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.”

Wormley School Phase II Development Begins

Five years after Bethesda-based Encore Development purchased the Wormley School building from Georgetown University for $8.3 million and began marketing townhouses and condos, Encore says it is ready to begin building its townhouse portion of the project. The initial plan was to transform the historic brick school into seven condominiums and construct six new townhouses on top of a parking garage, replacing the school's parking lot and playground. The 7-unit converted schoolhouse delivered in 2008, but the vision for a row of six new townhouses seemed to fade as sales for the condos were stubbornly sluggish and presales of the townhouses nonexistent. However, after recently selling the last of the condos after more than 3 years of marketing, Encore's financiers gave them the go ahead to begin construction on the six townhouses, and work has now begun on the site.

The site, at 3325-3329 Prospect Street, is just one block north of the M Street, along the migratory student path between M and Georgetown University. The six townhouses will each consist of four levels and a loft, totaling somewhere between 4800 and 5200 s.f. Each home will be accompanied by two parking spaces, and are currently priced starting at $3.95 million, running up to $4.95 million. The row-houses should be delivered in roughly a year.

The "finely-crafted, Victorian-style luxury townhouses with details of quintessential Georgetown originals" (according to the listing) are designed by Cunningham & Quill Architects. The end unit will include four bedrooms and bathrooms, four fireplaces, formal living room and dining room, library, and a grand kitchen that opens into a family room. The master suite features a private terrace, and the third floor operates as a two story conservatory. That's not all, also comprised in the property is an in house elevator and relaxing private garden.

A diligent effort has been made by the architects and developers of this project, in cooperation with Old Georgetown, Citizens Association of Georgetown, and HPRB, to ensure that the historical integrity of the block and the neighborhood are preserved. Because two row houses already existed at the end of the block, these new houses will join the established roof line and facade closest to the street, while the renovated Wormley School will soak up the majority of the passerby's attention - as it remains set back several feet to draw the wandering eye towards its historical and architectural significance.

Many specific architectural details will be replicated in the newly constructed houses so to provide visual clues for the onlooker, reminding them that this is a classic Georgetown townhouse in the historic Georgetown neighborhood. Both cornice lines and the articulations of the roof line will be matched to the existing houses as the row tapers down the street. The houses will all be approximately the same width as a typical Georgetown row house. They will also be proportionally similar. Other visual clues meant to reference the iconic Georgetown home are the windows (mainly type two over two), archway styling, the steps and entryway as they relate to the proportioning of the transition to the sidewalk, as well as stone stoops, railings, and gardens. Although many row houses in Georgetown are bare brick, the designers opted for the also common painted frontage, selecting subtle neutrals (grays, yellows, and whites) so to enliven the facade but not call too loudly for attention (think San Francisco painted lady houses). "Our ultimate goal with the design was to complete the pattern of the existing block," says architect Chris Morrison, "and I think we did that intelligently and respectfully."

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Two-Mile Missing Link on Anacostia Trails Coming Soon

The undeveloped land between Bladensburg Waterfront Park and the National Arboretum will soon see a spike in the ratio of aluminum and spandex to natural habitat, as cyclists will be gifted a $1.3 million trail system serving as a nexus for bikers coming from Prince George's County into the District of Columbia. Construction on the coupling bike paths began in late June and the official opening is expected by the end of this calendar year, just in time for anxious winter-cycling enthusiasts.

Once finished, the link will add an already operable and underutilized 24 miles of Maryland trails (Anacostia Tributary Trail System) to 16 miles of trails in the District (Anacostia Riverfront Trail). About half of the District's involved trails are already completed, and the other half are currently under construction. For those willing to tolerate the sweat-soaked business attire that accompanies environmental stewardship, the trails will potentially serve as a commuting option for Marylanders coming into the city for work.

The area on which the proposed trail system will be built is in much better shape than it was a decade ago. An $8.5 million wetland rehabilitation effort in 2006 helped beautify the former dump site, but limited access into the area has made it difficult for citizens to recognize the dramatic improvement. The new trail will not only provide new options for commuters, but open the 22 acres of wetlands and wildlife to cycling and hiking eco-tourists looking for exercise and the chance at spotting a bald eagle or oh-so-adorable muskrat.

This much needed link was targeted by Gov. Martin O'Malley as Maryland's highest-priority trail project in his Maryland Trails Plan, made public earlier this spring. Mayor Fenty and his administration remain vocal in their commitment to providing the proper funding and support to ensure completion and maintenance of the link and involved trail-ways on the District's side of the border.

