In a toney Boston hotel bar officially and affectionately known as "The Clink," imbibers toast a promotion, an engagement or a vacation, but steps away the ghosts of storied inmates such as Malcolm X and Sacco and Vanzetti have far less to celebrate.
Located inside the city’s plush
Liberty Hotel, The Clink, along with the rest of the property, was part of a $150 million acquisition, renovation and construction process that turned the pre-Civil War era Charles Street Jail into a 300-room luxury hotel, opening in 2007, and retaining some of the former correctional facility’s ambience such as the tiers which guards would patrol and a 90-foot central rotunda.
Prior to the Liberty Hotel venture, however, and about 130 years after the Charles Street Jail opened, a somewhat unprecedented inmate class-action suit had resulted in
Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr.’s findings that the facility, with amenities that
included an “exercise” yard where inmates simply marched in a circle, did not meet “constitutional minima,” meaning it did not conform to the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In 1980, Judge Garrity ordered a new jail built on the premises, and newly-minted Washington D.C.-based
HOK architect
James Kessler, now a senior principal, began an unwitting journey into justice design that to date has spanned 30 years.
Working in conjunction with Boston-based architects
Stull and Lee Inc., Kessler recalled the design of a new Charles Street Jail was a situation that involved five parties: the mayor and city council, which had diametrically opposed agendas; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; the Department of Corrections; the
plaintiffs or inmates. “All five parties came to every design meeting,” Kessler said, adding there was little or no trust among the entities. In the end, the HOK/Stull and Lee, Inc.-envisioned project was never built, with the Commonwealth taking over responsibility from the city and building another design at a different site. “It was very unusual. I’ve never had a situation like that since,” he reflected, calling it a great learning experience and most “formative” for him as a young architect, especially in the realm of prison design. “There’s the architect, the technical side, the operational side – all complex and important – all key to its success – but they exist in a world of politics and larger priorities…,” Kessler said.
2010: A Video Odyssey
Increasingly, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, with issues such as sustainability and skyrocketing operating costs at the forefront of holistic justice design, Kessler and HOK colleagues, credited nationally for prison reform of the design kind, and who count among their more regional achievements the Montgomery County Correctional Facility near Clarksburg, Md., Prince William-Manassas Regional Adult Detention Center and Virginia’s Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center, look for ways to expedite and streamline operational components such as inmate/visitor communications. Because a correctional facility operates 24/7, 365 days a year, much like a hospital, and with 90 percent of the budget spent on operations and 75 percent of that on staffing alone, concepts such as inmate video conferencing with visitors are swiftly replacing conventional face-to-face visitation and resulting in lower operating costs.
In the past, according to Kessler, when someone came to visit an inmate, movement of the inmate through the secure facility was exceptionally time consuming and staff-intensive. In more modern facilities like Prince William-Manassas detention center, visitors entering the facility interact with inmates via video, precluding the need for the latter’s procession through the building and prolonged staff involvement. In the event of an attorney, psychologist or social worker visit where privacy is paramount, the professional can go to an isolated booth also equipped with video capabilities. “Maybe you lose a little something,” Kessler conceded, referring to more personal interaction, “but we know information can be conveyed quite well with video: it’s not just a phone call.”
1785: A View to a Kill (or not)From earliest times and by popular literary example in Dickensian times, when prisons were essentially dungeons with populations randomly consisting of men, women and children thrown together to fend for themselves with no supervision, little thought was given to matters of crowd control. In 1785, Age of Reason English philosopher and social theorist
Jeremy Bentham had famously conceptualized the Panopticon, a prison concept that went through
40 years of machinations but which, mostly for political reasons, was never built. Largely by virtue of its circular design, the Panopticon would have allowed officials to consistently observe prisoners from key vantage points without their knowledge. In this regard, operating costs would decrease because fewer staff would be required to be on duty as inmates would never be sure who, how many, or if anyone at all was watching (but they’d surmise it was better not to take a chance). Subsequent prisons throughout the world have reportedly been based on the Panopticon principle, which espouses the theory that “observation is control.”
