Dreyfus Tees Up Center Leg Freeway

Building 3 city blocks on top of an active highway isn't easy. But developers at Louis Dreyfus think they have it just about figured out, and tonight they will make their pitch to the District of Columbia Zoning Commission that their designs to build 2.3 million s.f. in 6 buildings on top of I-395, a stretch known as the Center Leg Freeway, should be approved.

What began decades ago as a horribly misbegotten idea by the National Capitol Planning Commission (NCPC) to create an Inner Loop within the District, an idea that birthed the Southwest Express and tore down swaths of historic buildings, relegating southwest DC for decades to woeful cementitious architecture and federal dependency, may at last be partially healed. The urban planning of the 1940's and 1950's fortunately never realized its goal of extending another half mile north and west, but left a chasm known as the Center Leg that isolated a section of northwest. Dreyfus plans to cover that scar burrowed deep into the city, not only building a platform on which a neighborhood can reside, but doing so while keep the highway operational throughout construction.

Plans have been knocked around for years, but tonight will mark a milestone for its advancement. Dreyfus intends to roof the highway from E Street to Massachusetts, extending F and G Streets to a now-isolated Georgetown Law School. The most recent development plans developed over the past month up the number of buildings from 5 to 6, increase retail visibility, and contemplate additional residential density.

The local ANC gave unanimous approval to the revised concept after developers agreed to "a good faith effort" to raise ceiling heights of retail spaces in the hopes of attracting classier retail, replaced a canopy idea bridging two buildings (ala Tech World Plaza, shudder) with a new building, and agreed to factor in more than the 150 planned residences. "They've been very good at addressing all the issues we've brought up" said Rob Amos, a Commissioner with ANC 6C. "They've been an exemplary developer. We wish more developers were like this."

A Zoning Commission approval would greenlight the project for purchase of the air rights from the city, a deal that is expected to net the city $60m. Developers would then build a separate platform for each of the 3 new city blocks, 247,000 of new "ground," in sum, beginning work on the buildings as each platform is finished. The plan allots 3 buildings in the north block (up from 2), 2 in the center block, and 1 in the south block. Each of the office buildings will rise the usual 12 stories, and developers are contemplating where to put unspecified additional housing at the behest of the ANC, a move it hopes will keep the area from vacating at night. "We're looking forward to putting those 2 pieces back together again" said Amos of the Berlin-style east and west sides of the highway, but added that it would be 2012 at the earliest before the project begins construction.

Years of wrangling came together in 1966 when construction of the freeway got underway, culminating in $81m in spending, 7.5 miles of flourescent tube lighting, and the dislocation of enough neighborhoods to do a Beijing bureaucrat proud. The cosmetic surgery to remove the scar is expected to cost well above $400m and drag on for at least another 3 years. Connecticut's John Dinkeloo & Associates is designing the buildings, while New York's Skidmore, Owings & Merrill is serving as master planner.

Washington DC real estate development news

Fish Market Concept Takes Shape, SW Waterfront PUD Application Coming Soon

While developers of the Southwest Waterfront still aren't ready to promise much in the way of architectural specifics or set-in-stone timelines, they've become rather adept at presenting their vision of transformation. Such acumen is attributable to the vivid imagination of the planners and developers amassed from the project partnership between PN Hoffman, Madison Marquette, and design firm EEK. But if practice really does make perfect, their busy itinerary of power point presentations can't hurt either. Last week, Madison Marquette and master planner Stan Eckstut, Principal of EEK, attended the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) meeting to share their most up to date concepts.

While these informational meetings are important, developers expect to truly kick off the planning review process with their Stage One PUD application submittal in late 2010, early 2011. This will initiate a more intensive public communication process, followed by a Stage Two PUD as more details are hashed out, and fingers crossed, a late 2012 groundbreaking. A full build-out will take seven to eight years from the start of the construction. Although not concrete, developers expect a middle portion of the development, including three buildings and the parks and public space surrounding them (it sounds vague because it is), to be the heart of Phase One. Like all phases of the project, construction will be focused on creating captivating public space first, and erecting buildings second. But as buildings do spring up in each phase of development, they will always do so as a balanced mix of office, retail, and residential, never all one or the other. Developers are also hoping that secured financing and improving market demand will allow them to reach as far west as to include the Fish Market and Market Square in their Phase One plans. "As probably the most dynamic and active aspect of the redevelopment, we want the Fish Market to be an early stage part of the project," says Anselm Fusco, Senior VP of Investments at Madison Marquette, "It would really help set the tone and put a flag in the sand."