"This is just the first of eight major, missing-link projects proposed by the governor," explains Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) spokeswoman Erin Henson, "that when fully completed will connect over 800 miles of trail-ways. The goal is to encourage people to get out of their cars by offering transportation alternatives to commuters. The projects also intends to provide citizens with opportunities for a healthier, more active lifestyle, while connecting them to the local environment."

Washington D.C. Transportation News

New Condo Opens in Petworth

DC's newest condo project has opened in Petworth. The Flats at Taylor Street began sales in July after completing a one-year renovation of the 26 unit apartment building, with prices ranging from $199,900 to $299,900 for one and two-bedroom condominiums. The condo project, near the Petworth / Georgia Avenue Metro, is in one of DC's more active development districts, joining a cluster of other large projects either recently completed or underway. The new condominiums will beef up the housing stock, along with recently completed Park Place apartments and NDC's newly opened Residences at Georgia Avenue with Yes! Organic market, as well as the 130-unit apartment building Georgia Commons now underway one block south, Donatelli Development's apartment building going up across from the Metro and a new retail development next door, as well as a CVS that opened just last week, effectuating years of promises for upper Georgia Avenue. Taylor Flats, at 804 Taylor Street, NW, is the rebirth of an apartment building that was fully gutted in 2009, with unit layouts redesigned by Bonstra Haresign Architects for more contemporary living spaces that include in-unit washer & dryer and larger living rooms. Taylor Flats condos will also be the first large condominium to utilize CityFirst Homes, a District-sponsored program to give condo buyers downpayment assistance. The program provides moderate-income purchasers with $75,000 toward financing and downpayment costs, with an interest-only repayment for the first seven years at a fixed 3.79% interest rate, allowing a 2% downpayment without mortgage insurance. The remaining purchase price is financed privately through Bank of America. The condominium sales office is open on Sundays or by appointment, email sales @ TaylorFlats.com.

Washington DC real estate development news

For Two Young Boys, Universal Design Will Alter Their Universe

By Beth Herman

Imagine the world from a single spot on the floor, in a small wheelchair where most things extend beyond your reach. For two growing boys in Virginia, a conventional home with inadequate access on almost every front limited their participation in family life and put the burden, in every sense of the word, on their parents. Everyday tasks such as entering and exiting the house, bathing, studying and recreation challenged backs and brains; the need to do better for their family becoming a decade-long mission for aerospace engineer and Navy Captain Andy Cibula and his wife, Jennifer.

California transplants who’d “looked at 100 homes” in Reston, Springfield, Chantilly and other places during relocation efforts in 1999, their quest to find a ranch home for their first physically challenged child (the younger child was not yet born) was compromised by doorways and hallways not wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair. Finally settling upon a rambler in Reston, a restrictive home owner’s association handicapped a planned expansion after the birth of a second child with cerebral palsy in 2001, precipitating a move in 2003 to a four-bedroom, 2,500 s.f. rambler in Oakton - purchased with the intent to bump out the back of the house.

“We met with a few architects and no one was listening,” Jennifer Cibula recalled. “Bob (Robert Wilkoff, President, Archaeon Architects & Planners) was open to anything and everything, with a background in accessibility issues. The combination of the two really sold us,” she said.


Scion of late renowned industrial designer William L. Wilkoff, who’d pioneered many of the nation’s forays into universal, or barrier-free, design, was president of ASID (American Society of Interior Designers), served on the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities and co-authored Practicing Universal Design: An Interpretation of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), the younger Wilkoff carefully identified inherent design challenges in renovating an existing home that needed not only to accommodate disabled and growing children, currently ages 12 ½ and 9, but to enrich their lives as well.

Seeds
With initial meetings in 2003, and various medical and other issues precluding the family’s full immersion into the project until 2008, Wilkoff set out to create an environment that would embrace the children and eventually also support their mother, whose burgeoning orthopedic problems (she sometimes uses a cane) are the result of years of heavy lifting. The quest for specific products, fixtures and features that worked with the boys’ capabilities and limitations had many iterations over five years, Wilkoff said, noting that products came and went from manufacturers. Preliminary plans to expand through the back of the house were later jettisoned in favor of a complete renovation, with demolition (or “deconstruction,” where items are taken apart, inventoried and repurposed at another site) begun on July 15 and the family taking up temporary residence down the block.

Thorns
“The house is elevated off the ground by four or five steps,” Wilkoff said, noting the Cibula’s had to lift the boys in their wheelchairs several times a day. Inside, they could move through the halls and into their bedrooms in wheelchairs, but bathrooms and kitchens did not conform to the children’s needs. A finished basement down a flight of stairs with play space, adjacent to the garage where the family’s handicap van parks and lets them out, was also out of the children’s reach.

