "unreasonable preservation protections." Nonetheless, the buildings' windows were subsequently boarded up.

But while the properties themselves have seen better days, that hasn’t stopped NSF from continually tweaking their redevelopment plans. Said Bender at a January 2006 BZA hearing:

We were going to [do] an office building [and] apartment house and that didn’t receive too much acceptance. We then have been working on it and have come up with doing a hotel…After going to the ANC and the Office of Planning and hearing all the negative comments, I went back to the architects and said…what can we do?…So we cut the building back from 117 hotel units to 77. We cut the garage to 96 from 127 and minimized whatever issues would be questionable by anybody.

The reduction of the scope of the project, however, hasn’t put its critics to bed. Over the past two years, the Dupont Circle Conservancy, the Historic Preservation Board, the local ANC and host of area businesses and office tenants - including the Tabard Inn, Science Services Inc., United Auto Workers, the Penn Art Ladies, the Middle East Institute and Johns Hopkins University – have all voiced their disapproval of the planned hotel's design scheme. In the meantime, NSF has traded up architects for the project – from JSA Inc. to HAA Architects – and legal counsel. Only after the project’s next BZA appearance this coming October 13th will we know when (and if) N Street will be seeing ever being seeing a new hotel.

For what it's worth, the N Street "folly" is one of the numerous legal battles Bender has immersed himself in over the years. In 2006 alone, he was engaged in two concurrent lawsuits. The first against Independence Federal Savings Bank, where, as the majority shareholder, he waged an unsuccessful take over the District-based financial institution. In the second, he was drawn into a bitter dispute with residents of Northwest's Palisades neighborhood - including former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and his wife, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell - when he sought to build thirteen "mansions" on thirteen acres adjoining Chain Bridge Road. For one of the few times in a conflict-studded career, he lost. Said Mitchell of her opponent: "[He's] a developer with the deepest of pockets and no sense of community obligation."

JBG Seeks Approval for Bethesda Row Development Tonight

The JBG Companies will make a return appearance before the Montgomery County Planning Board tonight to seek Preliminary Project Plan approval for both phases of their Woodmont East mixed-used development in the Bethesda Central Business District. Located at the northeast side of Woodmont and Bethesda Avenues and wedged directly on one of the last vacant parcel adjoining the Bethesda Row development, the project had previously been approved for 78,300 square feet of office space, 40,350 square feet of retail, a 225 room hotel, and 250 multi-family residential units in two towers.

In the first news to come of the project since it was first announced in 2007, JBG has apparently scrapped plans for the hotel and is seeking consent for a re-jiggered development scheme with a whopping 208,579 square feet of office space, a diminutive 9,000 square feet of retail, and 250 residential units that will, in the words of the Planning Board, continue “the successful theme of mixed retail, restaurant and office uses along ‘Bethesda Row.’” The building once intended to house the hotel will instead be utilized as an office tower and the Thymes Square restaurant next door to the site at 4735 Bethesda Avenue will be razed to make way for the development.

Planning Board staff has already granted pre-approval to all three of portions of the plan. The scenario was much the same – staff approval included – when JBG presented their plan to the Board in November 2007, shortly after leasing the property from Bethesda Row developer Federal Realty Trust. In surprise move, the Board wound up denying their application, following complaints from the community about detrimental affects to the Capital Crescent Trail system and encroachment upon the neighboring movie theater. Federal Realty Trust also tried but failed to get approval for a nearly identical project at the site just weeks before that fateful turn of events.

JBG representatives would not comment on the development until after the scheduled April 30th hearing.

Grand Opening - The Towns of North College Park

GRAND OPENING!
THE TOWNS OF NORTH COLLEGE PARK!
Priced at $489,500.

Big and sophisticated, with 3,500 sq. ft. of luxury living, The Towns feature 3 bedrooms and 4 ½ baths on four finished levels in an unparalleled College Park location. The 900 sq. ft. master suite encompasses a full floor, with sitting room, office and a bathroom to die for! Plus a roof terrace and private 2-car garage parking, adjacent to Starbucks, restaurants and shopping. Take advantage of the community fitness facility and a private shuttle to the Greenbelt Metro!