But what exactly will Market Square be? What will it look like? After listening to Eckstut's NCPC presentation last week, Office of Planning Direct Harriet Tregoning characterized the concept as a "happy collision of pedestrians, vehicles, and bicycles, where everyone is forced to slow down." Angela Sweeney, Vice President of Marketing at Madison Marquette, seconded this appraisal. In an analogy using the redevelopment site as a giant domestic entity, Fusco described Market Square as "the kitchen of the house, the most dynamic, vibrant, and bustling space." Eckstut promised to preserve the unique and gritty character of the Fish Market, saying "we want to keep the same messiness, the same crazy parking scheme."

The goal is "to preserve the integrity of what's there and intelligently augment it," explains Fusco. A trip to iconic West coast marketplaces such as Granville Island Public Market, Seattle's Pike Place Market, and San Francisco's Ferry Building served as inspiration a plenty for the project planners. This indoor-outdoor marketplace will be re-imagined at the Fish Market/Market Square with fresh seafood spread out on 90-foot long blocks of ice, complemented by a seasonal green market where not only neighborhood foodies will frequent for a bushel of fresh produce, but where also local chefs and restaurateurs will come to cultivate long-term relationships with local farmers and producers. "The idea of what was once the Head House will be re-appropriated as Market Hall (think Pike's Place), an indoor space, but a very permeable place that will feature more permanent tenants selling both prepared foods and hard goods," says Fusco. Supplement the water-meets-land Marketplace concept with a plethora of picnic tables, public plazas, piazza lighting, cafes, bakeries, and a standalone microbrewery, then color it with the "whole neon sign thing" of the Fish Market (as Fusco calls it), finally, populate the space with a dynamic demographic of people, and you've got what Eckstut believes will be "a place that feels authentic and alive and real...a jolt from the federal Mall experience." To top it all off (literally) developers intend to accentuate the Marketplace with a large iconic sign, for purposes of place-making and way-finding.

Such a commerce-centric place would go a long way towards meeting the 20% local business minimum requirement of the Land Disposition Agreement (LDA), but developers believe throughout the Waterfront redevelopment, not just at the Marketplace, the retail makeup will skew towards community-based merchants. There will certainly be a mix of local, regional, and national tenants," says Fusco, "The retail experience in each area will vary." Continuing his "rooms-of-a-house" analogy, the 7th Street Park and kayaking pier dubbed The Landing "will have a very different feel: largely green, with lots of trees and landscaping, more like the dining room of the house, formal and quieter." This unique space will feature a different character restaraunt, a boutique, not a nationally franchised, big-boxed retailer, while 9th Street's City Pier will be "larger scaled with a big long, wide pier, a ferry landing, with lots of activity and tall ships coming in." Here is where the national tenants would be more likely to find a home, Fusco postulates. Further down the Wharf to the east we find the M Street Landing, the family-friendly rec room of the house, possibly featuring an ice rink in the winter and big water fountains for children to frolic in the heat and humidity of the summer--a little more fun and less formal than the dining room. Even farther east, a meandering pedestrian finds an expansive well-scaled public park, featuring a large halo of trees insulating a rolling lawn. As Fusco puts it: "It will be a park in the traditionally conceived sense of it, enabling passive recreation, and providing a sense of quiet."

Although it may be sometime before this impressive vision becomes reality, Angela Sweeney promises that her development team is "focused on creating and activating the site before an actual groundbreaking happens. We will continue to offer expanded and enhanced on-site programming." Another reason for optimism is the LDA stipulation that the $198 million tax increment financing promised by the District must be used for public amenities--further emphasizing the developers genuine focus on creating an assortment of vibrant, diverse, and inviting public arenas, not simply a canopy of concrete. So far, developers have proven they can dream big. How these dreams mesh with the practical parameters of the Planning Office and feasibility of the financial climate remains to be seen.


Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Le Mans In Your Mouth

By Beth Herman


There’s an absence of regulation three-foot tall posters urging patients to brush, floss and smile in this office, and in fact a dearth of paper altogether. For Dr. Youssef Obeid, a Chevy Chase, Md.-based prosthodontist and assistant clinical professor for the Prosthodontics Residency Program at the University of Maryland Dental School, a digital office (including reduced radiation digital X-rays) was a key component in creating a space that met the requirements of an evolving 21^st century specialty practice, reflected his interests as a race car driver and extended itself to patients in disposition and hospitality.

According to principal Andreas Charalambous of Forma Design, whose firm focuses largely on health care design and branding, trumpeting the client’s identity is tantamount to creating an environment that assures patients they’ve come to the right place. “The doctor didn’t want the space to look like any hospital,” Charalambous said, “or any 95 percent of dental offices that you go to and they all look alike. Dentists come out of school and are not educated in this aspect of things.” Noting that many professionals simply rely on choosing equipment and having suppliers do a basic office layout for them, Charalambous said they settle for a contractor building some walls and little else. “There is no thought to that. This is an opportunity for professionals to brand themselves, do something that reflects their personality and attracts the kinds of patients they want,” he affirmed.

For Obeid Dental, 8401 Connecticut Ave. NW, Charalambous said the team dealt with a small space that needed to be very functional, concentrating on elements of “precision” associated with a specialty practice and the split-second sport of racing. Sited on a corner with optimal street exposure, the 1,600 s.f. office is defined in part by strategic glass exterior panels that illustrate the practice and allow natural light in. There are also no corridors at Obeid Dental, the open space concept, including four operatories, divided by interior glass film panes for privacy. Stone floors provide continuity, and stainless steel– redolent of strength, power, technology and shiny race cars–is seen on a wall with footlights, as well as in the concierge desk (“concierge” being the operative word here). “It’s a free-floating desk,” Charalambous said. “You sign in, sit in the lobby area, and they get you coffee from the coffee bar.” A raised ceiling is dropped in some areas, such as the reception space, for more intimacy or definition, with “pill” ceiling cutouts made of drywall and a central uplight providing interest and a bit of distraction, perhaps, from the fact that beautiful as it is, one is indeed in a dental office! For contrast and warmth, the architects used a textured stacked stone wall in one area, with a shade of blue which is the client’s corporate color, also seen in his Forma Design-created logo and sign.

Maximum Velocity Design

A Fulbright Scholar, artist and photographer, Charalambous came to his profession through painting (one of his color fields hangs in the Obeid reception area) and espouses a kind of full concept architecture that includes furniture design, graphics, advertising, branding and more. Explaining that the idea is not just about laying out the space in which to do a job, attention to detail must reflect the doctor’s qualifications, he said, recalling a personal experience where he’d quickly exited a specialist’s office in great disarray years ago without ever meeting the doctor. “I don’t feel comfortable being in a place like that,” Charalambous said. “You need to feel as though they speak your language and understand what you need. Every little thing matters.”

Winning multiple design awards from entities in four states as well as IIDA, and with an office walk-through available on YouTube, Obeid Dental’s singular design, while unique to the client, is within the realm of most every practitioner. “We’ve done offices for prosthodontists, periodontists, pediatric dentists, facial plastic surgeons and family dentists,” Charalambous said. “You don’t need to be a specialist. You just need to care about your practice, the message, your patients, your staff. It’s an opportunity to resolve issues for the long term–to design a space that reflects your personality and one you’ll want to use for the next 10 or 20 years.”

Washington DC real estate news

Federal Realty's Mid-Pike Plaza to Rival JBG's NoBe

Earlier this month, Federal Realty's plans for "Mid-Pike Plaza" passed under the noses of the Montgomery County Development Review Committee. Apparently, it passed the sniff test; but unfortunately it takes a lot more than that to get development projects approved and rolling in Montgomery County. The development site spans 24.38 acres to the west of Rockville Pike and just north of Old Georgetown Road. Developers have plans big enough to warrant the massive site, calling for a whopping total of 1,725 residential units when all is said and constructed. Residents will be joined by roughly 300,000 s.f. of retail, over a million square feet of office space, a 125-key hotel, and a carbon imprint of 4,145 parking spaces (all structurally built). It's yet another sign that White Flint is destined to become drastically denser in less than a decade.