Among the first orders of business is a full elevator to utilize the basement, though according to Wilkoff the challenge lies in codes for residential elevators that have a maximum footprint which will not accommodate two wheelchairs. “Their mom has to be with both kids – get them both into the elevator and move them up and down,” Wilkoff explained. “Otherwise, you’d have to put one in, go up, come down, put the other one in, which is just insane so we are seeking a special exception to code without the expenditure of putting in a commercial elevator, which costs three times as much.”

Taking Root
In the boys’ bedrooms which will flank a common bathroom, a ceiling track will allow a push button-controlled lift to travel from their beds to the bathroom, with a turnstile ferrying the boys to shower, bath or individual lavatories which can move up and down 18 inches as they grow. Fold-down grab bars will punctuate the space and can disappear when not in use. Precluding the need for heavy wheelchair transfers by their parents or a caregiver when lavatory-bound, the boys can be rolled from bed into a suspended harness which goes up and down. For dressing, rods and shelving in the closets drop down where the children can access them from their wheelchairs.

In the bathroom, a tub with sliding 30-inch door will facilitate movement from a wheelchair, should the boys not be in the lift, directly into the tub. “There have been accessible tubs around for a long time with little swing doors,” Wilkoff said, “but the problem was that they’d been designed for somebody who could walk into them. This tub is elevated to the same level as the seat of a wheelchair, so someone can slide themselves in and close the door.” Where the shower, which is separate, is concerned, Wilkoff said “…basically the entire bathroom is built as a shower; there’s no curb and the floor pitches over very gradually toward the actual shower space so any water that spills (from other sources) will roll over to it.” In the parents’ bathroom, a similar no-threshold shower and a tub conceived for transfers (not the same as the one in the boys’ bathroom) will also accommodate Jennifer if her condition worsens. Back in the boys’ bathroom, a push button-operated changing table that folds against the wall will move from floor all the way up to table level, where the children can be dried and dressed.

According to Jennifer, because their older son has the use of one hand with very good dexterity and his brother, though more challenged, can operate push buttons and the like with some focus, it was important to have a kitchen and family room that encouraged their participation in various activities. To that end, at the push of a button the kitchen counter will raise and lower 14 inches for wheelchairs to slide underneath and cabinets on wall-mounted, articulated lifts will descend to wheelchair height where the boys can open doors and retrieve objects. In the family room, desks will move up or down to accommodate different wheelchairs as the children grow, and wall cabinets that store school supplies will function on the same principle as those in the kitchen. The finished basement, with an exercise room, is also home to the train room, where Andy Cibula keeps large-scale trains that the boys love. “They run them all around the yard, so we’re building this room with a mini-garage door so they can go from inside the house, drive around the yard and come back,” Wilkoff smiled. On this level, just outside the elevator, a “wheelchair corral” will provide storage for pieces of equipment not being used in the house.

In Full Bloom
Outside the front door, Wilkoff indicated plans became “tricky” when the home’s elevation had to be raised even more than the old structure - the impetus, low headroom in the basement. As such, a series of complicated ramps in the guise of a meandering walkway with engaging landscaping will be created to facilitate the boys’ egress as they wheel down to grade level and out to the bus, a distance increased by the design but originally deemed “55-60 feet as the crow flies,” according to Wilkoff.

Aesthetically, because interior spaces are large and high, hall ceilings will be visually broken up for the boys’ interest. The bottom cord of the roof trusses will protrude through the ceiling in one place, and a deep bench storage seat at the end of the hallway will invite them to sit and read or play.

“I don’t think people realize good design can be compatible with this kind of functionality,” Wilkoff said, explaining that to Archaeon Architects & Planners, this is not an issue at all. “When you walk into this house, it’s going to be a custom, beautiful home. No one will look at it and say it looks a little bit like a nursing home or hospital facility, something very important to Andy and Jennifer and to the boys as they grow up.” In fact, very much in the Cibulas’ plans is the practicality of a caregiver feeling comfortable in the house for the rest of the boys’ lives when their parents are gone.

“If you take all of the elderly now, and the preemies (premature babies) who all died in the past – now they’re surviving with these disabilities,” Jennifer said. “Ten years ago they didn’t make it, but they do today,” she added, affirming the increasing need for design, without stigma, that both facilitates and enriches their lives.