The Towns at North College Park is conveniently located next to Ikea Centre with immediate access to Route 1, the Beltway and I-95, minutes from the Greenbelt Metro and the University of Maryland. These unbelievable homes are available for immediate delivery and are FHA/VA approved!

Open Saturday and Sunday 12-5 PM.

www.collegeparktowns.com

Keith Fernandes 240-381-5670

MHBR #5656 and #5793

FDA Office Gets Residential Revamp in Rockville

Developers AvalonBay Communities are nearing the end of two years plus of planning for the redevelopment of the US Food and Drug Administration offices at 12720 Twinbrook Parkway in Rockville. The 32-year-old, 50, 235 square foot "office/flex industrial building" currently on site will soon be razed to make way for the Avalon at Twinbrook Station – a new, SK&I-designed residential complex that will add 240 units to the rental market.

"We've been presenting this plan to the neighborhood for the past two years and, essentially, now we’re [entering] the formal approval process. The City of Rockville was going through an entire…master plan recreation for Twinbrook neighborhood,” said John Cox, a Senior Vice President at AvalonBay, of the project’s origins. “When they created the new Twinbrook neighborhood plan, [the City] endorsed our use on the site.”

With the backing of both the local community and city planners, the development team will deliver more than two hundred apartments – ranging in size from 450 square foot studios to 1200 square foot two-bedroom "lofts" – with 12.5% set aside for affordable housing. The bulk of Twinbrook Station will top out at four-stories, but also include a portion that steps down to a three-story “townhome façade along the majority of Halpine Road.” It’s a design scheme that has allowed the developers to conceal the project’s parking garage by surrounding it with residential units on three sides – with the exception being a portion abutting the future site of 7-story office building currently in development by Uniwest Commercial Realty.

AvalonBay will soon be submitting their final site plan to the Rockville City Council for approval and is planning for construction to get underway late next summer. “I don’t believe there is a scheduled hearing date yet, but, obviously, we’ve had numerous meetings with [City Council] staff and public committees,” said Cox. “We’re thinking [we’ll start in] probably the third quarter of 2010.”

District Officials Decry Condos, Celebrate Affordable Housing in Columbia Heights

A cadre of District officials, including Mayor Adrian Fenty and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, gathered in Columbia Heights today for the re-opening of the 230-unit Hubbard Place affordable housing complex (formerly the Cavalier Apartments) at 3500 14^th Street, NW. Spearheaded by the Somerset Development Company and the 3500 14^th Street Tenants Association, the $52 million renovation has not only reinvigorated a Washington building recently added to the National Register of Historic Places, but has secured - and ensured the longevity - of a once notorious Section 8 public housing project as well.

"Just a few short years ago, fire marshals had to stand on each floor to assure the safety of the residents. It was dangerous to walk in the halls or ride the elevators…This building has been made safe again for the residents who live here…But this time with a twist,” said Somerset principal Nancy Hooff. “It has affordable rents [and] it’s near public transportation and shopping. Smart growth, indeed.”

According to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, residents of Hubbard Place can look forward to updated amenities that include “new elevators, the creation of new community spaces and a computer lab, secure access, new kitchens and baths, windows, roof and all new common areas.” The city block-straddling development also includes a new home for the Latin American Youth Center, which provides educational and vocational services to area youth, as well as two new businesses: the Black Lion Deli and George’s Shoe Repair. In the view of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the dramatic shift in Hubbard Place's fortunes can be attributed directly to tireless efforts of the building’s residents.

“There is no way in which the city and the federal government could have done a thing with Hubbard [Place], if there had not been a determined band of residents who said, ‘We’re not going to let this place go’…I’m just pleased to see something that I can point to that [the US Department of Housing and Urban Development] has done these days,” said the congresswoman, not quite jokingly.

The local government, however, did play a prominent role in gathering the formidable sum required for the large-scale renovation procedures, as overseen by the architects of Kann Partners and the project’s general contractor, Hamel Builders. Out of the development’s $52 million budget, the Department of Housing and Community Development provided $8.5 million for the acquisition of the property, with the District of Columbia Housing Authority pitching in an additional $4.6 million for historic preservation. The building upgrades were funded primarily through $26 million in tax exempt bonds issued by the District of the Columbia Housing Finance Agency. It’s a role that District officials, like Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, were eager to hang their hat on.