Being still in the wee hours of the project's preliminary planning life-cycle, drawings, courtesy of architect Tim Mount at Street-Works are are rather sketchy (pun intended) and offer only a distant perspective. This fuzziness cannot be attributed to lack of a steady hand, but is rather typical of the master planning stage in which details are scarce, and reveals the wiggle room necessary for developers and architects to successfully navigate the often tumultuous and always tedious planning process. But that process is getting easier and more efficient thanks to the newly approved White Flint Sector Plan, says Federal Realty developer Evan Goldman. "Our Sketch Plan follows almost exactly to the White Flint Sector Plan, which the citizens were already highly involved with," Goldman explains, "making the process a lot quicker, and minimizing disputes." Goldman and Federal Realty will present their Sketch Plan to the Montgomery County Planning Board next month, and hope to submit their Site and Preliminary Plan applications shortly after.

If the market continues to cooperate, and the planning process goes smoothly, Goldman believes they'll be ready to break ground in 2012. He thinks that would place Mid Pike Plaza as the front runner of major developments currently in the pipeline. LCOR has already broken ground on the new U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) building at North Bethesda Center/White Flint Metro, and JBG's North Bethesda Phase II should follow right behind Mid Pike Plaza. ProMark's North Bethesda Gateway also looks to get in on the action in the coming years.

Phase I of Mid Pike Plaza will land White Flint three new buildings: one high-rise residential, a small office atop retail, and a low-rise residential over retail. "These will anchor our Main Street and usher in improved streetscapes and a community park," promises Goldman. The second phase will complete the streetscapes, the street grid and public space for the retail plaza, and several more pockets of public green spaces, while future phases will proceed to fill in the block with larger buildings, one by one. As for architectural details, those will emerge later. The next step is "to meet with Street-Works in order to create design guidelines for our main storefronts and streetscapes," says Goldman.

With Bethesda having been the economic engine of the region for the last 20 to 30 years, many of local developers concur with Goldman's assessment of White Flint as the "logical next step" for development. "We're setting up a really good street grid, with all sustainable buildings, great pedestrian friendly roads, and great transit," says Goldman. The blank slate that is the area surrounding the White Flint metro will enable developers' smart growth ambitions to play out on a large scale; and it seems that developers and the community are taking this precedent seriously. Aside from the many proposed development projects, the newly established special taxing districting in North Bethesda will also help improve the area's infrastructure: a ten percent commercial property tax increase as part of the new Sector Plan will help finance $208 million in construction during its lifespan. With Montgomery County officials projecting that new growth in the White Flint area could bring in as much as $6.8 billion, it seems like White Flint is ready to take the torch from Bethesda whether they want to pass it over or not.

Montgomery County, MD Real Estate Development News

If Faith Had a Color

By Beth Herman

Ecclesiastes 11:1 - “Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again.”

When members of approximately 300 congregations in 11 faith communities in the greater Washington, D.C. area set their sacred sails toward sustainability, the goal is not so much to find the bread again for personal gain, but to bake it into a world community that honors the resources of all religions, cultures and species resulting in an environmentally solvent planet.

Guided by the tenets and resources of Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light (GWIPL), a chapter of the national organization and project of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, congregants avail themselves of an organization that promotes green living and response to climate change with a three-pronged approach: education, replete with a faith-appropriate speaker’s bureau and film screenings of such titles as “An Inconvenient Truth” when it came out; greening congregations; advocacy. According to GWIPL Director Joelle Novey, the bottom line is that the group asks a fundamental question about what it looks like when people “really live their values.”

Liturgy and LEED

For Barry Lemley, past president of and current owner’s rep for Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church (CELC) of Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Md., GWIPL was highly instrumental in raising their awareness about what a small congregation can do to work towards changing the planet. A series of seminars called “Creation Care,” which spoke to ideas on improving the local and global environment, ensued both from the Church’s association with GWIPL and also Blessed Earth, an educational nonprofit that works with faith communities on environmental issues. Lemley also credited simple practices such as exchanging old light bulbs for energy-saving ones and reinforcing the idea of turning out the lights, as well as replacing windows in the congregation’s 1950s-era building, with raising CELC’s green awareness quotient. And while educating members about greening their own homes was a big part of CELC’s objective, perhaps the largest component for change is that the Church has been calculating a plan since 2003 or 2004, Lemley said, to redevelop its two-acre site on old Georgetown Road. “To just upgrade certain things and change some of the leaks wasn’t really the way to address environmental issues,” he maintained, adding it wasn’t the direction in which they wanted to go for the community. On October 26, Lemley said the county council approved CELC’s request to rezone the entire property with a goal of LEED Silver certification for the facility.