Washington D.C. design news

Big Bear Cafe Mauled By Angry ANC Members

Every hipster's favorite independent coffee house seems to be tangled up in a web of bureaucratic tape as it attempts to expand its business; and nagging NIMBY'ers don't seem to be aiding their cause. The Bloomingdale-based Big Bear Cafe's recent attempts at getting a proper liquor license, along with its appeal to the local ANC for their support in such endeavors, have been heavily covered by local blogs. But for fans of Big Bear Cafe the news being reported hasn't exactly been peachy. Last week ANC 5C lettered a harshly worded official report voicing the commission's strong and unanimous opposition to Big Bear Cafe's liquor license application. The letter accused Big Bear of, among other things, "operating illegally" (without proper zoning documentation) since 2007. It seems these allegations were a bit sensationalist in nature, and generally inaccurate. Owner Stuart Davenport and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) confirmed that the premise has grandfathered permission to operate as a commercial entity, having existed as a zoning exception for over a century.

But as Davenport and Big Bear look to expand their operations, they've petitioned the Zoning Commission for a map adjustment that would grant their property C-2-A status (currently zoned as 4 - A residential), thereby allowing more leeway in the business's efforts to increase capacity numbers, to freely expand onto the sidewalks and public space, to hold musical events, poetry readings, and the like, and to sell beer and wine to customers. Zoning officials were not much more sympathetic than the rabble rousing ANC commissioners. On Monday Zoning agreed to set down a public hearing of the applicant's case, but did so with stonewalled faces, and seemingly obdurate concerns. One panel member expressed his reservations about what might happen if the potentially C-2-A-zoned property changes hands in the future. "Theoretically it could be torn down and rebuilt ten feet higher," he worried. "We've seen that happen, where a skinny apartment building is constructed in the midst of several row houses, and it just doesn't fit - it doesn't work." Board member May, proved he too had been watching the local blog forum drama unfold when he timidly said: “There are some legitimate concerns in the neighborhood about the use of this property. The existing use seems to be a very comfortable fit…but gee, a liquor license there, or a sidewalk cafe? I’m not sure.”

Foregoing the normal prerequisite ANC support, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) heard Big Bear Cafe's request for a liquor license early on the morning of the 26th. If approved Big Bear would be able to please customers who might want a little whiskey in their coffee. Liquor could be served until 1AM outside and 2AM inside on Friday and Saturday. On weeknights, patrons could enjoy their cocktails until ten in the evening. No ruling on the case will be made for 60 to 90 days, as ABRA must allow time for a subsequent "status hearing" and potentially a "protest hearing" if complications and objections cannot be solved through party mediation. It seems that any chance of making it safely through the ABRA application process is heavily reliant on Big Bear's ability to quell the local ANC's fears of their neighborhood quickly deteriorating into the mass hysteria of a late night in Adams Morgan. The time frame also allows for the applicant to negotiate the zoning map amendment process prior to its reappearance before ABRA. Another Commission hearing has yet to be scheduled, and won't happen for at least another 40 days.

These melodramatic happenings don't just make for juicy blog content, they also have serious implications. One question that arises from the flames: how can such a popular business that has faithfully served the community for several years - in an area that has a dismally minuscule number of retail and restaurant options - be so angrily opposed by residents? Big Bear Cafe was even granted the Mayor's 2009 Environment Excellence award. Granted, that sounds like a meaningless certificate a third grade teacher would give to make sure all her students felt appreciated, but still! Another logical question is: why is the ANC bestowed the authority to raise such a hissy fit? It seems the large majority of the community is in support of the business's plans (600 signed a petition in support of the liquor license application), but the ANC has given a symbolic megaphone to a minority of elected curmudgeons in opposition. When an organizations only real power is to say no to things, it's apparent that they are more likely to conjure the zeitgeist of prohibition-era attitudes in order to play devil's advocate. How can residents expect property values to improve if amenities like restaurants, bars, and markets are not readily incorporated into the community? For awhile at least, patrons of Big Bear Cafe will have to settle for a caffeine induced buzz, or go elsewhere.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

WMATA Gives B.F. Saul OK to Develop Near Wheaton Metro

Already a major player in the District's real estate development game, B.F. Saul will now head a team of developers charged with bringing a mixed-use project near the Wheaton Metro station to life. This is just another materialization of a well-established effort by WMATA and its Director of Real Estate Steven Goldin to promote increased density, mass-transit-directed residential, retail, and office space through the Metro's Joint Development Program. "Selection of the B.F. Saul team for the Wheaton redevelopment project mirrors the successful strategy Montgomery County employed with Silver Spring," Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett said. The parcel is part of 10 that were offered up as development opportunities just last January.