According to Kessler, in prison life observation clearly is control, something he recalls an HOK colleague, formerly with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, explaining to him at an evolutionary time in his own career. Widely self-educated in prison history and inmate psychology (he calls upon experts such as cultural anthropologist Anita Wilson, an expert in prison subcultures), the confluence of both is integral to creating modern facilities that address the needs of changing prison populations that include men, women, juveniles, the mentally and physically challenged, violent criminals and an elderly component.
1998: You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby
Incarcerated women, for example, are more likely to change, or want to change, Kessler said, noting “an incredibly high percentage – more than 50 percent – have been abused as children.” Statistically they also have more health issues than men, and 75 percent are mothers with the added burden of being away from their children, exacerbated by having been abandoned by their own parents in similar situations. “They are in that cycle,” Kessler affirmed, adding that they characteristically suffer from low self-esteem, which essentially indentures them to men, and are also generally the sole support of their families (often parents as well as children). When they serve time, in an interesting twist, they are relieved of all of those constraints and responsibilities with time to spend on their own health and development, so they adjust much better to prison life.
In the past, and sometimes at present, Kessler said parity issues arise vis-Ã -vis men’s prisons, with fewer opportunities and programs available to women who comprise a much smaller percentage of the prison population.
When he and his team embarked on a $38 million design of Virginia’s Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women, which opened in 1998, included in its context were a large medical facility, a computer center where inmates do actual data processing and receive money for their families and an area where they can learn to repair motors and small appliances. In correctional facilities such as Shakopee (Minn.) Women’s Prison,
also an HOK project, in-cell trundle beds exist so children can occasionally spend the night with their mothers to preserve or deepen the parenting bond.
One of the goals during incarceration, Kessler explained, is to ameliorate the anger that defines inmates. According to Kessler, because research has determined women have a much greater need for privacy than men, requiring them to live in open dormitories would very possibly build on that anger rather than helping to relieve it. At Fluvanna, though the initial concept identified 50-person dormitories, Kessler fought to build double cells, though tethered to a dormitory budget which was much less. “We arranged a design where we used four day rooms (surrounded by double cells) and made a very simple, inexpensive cross-shaped housing unit,” he said. Cells were “dry,” with toilets located in common bathrooms, which is better by sustainable standards. With a toilet in each cell, according to Kessler, by code 100 percent of the air must be expelled, and with it the heating and cooling. Without in-cell plumbing, air can be re-circulated out into dayrooms with savings on ductwork.
2003: Field of Dreams
Near Clarksburg, Maryland, the creation of the modern 900-bed (notably expandable to 1,100) Montgomery County Correctional Facility, opened in 2003 with an emphasis on sustainability, presented design challenges that included addressing environmental issues inherent in its rural 300-acre site while providing what officials called a humane
environment for inmates. Located at the headwaters of Ten Mile Creek, a registered trout stream, Kessler and his team tipped the site so all the runoff was collected in one area and allowed to cool before it was discharged into the stream. Constructed on the site of a sludge entrenchment area, sludge was tested and found to have aged to the point of zero-toxicity; it was retrieved and stockpiled for organic topsoil.
Inside the facility, which utilizes recycled rubber flooring in parts, low-VOC paint and sealants, a day room made of sustainable oak and 30 small pulse boilers instead of one large boiler for hot water conservation, tiers of glass
allow natural light to permeate the space from an outdoor recreation yard. Each cell has a window, something Kessler’s research and experience reveals is critical to an inmate’s emotional well-being and resulting behavior, which consequently affects the need for special staffing measures that can translate into dollars. Double cells do contain toilets, which Kessler said “…is a very important administrative tool: It means they can lock them in their cells.” Direct supervision, a modern metamorphosis of “observation is control,” means the guard is situated at a desk right in the middle of things. “It’s not based on physical force,” Kessler explained. “It’s based on authority and psychological authority. It’s based on mutual respect, and that’s from where the authority derives.”