“We have enough condos,” said Graham. “We can build condos where there once vacant lots surrounded by hurricane fences. But we are going to keep our diversity and we’re going to keep our low-income housing. We’re going to build new low-income housing…We’re going to do all this because we care.”

Hubbard Place is the second such affordable housing renovation opened by the city in as many weeks. Last week, Mayor Fenty presided over the grand re-opening of Jubilee Housing, Inc.’s Ontario Court project at 2525 Ontario Road, NW, in nearby Adams Morgan. New condos are being built in Washington DC.

Arlington's First Green and Gold Building

In a major coup for Erkiletian Real Estate Services' (ERES) mixed-use redevelopment of the Executive Office Building, the developer has gained both a density bonus and approval from Arlington County Board. The reason? In a first for Arlington, ERES is pursuing a LEED Gold certification for their new building - a "green" rating second only to Platinum (but who can afford that nowadays).

Located two blocks away from the Courthouse Metro at 2009 14^th Street North, the aging seven-story office complex and adjoining parking garage on site will be razed in the coming months to make way for a sixteen-story titan of eco-friendly development. At present, plans prepared by the architects of the Lessard Group call for 254 rental residential units, 8,127 square feet of office space and 4,354 square feet of retail - plus, for good measure, an additional 2,257 square feet of flexible office/retail space. Couple that with a 26,145 square foot public plaza on top of the project’s three-story parking garage -which, according to the Board, will host "a scenic overlook offering views of national monuments in Washington, DC" - and Arlington legislators have reason to be pleased as punch.

“This building has it all – high-quality housing, ground-floor retail and office space and a public plaza that will offer great views of the national monuments,” said Board Chairman Barbara Favola via press release. “We get all this in a building that is built to a Gold LEED standard. This is the sort of project we want to see more of in Arlington.”

The caveat is that while developers can aim for green standards, there is no guarantee that, once built, the project will qualify as planned. A final determination will made by the US Green Building Council based on five criteria: sustainability, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. There's no word yet on exactly what type of features Arlingtonians can look forward to bragging about once the building is completed. When DCmud last reported on the as-of-yet untitled project in December, ERES was projecting a third quarter 2009 start date for construction – shortly after they begin work another 200-unit residential building at 621 North Payne Street in neighboring Alexandria.

Alexandria real estate development news

SE Church Bringing Affordable Housing to Barry Farm

Prominent Ward 8 church Matthews Memorial Baptist has partnered with developer Community Builders (TCB) to expand their community servicing mandate into the realm of affordable housing. The Church – which has served the Barry Farm/Anacostia community for 85 years, boasts 1300 members, operates 60 different ministries and frequently hosts speaking engagements for local politicians such as Marion Barry - is now looking to bring a new housing project and community center to a large parcel adjoining their location at 2616 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, SE.

According to the Office of Planning, the 79,900 square foot site currently holds five houses and an asphalt parking lot, all of which would demolished to make way for the Matthews Memorial Terrace – a 100% affordable housing development consisting of a four-story apartment building with 100 residential units, roughly of a third of which would be reserved for seniors. Next door, a three-story community center would include a health clinic (possibly an extension of the United Medical Center – itself slated for a large-scale expansion), a community room, a bookstore/café and “a dinner room/restaurant” that, according to Bishop C. Matthew Hudson, Jr., would be “Ward 8’s second full-service sit-down restaurant.” The project is being designed by PGN Architects.

“Upon learning of my desire for the Church to provide affordable housing, Community Builders contacted me and we discussed the possibility of building…on the Matthews Memorial Baptist campus,” said Hudson at a March 5^th Zoning Commission hearing. “The partnership between the Church and TCB is represented a good match to obtain our mutual goals of creating a vibrant, mixed-use affordable rental community.”

Though still in the planning stages, organizations and individuals, including the ANC 8A, the ANC 8C, the Ward 8 Business Council, the Anacostia Coordinating Council and DC City Council members Marion Barry and Kwame Brown, have all voiced their support for the project. The next step in the approval process for the Matthews Memorial Terrace lies with the National Capital Planning Commission, which will review the development team’s proposal at their May 7^th meeting. And it looks be a straight shot, given the altruistic nature of the project.