The new development will certainly help address many of goals set out by Wheaton Central Business District and Vicinity Sector Plan, including their hopes to: "Reinvigorate Wheaton’s downtown by creating a walkable community with a distinct identity; create a vibrant mix of jobs and housing; design quality public spaces inviting to pedestrians; and foster an environmentally sustainable community." Sounds delightful. Developers will also be expected to do all of the above while "preserving Wheaton’s ethnic diversity." The original plan was laid out in 1990, before the red line had surfaced in Wheaton. Since 2006 the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has taken it upon themselves to update the plan; the augmented plan is to be unveiled at a Montgomery Planning Board public hearing today.

While Metro has successfully completed a total of 21 transit oriented development projects so far, including notable Maryland-based developments such as Bethesda Metro Center, Grosvenor, Twinbrook and Wheaton (east), others like Greenbelt Venture's plans around the Greenbelt stations have wallowed in the rubble of inaction for years; just this year plans set for the area surrounding the Largo station were put on hold after the group of developers filed for bankruptcy.

In an effort to make this 8.2 acres only one working part of a more comprehensive and expansive redevelopment of downtown Wheaton, B.F. Saul will look to cooperate with existing local businesses and land owners such as the Westfield Wheaton Shopping Center to peacefully incorporate the new projects into the established community.

Wheaton was listed by Governor Martin O'Malley as one of the initial projects in a newly unveiled state Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) program, which will continue to encourage similar developments by bolstering them with funding, tax credits and other financial incentives and tools.

B.F. Saul will spearhead a team that includes Silver Spring-based Torti Gallas and Partners Inc. as lead design architect, as well as Rockville-based Loiederman Soltesz Associates Inc. as civil engineers, responsible for levelheadedly carrying out the architectural plans.

The Wheaton project will be the beneficiary of $200,000 in planning funds, compliments of the deep-pocketed Maryland Transportation Department.

Wheaton, Maryland real estate development news

West End To Get Independent Movie Theater At Former Site Of The Inner Circle

For D.C. film nerds and pseudo-intellectual George Washington University students in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the Washington-based Circle Theater chain was an oasis of obscure, independent, foreign, and cult films and documentaries; and may be so again in just a few months. Built in 1911, the original Circle Theater at 2105 Pennsylvania Avenue stood as the oldest film venue in the District for almost ninety years. To the chagrin of $1 matinee frequenters, it was demolished in the late '80s to make way for a 12-story office complex. Although its various sister-theaters (Circle West End 1-4, later the Inner Circle 1-4, as well as Inner Circle 5-7) held on to life for some years after, they were subsequently bought and sold, each now demolished or out of operation for several years. But luckily for those Washingtonians nostalgic for the art-house film chain, the one remaining venue unscathed by wrecking balls will be resuscitated and reopened this fall. Josh Levin, a New York film producer and distributor has leased the building formerly housing Inner Circle 5-7, and has plans in the works to reopen the venue as the West End Theater.

Circle Theaters first expanded to include the West End property (1101 23rd Street NW) on August 17, 1977. In 1985 the chain amassed another property just a block north at 2301 M Street NW, a three auditorium venue that sat 94, 78, and 55 people. This theater became the Inner Circle 5-7, and later simply the Inner Circle when the Inner Circle 1-4 was torn down to build the Ritz Carlton residences (adjacent to the hotel).


The movie house has not shown a film since 2003, but that will change soon, as the property is set to become the new West End Theater. A few seats will be subtracted from each of the three viewing rooms, in order to make the venue a bit roomier and classier, but of course without losing the intimate feel. The cinematic repertoire will remain much the same, showing "first-run independent films, art house, documentary, and remastered classic films." No significant structural changes are needed as the venue "still has the projector systems, platters, sound systems, screens, seats and concessions line exactly where they were when the theater closed in late 2003, early 2004," according to Levin. Going inside to discover the eerily but cleanly foresaken theater was a bit "like a science fiction film," Levin told the West End Friends, "where the humans have been erased but everything else remains."

While the multiplex is not equipped with a kitchen, Levin plans to serve salads and sandwiches in addition to traditional theater snacks - think Jujyfruits and popcorn. He is also pursuing a full liquor license to serve beer and wine, with the hope of offering cocktails as well. Levin presented his plans to the ANC last week, and an application should go before Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) shortly. There seems to be some apprehension from some members of ANC2A concerning small details of the liquor license, but no serious roadblocks stand in the way of Levin's plans - ABRA is well-known for its strong pro-business tendencies.

Even though major renovation is unnecessary, the interior will be refitted to some extent: the seats will be replaced, as will the drapes, the bathrooms redone, and lighting fixtures updated. "A luxury screening room setting with plush leather seats and real food and drinks," is Levin's aim. On July 21st, Josh confirmed his business intentions via the internet, assuring film geeks on the website Cinema Treasures (dedicated to iconic movie houses) that West End Circle Theater would soon be moved from the "old listings" to the "new listings."