Kessler summarized his work in justice design by affirming that the first priority is to make the facility as efficient as possible, because that’s where the “big dollars” are. He maintains this is balanced with keeping it safe and secure, keeping the staff safe, keeping inmates, visitors and the community safe. “As architects,” Kessler said, “we have social responsibilities and certain sensitivities, perceptions and skills to deal with unusual situations for the people that work in them, the people that visit them and for the people that are in them, because they are still human.”
The D.C. Preservation League, which annually issues a list of the District's most endangered properties in hopes of scaring developers into action, and preservationists into sign-painting and check-writing, has recently issued its new list for the year. This year the Preservation Leauge has focused it's 2010-attention on the preservation and renovation of the District's neglected firehouses. A special emphasis was placed on pre-WWII firehouses and police stations. Thankfully, two years ago Argos hammered out a deal with the District to redevelop two foresaken buildings: Firehouse No. 10 at 1341 Maryland Avenue, NE and Police Precinct No. 9 Station at 525 9th Street, NE. Developers refer to the two renovations as the Capitol Hill Condominiums, "The Station" and "The Engine House" respectively. In 2008 the Historic Preservation Review Board designate Engine House No. 10 as a Historic Landmark. While the 115-year history of public use of the firehouse will be sacrificed for the purpose of private residences, the character of both buildings, and their attractive, storied facades will be maintained for the enjoyment of passers by and history-lovers alike.
Designed by architect and firehouse specialist Leon Emile Dessez (1858-1919), erected in 1894, and completed in 1895, HPRB claimed in 2008 that the structure "is probably the best and most characteristic example of a Victorian-era firehouse still owned by the District." Sorg Architects has tackled the challenge of retrofitting the building with two market rate condos and two smaller affordable units. The former police station on 9th Street will be an almost identical project, with just enough room for an additional condo. The footprint of both the Engine House and the Station will be strictly maintained, with both facades to be restored with masonry refurbishment, various touch-ups, and only the slightest of noticeable augmentations. Windows and doors will be replaced, fading paint of old will be stripped away, and the addition of a few small second floor awnings will ready the building for residents. The interiors on the other hand will be completely gutted and overhauled - the roof, walls, flooring, HVAC, plumbing, electricity, and the works will all be replaced. 
Work on southeast DC's grand Canal Park will be set in motion on Tuesday, at least officially, when the District holds a formal ceremony to celebrate the new park that will grace the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood a few blocks from Nationals Stadium. Actual construction has not yet been scheduled, but the park's caretakers are showing progress, having just selected Davis Construction to build it and Blake Dickson Real Estate to locate a suitable 
restaurateur for the pavilion on the park's southern end.
The 3-acre park will offer a variety of water features, but its most iconic feature will be the pavilion designed by Studios Architecture. Wayne Dickson of Blake Dickson Real Estate notes that Canal Park will be an environmental improvement as well as an aesthetic one, and projects that the Canal Park Development Association will select a "family-oriented" restaurant that offers positive synergy with its green locale.
Despite the lack of hard start dates, promoters are sticking to a late 2011 completion date . The design incorporates a boardwalk, "rain garden," three pavilions, ponds, a large fountain, sunken amphitheater, and seasonal ice rink
The District is picking up a $13.5m tab to ensure the success of the park in what is destined to become the centerpiece of the neighborhood. The bill is a relative steal compared to what DC spent on the stadium next door, and the Lerners can't even charge for admission. Total costs for the project have not yet been determined. William C. Smith & Co., one of the early developers in the area, is an organizer of and contributor to the park development association.