“[The Church] continuously works to revitalize and rehabilitate the Anacostia community,” said Hudson. “The Church’s goal in pursuing this project is to allow it to further serve the community which we love and are an integral part of…I’m very proud of the many ways in which the new Matthews Memorial Terrace will be able to assist Anacostia…as it continues to grow, revitalize, [and] redevelop itself for the future.”

Lacey Condos Grand Opening

The Lacey, a new condominium in the U Street neighborhood, will have its first public grand opening party this Thursday, from 6:30-9:30pm. The Lacey is a new 26-unit condominium at 2250 11th St. designed by Division1 Architects and developed by a partnership of Imar Hutchins and Division1. The ultra contemporary project took the place of the empty lot next to the fabled Florida Avenue Grill at 1100 Florida Ave., itself a bit of a Washington institution. The catered event is being co-sponsored by Washington Humane Society.

Condos at the Lacey, now about half sold, start at $319,000 for one-bedroom units and the low $600's for two-bedroom units. The building is strikingly non-traditional, with design features like floating common hallways, glass demising walls that project light throughout the building, an ultra-quiet and hyper-efficient pistonless elevator, sliding glass interior walls, and Italian Snaidero cabinets. Four glass box penthouse units crown the project, featuring multiple private roofdecks with views stretching across Washington DC. Construction of the project, which began in May of 2007 and being carried out by Eichberg Construction, is almost entirely complete; deliveries began last month.

Washington DC real estate news

"America's Front Yard" Gets Stimulated

While the Associated Press reports that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar directed $55.8 million in federal stimulus money to restoration of the National Mall this past Earth Day, plans for making over America's designated spot for both protest and play have been brewing for quite a some time. The National Parks Service (NPS) - the government agency tasked with overseeing all things Mall-related - recently released the details of their Preliminary Preferred Plan for the 309 acre site and it envisions a few nip-tucks that (gasp) may actually require some demolition.

On that note, NPS calling is calling for both the National Sylvan Theater and Capitol Reflecting Pool (not, as they are quick to point out, the iconic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool) to be razed. While the latter would simply be replaced by another “water feature,” the Sylvan Theater – which hosts annual Military Band Summer Concert Series and the occasional fair-weather rally - would make way for a “multipurpose entertainment facility,” full details of which have yet to be disclosed. Union Square at the Mall's eastern end would also undergo a redesign, while the deteriorating District of Columbia War and Ulysses S. Grant Memorials would get the old toothbrush and brass polish treatment. Reps for the Department of the Interior also repeatedly emphasized the need to for restoration of the Jefferson Memorial’s sea wall, which spokesman Hugh Vickery described as “crumbling” against an ever encroaching Tidal Basin.

Not to be outdone by Salazar’s show of Earth Day bravado, the National Capital Planning Commission’s (NCPC) “Blue Ribbon Panel” of landscape architects has also released its critique of NPS’ plan for the Mall. While praising the restoration maneuvers as a “heroic effort,” they repeatedly refer to the site as both “America’s Front Yard” and an “international embarrassment.” Informed by the latter, they support “a standing ban on any new memorials or museums not already in planning stages (read: the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Eisenhower Memorial) and call for the relocation of tourist services off-site – citing the long-vacant Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building as prime contender.

To carry out these long-term goals of both the federal government and the NCPC, NPS has enlisted the aid of architects Wallace Roberts & Todd LLC and landscape architects DHM Design Corporation to outline their proposed modifications. With each contributor bringing their own roll of red tape to the table, could this be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen? There’s no telling at this point, but the renovation procedures could begin as early as this coming August.

Correction: The "Blue Ribbon Panel" mentioned above as extension of NCPC is, in fact, an "independent initiative" of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). Says Stephen Staudigl, NCPC Public Affairs Specialist:

ASLA took the lead to establish the Blue Ribbon Panel that included members from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Institute of Architects and the American Planning Association...NCPC supports some of the ASLA panel’s key findings, such as the National Park Service’s “heroic” effort to improve the National Mall based on the public’s call for improved conditions and better services.