The architect of the original Circle Theatre was A.B. Mallett & Co/Luther Ray. Ray was well known during his time as a designer of restaurants and commercial store fronts, and also did considerable business producing large porcelain enamel signage for local businesses. Pictured right is an old rendering of the design for Hahn Shoes (located at Seventh and K Streets NW) drawn by Luther Ray. Although the Art Deco styling of the Circle Theater was faded and crumbling by the time obscure foreign films like the Italian classic Bicycle Theives or Ladri di Biciclette (1948) made its way onto the reels, the theater remained a film-buff favorite for over two decades. Jim and Ted Pedas took over the cinema in 1957 as local law students and ambitious film-enthusiasts. Their repertory cinema venture was so successful, they not only expanded into a chain operation, but also founded Circle Films, an independent film production company. The brothers along with two other business partners produced many of the Coen brothers early cult favorites, including: Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller's Crossing (1990), and Barton Fink (1991).

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

The Christmas Architects

Yes, Virginia, Maryland and D.C., there is a Santa Claus. Though they may not see themselves that way, to the residents of Ward 8’s embattled Wheeler Terrace, 1217 Valley Ave. SE, Old St. Nick came in the guise of Wiencek & Associates, a 30-member Maryland and D.C.-based architecture firm whose primary focus is community building, one crime scene at a time.

“I can’t say it was the worst of the buildings we’d seen in D.C.,” firm President Michael Wiencek said of the initial 113 units spread among seven structures (during renovation, three more units were added), “but it was not a place you’d choose to live if you had other choices. It had lots and lots of problems: a lot of moisture in the building; falling ceilings and damaged floors; the sewage backed up into the basement. People were robbed at gunpoint regularly in that area. It was one of the District’s top 14 crime hotspots.”

Point of Sale

When Wheeler Terrace’s former owners decided to sell, under TOPA (D.C.’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act) residents were given the option to purchase the property and formed the Wheeler Terrace Tenant Association. The group eventually chose the Community Preservation and Development Corporation (CPDC) as developer for the 133,000 s.f. site, with 25-year affordable housing renovation veterans Wiencek & Associates in tow.

With housing projects such as Edgewood Terrace, Southern Ridge and Overlook at Oxon Run in their fight book, Wiencek explained that when they approach a project such as this, the goal is as much a social renovation as it is a physical one. There are matters of crime and conscience to be considered, with aesthetics often impacting the end result.

With a slogan that says “Let us welcome you home,” Wiencek said he wants people to have a sense of place. “I always talk about the kid who never really wanted to bring their friends to their house because it wasn’t a place you wanted to show. But then when you get done, you can say, ‘That’s my home. Come on over.’”

Point of View
In the case of Wheeler Terrace, as with many affordable housing projects, he admits budgetary constraints warranted trade-offs with exterior plans and finishes that would have included green roofs, green screens and trellises, which yielded to critical interior components such as bathrooms, insulation and ventilation. Built in the 1940s as housing for WWII veterans (Richard Nixon reportedly lived nearby as a junior senator), the garden-style units were saddled with antiquated, inoperative and even dangerous mechanical systems, leaky steel casement single glaze windows and moldy finishes, among other things.

Though champions of dozens of public and general multifamily housing renovations, in the last decade with green building still a nascent yet burgeoning trend Wiencek & Associates typically fought a losing battle for sustainable solutions in its public housing designs due to economics. Where Wheeler Terrace was concerned (and though Wiencek’s initial 2006 funding submission was not green) the D.C. Green Building Act, which mandates various levels of LEED compliance, went into effect during the design process so that construction became less about standard practices and more about best practices. “In the past, you were sort of laughed at if you tried to push people,” Wiencek said. “But now, three years later, we’d be laughed at if we didn’t make it green – absolutely green.” The firm goes the extra step in achieving this by integrating green charrettes into the planning process: intensive workshops where the project’s decision-makers collectively address sustainable issues.

According to James “Jay” Wilson, Wheeler Terrace project manager for Wiencek & Associates and task force member of the D.C. Green Building Act, pursuing grants from the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) helped facilitate the kind of “healthy construction” the firm desired. With asthma and other respiratory illnesses pervasive among residents - largely children - of public housing due to moisture, mold, filthy ductwork and high voc (volatile organic compound) issues, Wiencek & Associates moved to install hard surface flooring in place of carpeting in each unit’s common areas, reducing particulates. Thicker filters were installed on all the HVAC equipment, as well as using low-voc paint and other finishes, and urea/formaldehyde-free cabinets. Tantamount to that, where the average unit wasn’t required to have outside air produced in the building prior to the Green Building Act (Wiencek said if you turn on a bathroom fan in most city apartments, there’s nothing replacing the air, and often nothing is even pulled out), at Wheeler Terrace fans are on a constant circuit - meaning they are always on - so units are continuously ventilated; there’s always a fresh air exchange. In fact, per the parameters of the NCHH grant, resident health will be followed over the next 10 years to see if healthy construction has made a difference.