Chutzpah and Compost


At Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, Md., Green Tikkun (as in Tikkun Olam: repair of the world) Committee Chair Michele Lieban Levine, already an environmentalist who bikes or takes public transportation whenever possible, recalled attending a GWIPL-hosted meeting on faith-based environmental action in 2007 which resulted in a GWIPL-sponsored energy audit of her congregation. In search, initially, of what Levine and others called the “low hanging fruit,” the first matter of business was to reduce and eventually eliminate all use of Styrofoam that came from a daily breakfast, a regular Saturday lunch buffet following services, pre- and religious school refreshments, and other food-related activities of which Levine said there were many in the 1,100-family member congregation. Beth El also started a designated tax-deductible fund to receive contributions earmarked for green projects. “If it was going to cost more to buy recyclables or compostables,” Levine said, “that would be covered by the fund.” A decision to use dishes as much as possible, as opposed to any disposable products, followed, as did a series of “dumpster dives,” facilitated by a congregant in waste management, to analyze their waste content with a goal of 50 percent recycling. Funds were used to hire a professional composter to pick up compostable waste, and on Tu Bishvat, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the New Year of the trees, nursery school students learned about sustainability by utilizing a bag of compost to help plant parsley seeds.

Epiphany and Electricity

Following a stint at Green America, a national environmental nonprofit, and with lay training in clinical pastoral education where she participated in chaplain training at Washington Hospital Center (“…you talk to people from every background and no background, and you need to be a good listener and respond to their feelings more than anything else,” Novey said), Novey, who is GWIPL’s sole paid staff member, took the helm from the organization’s second director in September, 2009, when she realized the organization and its mission were a confluence of everything she cared about. “What does it mean to put our concerns about the world at the center of our religious community?” she asked, noting that because of our assault on the environment and accruing climate change, one-third or even one-half of the world’s current wild animal species population may not survive another 200 years. When Novey addresses groups about electricity, she examines that half of electricity which comes from coal, the environmental rigors of mountaintop removal mining, and pollution from coal processing and coal fire plants that precipitate climate change. “I bring it all back to the light bulb,” she said, indicating the connection immediately raises eyebrows and consciousness. “That’s the very first step.”

Solar Sabbath

At the 25,200 s.f. Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md., Rabbi Fred Dobb, who is also Chairperson of GWIPL’s steering committee and a religious environmental educator since his junior year at Brandeis University in 1990 when took a year off to join a cross-country environmental education march (nine months: L.A. to NY), leads a community rooted in green. With its structure - which incorporated, rather than demolishing, a single family dwelling on the property into its design - completed in 2001, recycled carpets, the use of cork, organic gardens, Energy Star appliances and six individually-controlled HVAC zones, among other things, have set the pace for a building about to make synagogue history, environmentally that is. While Adat Shalom was already heralded as one of the greener congregations in the region prior to its association with GWIPL, shepherded largely by Rabbi Dobb’s affiliations with such entities as the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL.org) and the national interfaith environmental organization Religious Witness for the Earth, this year GWIPL Director Joelle Novey “…was an indispensable part of a solar working group within Adat Shalom which will lead to the installation of a 45-killowat solar array on the synagogue roof,” Rabbi Dobb said. The array, which will displace one-fourth or more of the building’s electric use for decades to come, will be operational by the end of the year.


Based on the premise that accountability is challenging and climate change - with its often irreversible repercussions - is daunting for many and has become highly politicized as well, Novey observed that even in the five years since GWIPL’s inception, fewer people think the science of climate change is sound. “People are shutting down (to the concept),” she said. “It’s sobering to realize that in the largest sense, we’ve failed to educate the public.” With that in mind, GWIPL’s objective is to stay on message in a safe forum – the congregation – where people do not feel isolated and in fact already experience a sense of connection to one another. “It’s a place where they come to strive to be better, whatever that means in their tradition, or strive to walk a holier path,” she explained. “It’s exactly the place where we do think about changing our lives, our choices, our habits.”