DC Teams with Feds for Adams Morgan Affordable Project

Mayor Adrian Fenty was on hand last Thursday for a ceremonial ribbon cutting at the newly refurbished Ontario Court housing complex in Adams Morgan – a 27-unit, 100% affordable apartment building developed by Jubilee Housing, Inc. with designs by Bonstra Haresign Architects. The $9.4 renovation of the 86-year-old edifice also includes a new 4,000 square foot home for Jubilee’s JumpStart Early Childhood Development Center in the very same building at 2525 Ontario Road, NW.

David Bowers of Enterprise Community Investment, Inc. – one of the project’s backers, along with the US Department of the Treasury, the DC Department of Housing and Community Development and PNC Bank – began the festivities by leading a prayer in which he blessed not only the residents of the newly renovated building, but the project’s financiers as well – who, according to Bowers, are “not in the building business, but the people business.” Jim Knight, Executive Director of Jubilee Housing Inc., echoed that sentiment while exploring the various funding sources used to realize the project.

“Housing advocates and city officials have come together to create a funding source that goes by the name of the Local Rent Supplement Program,” said Knight. “It ensures affordability for the lowest income earners among us….The city government [also] came together and worked to create the Housing Production Trust Fund. We’re one of the few localities in the country that has one of these resources. It has been funded in the past and it is here at Ontario Court.”

According to the Mayor’s office, the project received $3.5 million from that fund for upgrades including “new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, new carpeting, upgraded kitchens and bathrooms, installation of new security systems, new air conditioning, and new laundry equipment.”

Far from being merely a local initiative, however, Ontario Court also received a big boost from the U.S. Treasury Department via their Community Development Financial Institutions Fund’s New Market Tax Credit Program. The program, which was created in 2000 to “provide tax incentives to induce private-sector, market-driven investment in businesses and real estate development projects located in low-income urban and rural communities,” was used to raise capital for Ontario Court - a project that Mayor Fenty says is indicative of a sea change in the DC development community.

“When the market-rate housing boom was coming through the District, people said, ‘This is the renaissance of the District of Columbia. This is the city come to life,’” said Fenty. “Market-rate housing has a place, but what we’ve seen over the past two or three years, as the market has stabilized and returned a little bit to normalcy, is an appetite and patience for building what is probably even more important to the District of Columbia – and that’s affordable housing."

In the coming months, the Department of Housing and Community Development will continue to pursue such developments in the Adams Morgan area by “putting money into” renovation projects at 1703 Euclid, 1720 Euclid, 1631 Euclid and 2233 18^th Street, NW - the last two both Jubilee properties.

The Amelia Fills in Ballston

The Dittmar Company is nearing the end of work of their newest Arlington County apartment project: The Amelia.

Designed and constructed by the same in-house Dittmar team responsible for the company's other Northern Virginia holdings - including their most recent developments at 1325 Pierce and Quincy Plaza - the Amelia is set to include 108 rental apartments, 4,158 square feet of ground floor retail (soon to be occupied by a mattress dealer) and 147 parking spaces. Flashy it may not be (we're looking at you, pillow top provider), but it’s a surefire improvement over 816 North Oakland Street’s former use as a four-story office building and adjoining Pizza Hut – two things off the menu for tenants when they begin to relocate to the building just off Wilson Boulevard early next month.

“Our first apartments will be in place by the 8th of May. Everything is ready [for that date], except that...we are waiting on Arlington County to give us permission to start moving in. We are pre-leasing at this point,” said Dittmar Leasing Consultant, Marsha Graham.

The building’s amenities are duplicitously friendly to health nuts and couch potatoes alike with a “cardio theater and strength equipment” for the former, while the more sedimentary folk can look forward to a “community room/media lounge with flat screen TV’s” and a “full service business center equipped with 24” Apple iMac computers. Interior decorum comes on the form of Corinthian countertops, “designer ceramic tile floors,” nine-foot ceilings and private balconies overlooking Oakland Park. Also in keeping with the current zeitgeist, the Amelia also Dittmar’s first foray into eco-friendly architecture.

“We are the first green building that Dittmar has built,” said Graham. “We are sound baffled and wonderfully insulated. All of the appliances are Energy Star rated, including a HVAC system...that is said to be 15% more efficient for heating and cooling.”

Rents at the Amelia are currently starting at $1625 for a one-bedroom with two-bedrooms priced from $2595 on up.