Philadelphia-based OLIN is the landscape architect for the project. The federal government still owns the land in arrangement that gives full control to the District, which in turn has a 20-year agreement with the Canal Park Development Association to develop and manage the land. The canal that once ran across the site connected the Anacostia to Tiber Creek (now buried under Constitution Avenue), which ran to the C&O canal. 
included an “exercise” yard where inmates simply marched in a circle, did not meet “constitutional minima,” meaning it did not conform to the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In 1980, Judge Garrity ordered a new jail built on the premises, and newly-minted Washington D.C.-based HOK architect James Kessler, now a senior principal, began an unwitting journey into justice design that to date has spanned 30 years.
plaintiffs or inmates. “All five parties came to every design meeting,” Kessler said, adding there was little or no trust among the entities. In the end, the HOK/Stull and Lee, Inc.-envisioned project was never built, with the Commonwealth taking over responsibility from the city and building another design at a different site. “It was very unusual. I’ve never had a situation like that since,” he reflected, calling it a great learning experience and most “formative” for him as a young architect, especially in the realm of prison design. “There’s the architect, the technical side, the operational side – all complex and important – all key to its success – but they exist in a world of politics and larger priorities…,” Kessler said. 
40 years of machinations but which, mostly for political reasons, was never built. Largely by virtue of its circular design, the Panopticon would have allowed officials to consistently observe prisoners from key vantage points without their knowledge. In this regard, operating costs would decrease because fewer staff would be required to be on duty as inmates would never be sure who, how many, or if anyone at all was watching (but they’d surmise it was better not to take a chance). Subsequent prisons throughout the world have reportedly been based on the Panopticon principle, which espouses the theory that “observation is control.”
Incarcerated women, for example, are more likely to change, or want to change, Kessler said, noting “an incredibly high percentage – more than 50 percent – have been abused as children.” Statistically they also have more health issues than men, and 75 percent are mothers with the added burden of being away from their children, exacerbated by having been abandoned by their own parents in similar situations. “They are in that cycle,” Kessler affirmed, adding that they characteristically suffer from low self-esteem, which essentially indentures them to men, and are also generally the sole support of their families (often parents as well as children). When they serve time, in an interesting twist, they are relieved of all of those constraints and responsibilities with time to spend on their own health and development, so they adjust much better to prison life.
environment for inmates. Located at the headwaters of Ten Mile Creek, a registered trout stream, Kessler and his team tipped the site so all the runoff was collected in one area and allowed to cool before it was discharged into the stream. Constructed on the site of a sludge entrenchment area, sludge was tested and found to have aged to the point of zero-toxicity; it was retrieved and stockpiled for organic topsoil.
allow natural light to permeate the space from an outdoor recreation yard. Each cell has a window, something Kessler’s research and experience reveals is critical to an inmate’s emotional well-being and resulting behavior, which consequently affects the need for special staffing measures that can translate into dollars. Double cells do contain toilets, which Kessler said “…is a very important administrative tool: It means they can lock them in their cells.” Direct supervision, a modern metamorphosis of “observation is control,” means the guard is situated at a desk right in the middle of things. “It’s not based on physical force,” Kessler explained. “It’s based on authority and psychological authority. It’s based on mutual respect, and that’s from where the authority derives.”
Gables Residential has announced it has purchased The CityVista apartment building in Mt. Vernon Triangle from Lowe Enterprises. The 244-unit "V at CityVista" was completed in August of 2008 but had been on the market before its completion, with numerous suitors having come 
close to reaching an agreement to purchase from Lowe. The sales price of the building was undisclosed.
developments in Mt. Vernon Triangle. The 441-unit condominium is also selling its last few units this month, the retail section is now almost fully leased.
new residents. The total approved number homes will now soar from 190 to 194, as Centex proposes to add new townhouses to abut the new parkland. As now planned and approved, the completed Leesborough Townhomes will consist of 143 townhomes, 45 condominiums or "garden units," and six single family homes.