Speaking to GWIPL’s continuing and evolving work in light of its global goals, Rabbi Dobb said, “We have wonderful leadership and a fabulous, wider faith community in the area which has long supported GWIPL. We want to bring more congregations into the orbit so they can receive (GWIPL-sponsored) energy audits, take advantage of our many ongoing resources and so we can hear their success stories.

“We see defending creation as a religious imperative no less than worship or ecclesiastical education,” he continued of the group’s mission. “We are called to the sacred service of securing a sustainable future for all of God’s children and all of God’s critters.”

Images 1-3: Adat Shalom
Image 4: Washington National Cathedral

NDC Proposes Redevelopment of Georgia Avenue Strip Mall

The Neighborhood Development Company (NDC), busy with their efforts to revitalize the Georgia Avenue Corridor, is now proposing a new mixed-use development just a block north of their already approved project "The Heights," set for the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Lamont Street, NW. "The Vue," at southeast corner of Georgia and Morton and just beginning the rezoning application, will rise seven-stories above the 7,000 s.f. ground floor retail and offer 112 residences. Forty-nine parking spaces will be provided below grade. Unlike The Heights, where developers reserved half of the units as affordable housing in return for special financing options awarded by HUD and a large tax abatement granted by the District Council, the $30 million Vue project will be privately financed and almost wholly priced at market-rate (the bare minimum of 8% of the new project's square footage will be marketed at 80% AMI in order to satisfy Inclusionary Zoning requirements).

NDC purchased the property for $2.2 million in 2009 and will raze a rather unremarkable strip shopping center to make way for their 118,160 s.f. project. A post office at 3321 Georgia Avenue, also on the site, will remain, the U.S. Postal Service could not be enticed out of their long term lease. With the help of project architect Grimm and Parker, NDC will incorporate the one-story post office into their new construction plans. "The entrance to the post office will be repositioned facing Georgia Avenue," explains NDC Principal Adrian Washington, "and the facade will be recast with brick to match the look of the first floor retail component."

Washington reports that while not many of the details have yet to come to life, several green features are in the works, as well as an indoor gym and media center. He expects "some really good, local retail" to occupy the ground floor spaces, likely restaurants and cafes. Down the street, where many online commenters were clamoring for Trader Joe's to become the 10,000 s.f. retail anchor of The Heights, a deal has not been reached with any specific tenant. "We've been in talks with Gary Cha [President] of Yes! Organic Market and a couple hardware supply stores," says Washington, "but no commitments have been made."

Back up the street, The Vue's zoning application was recently set down by the Zoning Commission. NDC's legal representative Kyrus Lamont Freeman at Holland & Knight expects the hearing to be scheduled for late February, about the same time Washington's team anticipates a groundbreaking at The Heights. In anticipation of the Zoning review process, developers have already briefed local entities on their new development plans; most recently NDC met with the The Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force and have scheduled an informal meeting with ANC 1A for December 8th. While the Vue's completion is distant, Adrian Washington expects to deliver the building within sixteenth months of a construction start, placing a ribbon cutting somewhere during second quarter of 2012.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Douglas Scales Back Tenleytown Plans

Weeks after floating a plan for increased density at the Babe's Billiard site, Douglas Development has told the local ANC that it has scrapped plans for a multi-family development in favor of a single-story restaurant. Originally purchased at auction for $5 million in 2009, Douglas Jemal voiced his intention of reestablishing the former Babe's Billiards site as a viable retail corner in the center of Tenleytown. Jemal's aggressive bidding on the property had some speculating that the fix was in for a big name retailer. But nothing materialized, and more recently it was understood Jemal's ambition for the site had grown. Just last month the Washington Business Journal ran a headline reading "Tenleytown warms to higher density developments," citing Jemal's aims to construct two floors of residential atop three floors of commercial/retail. But attendees of ANC 3e's most recent meeting witnessed the presentation of Jemal's "radically reduced" plans, reports the local ANC's Secretary Jonathan Bender.