Hot Point

“Usually in the winter time, you have to heat air that’s 30 degrees up to 70 degrees to heat the unit,” Wilson said, referencing the ground source heat pump mechanical system – or geothermal heating – installed at the site. One hundred wells go down 350-450 feet, utilizing a glycol mixture which prevents freezing, among other things. “Now you’re heating a water mixture, which comes in through a heating chamber in the building, always at a constant 55 degrees, so it ends up being 35 percent more efficient than a typical system,” Wilson explained.

Speaking to “CPDC’s altruism,” Wiencek indicated the mechanical system cost the developer a lot of money. “Most developers would never elect to do this because they’d say ‘I’m not going to get payback,’” Wiencek said, noting the $7-10,000 per unit overage vs. a standard system. The thinking behind this is that in affordable housing, you’re trying to get the resident to pay for utilities because then they respect them and are more likely to use them efficiently, according to Wiencek. “The residents will have lower utility costs, but it did cost more in the first place.”

Point Well Taken

In proud pursuit of LEED Gold, Wilson noted the documentation process is nearly finished and if achieved, Wheeler Terrace may be the first Section 8 affordable housing development in the U.S. to garner it.

“It’s great advertising for the city, the developer,” Wiencek said. “One of the neat things about the kind of housing we do is that we get a lot of joy out of helping people - changing people’s lives,” he added, noting residents respect that they’ve been given this great opportunity and crime is significantly down since the renovation. “You really raise the bar on living in that neighborhood.” The grand opening will occur this Thursday, July 29.

Photography by Eric Taylor, EricTaylorPhoto.com

Recognition From HPRB A Long Time Coming For Neglected Southwest House

Formerly home to the Southwest Community House Organization (SWCH), a now defunct non-profit social organization that had served the encompassing low-income neighborhoods of southwest D.C., a historic black and white, detached brick house at 156 Q Street, SW is once again the James C. Dent House. Last week the Historical Preservation Review Board gave its blessing of historical protection to the property and recommended to the National Park Service that the home be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The home is located on Buzzard Point, the urbanized sector of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers.

The southwest quadrant of the original city of Washington has a long and storied past, and is home to some of the oldest buildings in L'Efant's originally planned cityscape. Often forgotten as an original site for the many large, gracious river front mansions that housed much of the political elite, the area is most frequently chronicled for its reputation as a shabby neighborhood of awkward racial diversity. In 1920, Washington Star journalist John Harry Shannon (aka "The Rambler") wrote of the areas frequently overlooked but nonetheless pedigreed heritage:

"It is not easy to name a member of an old South Washington family whose grandfather or grandmother did not live between the Arsenal and the two rivers. Thousands of men and women now living in the 'parks: 'heights' and 'terraces' will cast their thoughts back to the old family home on the Navy Yard or the Island. It was not many years ago that Northwest Washington was commons, pastures, bog, forest, rugged hill and steep ravine. What is now South Washington was then all Washington, with the exception of a narrow fringe of settlement north of the Avenue."

Early nineteenth century plans for the construction of stately homes and a bustling commercial district never quite fully materialized, and for over a century the southwest, consisting mostly of what is known as "the Island," remained a modest residential host to the rowhouses, tenements, shacks, and even the odd tent of blue-collar workers, the majority of them African Americans with a small portion being working-class whites (predominantly Jewish). Although the increasingly putrid James Creek turned Washington City Canal and a series of explosions at the Washington Arsenal cemented the area as one of the less desirable parts of the city, the neighborhoods were symbolic of the ever fleeting American dream for the newly emancipated, as many freed African Americans had looked to build new lives and legacies on these lands since the days immediately following the Civil War.

Perhaps no Southwest resident is more emblematic of this dream of social and economic ascension than James C. Dent. Born into slavery in 1855, Dent grew up a farm laborer in the tobacco country of southern Maryland. Dent eventually made his way to southwest D.C. as a laborer, mostly employed in a lime kiln, and married a Virginia seamstress. In 1885, his wife Mary and several parishioners founded the Mount Moriah Baptists Church. Several months after it opened the first pastor stepped down, and in May of 1886 Dent took his place and proceeded to take the church to prominence within Washington's black religious community - overseeing it's transition into several newer and nicer buildings (it is now located on East Capital Street, NE), and serving as pastor for over 22 years.