Following on the heels of Fairfax County's plan to transform Tysons Corner from a beltway exit to a citified, walkable community, financial giant Capital One has filed new plans for its Tysons Corner development, embracing the shift by proposing to turn its planned office park into a mixed-use model of urban planning. Capital One ensured future value of the land when it donated 3 of its 29 acres for an upcoming Metrorail station expected to open in 2013, a move it now seems ready to take advantage of.
Capital One had been approved for a 4-building office park on the 26-acre site just inside the beltway that it bought in 2000, but has built only one tower; in its place the company has now designed a mix of offices, parks, retail, residential and public 
spaces for what might someday be a live-work-walk community. No definitive time frame has been established. Capital One acknowledges that the economic outlook doesn't yet justify much of the construction, saying it has "no immediate plans" to develop the site. But "should the need arise," the bank wants an approved model in place and has stretched out its implementation over years as the climate in both financial institutions and real estate world improve.
despite finally nearing capacity with 1000 employees, McLean based Capital One proposes to build on the new Tysons redevelopment plan and take the campus "in an entirely different direction" with a daunting 5 million s.f. of development. If approved by the county, the "vibrant urban center" would hold 2.1m s.f. of office space rising up to 392 feet (though just 28 stories), 980 to 1230 residential units rising 20 stories, as well as hotels, parks, plazas and retail, all connected to the Tysons East Metro station.
Few others have opted to launch similar projects; Quadrangle Development delivered the only new office building in 2009 and has held back on its approved residential development. But Capital One may have at least something in their wallet, since it is proposing a 15-story office building adjacent to the current headquarters and connected by an elevated walkway. It calls the building "the most likely to be constructed in the near term." The streetscape will be entirely reconfigured in what it calls an "urban grid system." Because the site is within a quarter of a mile of the new Metro station, density limits are eliminated, giving the region perhaps its best chance at a building that sets a new record for the area's tallest, possibly exceeding, just barely, Rosslyn's planned 390-foot Central Place tower. Capital One's application to the county will shoot 
for the USGBC's green building certification on each of its buildings by using green or reflective roofs, rainwater retention systems, pervious pedestrian paths, and a preference of foot traffic over vehicular access. Despite the nod to sustainability, the development will extend Scotts Crossing Road over the beltway and connect to Jones Bridge Drive on the west side of I-495, better connecting the overly wide roads that criss-cross the area.
facing Tysons with the financier's logo. Like its planned successors, the first tower employed infrastructural adaptations to environmentalism, such as water-reducing plumbing, underfloor air distribution systems, pervious paving and local sourcing of materials, features not yet common at its inception.
District officials began demolition yesterday of Hogate's Restaurant on the Southwest waterfront, the first step of what will be a billion-dollar renovation of the area that will usher in a new neighborhood in a city-changing endeavor to connect DC to the river. Or, to the cynically inclined, it was a short-lived photo op for a project that has zero chance of starting soon.
Paramount Development, Gotham Development and City Partners, to getting real progress? The ambitious project, first approved by the DC Council back in 2003, was never on fast-track. But despite the development team having been selected in September of 2006, the District's approval of $198m in revenue bonds supported by tax increment financing (TIF) in July of 2008, and ratification of the land agreement in December of 2008, numerous obstacles remain. District officials say that a master plan will be submitted in October, and though 
they acknowledge there has been no major headway on financing, actual construction is now estimated for a comfortably distant 2012. But in January of 2008 developer Monty Hoffman predicted that "District residents can see a shovel in the ground by 2010;" not a surprising miscalculation given, well, everything, but one that gives pause in relying on current estimates. PN Hoffman would not comment on the significance of the groundbreaking. It seems that for the near future it will remain simply a good spot to get cheap fish.