Indeed, the proposal has reverted back to a simple retail project, likely "a restaurant with lofty twenty foot ceilings," says Bender. Shalom Baranes will trash their sketches of a multi-story addition but continue to work with Jemal on the design aspects of the now much smaller development plans. While the dream of increased density at the site is dead, the shrinkage is reportedly financially-driven, not a result of the perceived difficulty of earning community support, as many may assume. Tenleytown has earned a formidable reputation for harboring a relatively small but vituperative group of NIMBYs, routinely cited for extinguishing developer's hopes of high-density development in the area. The group's most recent victims include the currently stalled seven-story Akridge development at 5220 Wisconsin Avenue (deceased) and the Tenleytown Safeway development, which remains indefinitely motionless in planning approval-limbo. Surely, American University students, faculty, and staff are trembling at the thought of receiving the reaction from the Tenleytown ANC when they explain their 2011 Camps Plan and their wish to relocate their Washington College of Law to Tenley Circle.

But according to Bender, Jemal's plans for a six story mixed-use development had not drawn the ire of Tenleytown residents. In fact, the project had the ANC's support, he says. But the necessary PUD approval process, sometimes costing developers upwards of a million dollars, was not financially feasible, compelling Jemal to pursue a more modest project. While the rumors that Tenleytown now has a more nuanced and friendlier attitude towards development may be true, the economy remains decidedly less charitable.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

ICG's Luxury Georgetown Hotel Still Alive

Expectedly there was a bit of a buzz in 2009 when ICG Properties announced its intentions of converting a 47-year old office building at 1050 31st Street NW into a "luxury" boutique hotel. But since Castleton Holdings Inc. first bought the property from the American Trial Lawyers Association in 2008 for $18.3 million, and shortly after revealed their 50/50 partnership with ICG, little progress has been reported. Prolonged inaction had some speculating that the deal to bring the U.S. only its second Cappella hotel had fallen through. But ICG Principal David Stern assures skeptics that, though behind schedule, developers are still pushing forward, and hope to wrap up and finalize financing within one or two months. "With the equity and debt aspects of deal squared away, " reports Stern, it appears a groundbreaking is not far off (relatively speaking).

Certainly good news, but stay seated, there remains much work to be done, before the physical labor can actually begin. "Once we close on financing," says Stern, "we still have to get a final project architect on record, and then go through six to nine months of planning." Current designs, provided by BBG-BBGM, are very much preliminary in nature. But the finer details will be hashed in early next year as the community relations, HPRB, and Zoning processes commence.

As currently proposed, the five-story hotel will feature 48 guestrooms and suites and an upscale restaurant and lounge overlooking the C&O Canal. Other highlights include an executive boardroom, a rooftop pool and bar, and exclusive spa. Remodeling of the exterior will be mostly cosmetic. “It won’t be a demolition," Stern reiterates, "The hotel renovation would be primarily interior renovation work.” With an expected construction time of approximately 12 months, developers hope to deliver the new hotel by the end of 2012.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Del Ray Project Stalls

A development darling of Alexandria's Del Ray neighborhood is on hold, with the green office building on Mt. Vernon Avenue sidelined until market conditions improve. Del Ray Greens was designed to replace Anthony's Auto Center with a small retail and office building high on green credentials and capable of supporting a small vegetable farm, but the project's developer has asked the city to put a hold on its application, citing market conditions not yet justifying a start date.

Last May, would-be developer Julie Wadler anticipated that the project, more a passion than a business shift, would be underway this fall, integrating the community with design input, locally designed art projects for the facade, and public access to the rooftop garden. The city has not issued construction permits, and plans have been shelved for now.

The concept was to transform the property, which sat tantalizingly close to Wadler's Epiphany Productions, into refined, carbon-light office space worthy of a LEED Gold rating, phenolic panels (a recycled composite) and a "farmable, vegetated roof." Wadler purchased the property in 2005 for $1.2m and has spent the intervening time on its design and pushing it through the city.

"Part of the reason for building in the first place was to put something green there. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it right," said Wadler last May, who has now put nearly 6 years into the project.

Old Town-based Maginniss + Del Ninno designed the building, and Wadler held a competition for two mosaics that will adorn the building's entrance. A 9th grader from Alexandria and a 7th grader from Arlington won the contest for the 7' x 6' mosaics; their schools will be responsible for producing the final piece at the still indeterminate moment of production.