In 1906, in an unusual move indicative of the racial and economic disparity of the area, Dent hired a white architect to build a house to replace the modest, timber-framed dwelling he had lived in with his wife for many years. William James Palmer, a prominent rowhouse architect, was commissioned for the design. During the year of construction, Palmer, whose body of work was largely concentrated in Dupont Circle and Columbia Heights, was praised in the Washington Post for designing a row of houses in Mt. Pleasant that exhibited "architectural beauty, stability, and refinement of taste." A couple non-residential, Palmer-designed properties of note include Union Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as the Navel Lodge and AME Church on Capitol Hill. While Dent's home may seem rather average in appearance compared to the contemporaneous homes of the designated historic districts to the north and northwest, the detached brick edifice was no doubt a remarkable anomaly among the many surrounding shacks on Buzzard Point, and even more exceptional for having endured the "urban renewal" of the 1950's that saw many of the areas homes and churches razed.

As the setting of a unique American story, in which an African American man made the transition from slave to property owner to middle class professional within a single generation, the HPRB has designated the James C. Dent House a D.C. Landmark. In doing so, a small but unique part of the narrative of racial progress within the nation's capitol will be forever preserved. The building is now owned by PEPCO, and has stood vacant since SWCH left in 2004. Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

La Vida VIDA: New Affordable Senior Housing in Brightwood

La vida living is about to get easier in Washington D.C. District-based VIDA will break ground tomorrow on a new residential project in Brightwood, adding 36 residential units in a new building structured for affordable senior housing.

Formerly known as Educational Organization for United Latin Americans, the newly renamed 501(c)(3) that serves over 600 DC-area seniors annually is getting ready to add another 36 units to its stock. Located on Missouri Avenue on a now vacant lot, VIDA will build affordable senior housing in Ward 4, where the largest concentration of the District's seniors live. This is the first time VIDA is developing housing, with financing that got creative. The development team - comprised of VIDA Senior Centers, Dantes Partners as the Development Consultant, Zavos Architecture and Design, NDC Real Estate for property management, and Hamel Builders as General Contractor - used a multilayer financing approach. Tapping into federal stimulus programs (Section 1602 Tax Credit Exchange), Neighborhood Investment Funds (NIF), private bank debt and an Enterprise Green Communities grant, the development secured financing for an area that has seen little new residential development since the financing bust several years ago. "We were fortunate to have been selected as an innovative project that served a unique need. We were lucky enough to have partners who believed in our vision," said Jordan Bishop of Dantes Partners.

With four stories of new affordable and accessible rental units, the five-story independent-living senior center will provide services that include meals, music, presentations, dancing, minor checkups, medication management, "spiritual activities," and private van transportation, and of course bingo and chess. The project is being billed as "transit-oriented development," despite the lack of a nearby Metro station, which makes it easier to get the zoning variance of 4 parking spots rather than the required 6.

Zavos Architecture and Design, a firm with experience in non-profit, affordable and sustainable community-oriented development, designed into the project a number of "quality of life improving" and energy reducing features. Those include a vegetated roof with walk-on terrace space to manage storm water, reduce heating and cooling loads on the building and provide outdoor green space for residents; permeable parking and other drive areas to allow storm water to filter naturally into the ground and reallocate infrastructural funds to services; high-emissive roofing rather than traditional EPDM to deflect the sun's heat and reduce associated cooling costs; privately metered electricity and hot water to encourage reduced consumption (for a generation always yelling at you to wear a sweater and turn down the heat, that shouldn't be an issue); improved indoor air quality through the installation of non-toxic and non-allergenic flooring; and the maximization of daylight in all units to minimize the use of artificial lighting and improve indoor environmental quality.

"I am most proud of having been able to fit so many services in such a small building. Envisioning people spending the latter part of their lives in this building is something we took seriously. We have designed a quality place for them," remarked Tim Daniel, the project architect for the VIDA-developed housing.

While the elderly account for 12% of the District’s population, retirement age individuals make up over 18% of the population of Ward 4. VIDA has traditionally served the District’s Latino senior citizens, but it is expanding its target demographic to meet growing needs in other populations, specifically identifying African-Americans and immigrants of Caribbean and Brazilian backgrounds, among others.

"The initial goal was always to provide high quality senior housing at affordable rental rates (50% AMI - Area Median Income) and to combine this with space on the ground floor to provide services specifically targeted to seniors. With the recent closing and groundbreaking, we are well on track to achieving these desirable goals," said Jordan Bishop of Dantes Partners. The groundbreaking will take place at 10:30am.

Washington DC real estate development news