Real trouble began about five years ago. A young girl and her mother were killed by an explosion at Marbury Plaza in Southeast Washington, DC, and several people were injured. Investigators believed that thieves had tampered with natural gas lines leading to laundry equipment inside one of the two highrises in the otherwise garden-style residential complex. In response, the management company, The Lightstone Group, put all laundry off limits to residents, who reacted by forming a tenants' association to respond to the crisis, prevent future recurrences and improve quality of life at the apartment building. Then in October of 2008, they staged a rent strike, placing their rent money in an escrow account in the city's charge. Now, five years later, a new management company is taking over, and a $5 million capital budget will be available to restore the complex to normalcy with rent checks once again rolling in.
issues to the hearing. The Act places nearly all rental units built before 1975 in the District of Columbia under rent control regulations, which do not allow spikes of more than 10% in annual rent in most cases.
But with the support of Peter Nickles, DC Attorney General, Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander, as well as Councilmembers Muriel Bowser and Kwame Brown, Chief Tenant Advocate Johanna Shreve and Bread for the City Legal Clinic Director, Vytas Vergeer, the tenants are finally being vindicated.
the EPA, and will be reviewed by D.C. DOE once the federal regulators finish," said Cel Bernardino of Fort Lincoln New Town Corp. He also noted that the current plan "envisions a model 'green' shopping center with cisterns, green roofs, green walls, and other LID (Low Impact Development) measures."
Costco has been eying this site for the past ten years. Target and Shoppers do not lag far behind in enthusiasm. They might all benefit from TIF (tax increment financing) subsidies from the District, which has supported the development as a neighborhood improvement initiative. Costco alone expects $15 million in TIF financing. But the District must mediate between the environment, small business owners who have fought the behemoth onslaught of all-in-one-for-a-portion-of-the-price big boxes, and competing revitalization projects throughout the city.
"The Office of Planning has worked very closely with the development team to ensure the project is green and pedestrian friendly," reported Victoria Leonard, Director of Policy and Strategic Communications in the office of Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. The District likes it so much it plans on paying $3 million upfront to build retention ponds to offset the 3000 new parking spaces. The funding would come out of the D.C. libraries capital budget, an initiative spearheaded by Council Member Thomas, who noted that "the Shops at Dakota Crossing have been in the books for a decade" back in April of 2009. The funds are being transferred from a Ward 7 libraries project, which should begin to see repayment in 2011. Ward 5 library services will remain unaffected.
JBG announced on Friday that it will partner with Grosvenor, an international real estate firm, to develop its condominium project in the Logan Circle neighborhood of DC, with site work to start as early as next month. It was unclear what 
role London-based Grosvenor would play in the joint venture on a site JBG has controlled since 2008, but JBG described Grosvenor as a "capital partner." The project will offer 125 condominium units available in early 2012 and a full level of retail.
The 14th Street site, home to the Whitman-Walker Clinic, is among DC's more vibrant retail scenes, but has not scored the start of a new residential project in four years since Citta 50 was built, which only recently sold out. JBG will incorporate the century-old, 4-story clinic into the 7 story building, but had previously been only tentative that construction would be underway this year. It now says demolition will begin "within the next month," with construction to follow in October. DC-based Shalom Baranes is the architect, and JBG announced earlier this year that Toronto-based Cecconi Simone would design the interiors (a revised rendering just released is above).
Developers described the new building as a "five-story projecting glazed bays on a terra cotta and brick façade" and have promised a "highly-amenitized" condominium.
This is the first project in the area for Grosvenor, unlike JBG, which is based out of Chevy Chase and has extensive residential development experience. "We wanted to bring our expertise and vision for vibrant mixed-use urban development to Washington, D.C., part of Grosvenor’s focus for future development projects," said Mark Darley, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Grosvenor. Local developers have shied away from starting projects in the neighborhood; developer Scott Pannick of Metropolis Development backed out of the Whitman-Walker site in 2007 over concerns of a market gone south, and others projects like UDR's Nehemiah Center project and Georgetown Strategic Capital's apartment building one block north have been stalled indeterminately.
Update: In response to a request for comment on this article, JBG submitted the following statement: 