Alexandria, Virginia real estate development news

Mr. Callison Builds His Dream House

By Beth Herman


Clearly architects, film buffs and maybe a few former Hollywood civilians, such as I, know the Cary Grant classic (see story title) by a similar name, where unwitting advertising executive Jim Blandings, wedged into a cramped NYC apartment with his family, takes leave of his home and his senses when purchasing a deeply plagued fixer upper in the hinterlands of post-war Connecticut.

For D.C. residential architect and furniture designer Michael Callison, the idea of renovating his own 1,000 s.f. two-bedroom 1922 Chevy Chase Arts and Crafts bungalow catalogue kit house, conceived in the style of the Sears catalogue houses of its day, may have seemed less of a challenge at the outset than Cary Grant’s, given Callison’s profession. However the 20-year-long road to renovation – a voyage from what the architect called “self-conscious design” all the way to an epiphanic result that would essentially let the house simply stretch and breathe –was purely unanticipated, the process kindling a brand new architect. In the end, the emergence of a four bedroom, four bath, 2,200 s.f. home that entirely preserved the original structure’s character was a journey, Callison said, that transformed the way he practices architecture.

Citing 20 years’ worth of sketches to augment his own bungalow, the renovation process is something Callison had explained to clients many hundreds of times, advising them to move in to a newly purchased house and live with the property to develop a master plan before making any changes. But where his own home was concerned, in addition to fabricating a master plan, the architect said it took two decades to work through preconceived notions he’d acquired training as an architect in the modernist tradition.

“The thinking (in that vein) is to express your ideas as an architect, regardless of what the house is,” he said, revealing that he and others grapple with the idea of “showing the neighborhood – the rest of the world – what a clever architect you are. I had to get to the point where I was really more sensitive to what the house was telling me,” he said of his very personal discovery. “The style of the house; the lines of the house -there’s that vital symbiosis between innovation and tradition.”

Stock in Band-Aids

Purchasing the home in 1987, Callison and wife Caitrine Curley-Callison, a professional potter and owner of D.C. women’s consignment store Secondi, immediately recognized that among many things, the property needed a rear addition, something then unaffordable to the young couple. “It was a small, one-story house with two bedrooms and one bath (plus a non-functioning semblance of a bathroom in the basement), a low-slung roof, as well as a rickety, disheveled sleeping porch on the back,” Callison explained. With little money to spare, the Callisons began what would become a two-decade long transformation by returning from work each night to chip away at the kitchen floor with a paint scraper, digging for mystery material beneath the decimated linoleum. When a pine floor ultimately emerged, the couple salvaged the best boards, hidden under the cabinets, and reused them for the kitchen remodel which Callison did with his own hands.

“I’m an architect and furniture designer, not a furniture maker,” he said of the kitchen cabinets he eventually crafted, noting it was a learning process in which he taught himself carpentry. “The kitchen took about a year to do and I used a little table saw in the back yard,” he said, also applying beadboard pine panels to the space, a theme eventually carried into attic space-turned-guest bedroom and the original bathroom.

Also where the original bathroom was concerned, Callison said the previous owners apparently had a proclivity for showering without a curtain, so all of the plaster had collapsed. Over time, structural and other practical aspects firmly in place, the couple decorated in part by incorporating a picture frieze around the space with a rail that supported old Polaroids from a personal collection.

Residential CPR

With other catalogue bungalows in the neighborhood consisting of rooms that were chopped and tiny, Callison said his home’s spatial sequence was quite favorable and in fact the living room traversed the entire width of the house. Similar to the large dining room, it had multiple windows creating a light-filled, casual environment something like a beach house. An unattractive but functioning fireplace in the living room was lowered and faced with marble mosaic tiles in the Arts and Crafts tradition. Wearing his somewhat more evolved carpenter’s hat at that point, the architect built cabinets on either side of the fireplace, along with a coat closets flanking windows and an electronic cabinet, wooden arch and window seat as well.

Constructing a great room and master bedroom suite – Callison hired general contractor Jorge Euceda-Rios for the major part of the renovation – and in deference to the Arts and Crafts style original that “had its own set of rules,” the architect decided that altering the roofline to build both spaces would not honor the classic bungalow. “My clients generally want a new kitchen that opens to a family space, and above that space they want the master suite,” he said, which wasn’t conceivable for his own home. Finding a way to “tuck it (the master suite) into the roof was the difficulty,” said Callison, with the suite ultimately built on the lower level, in place of the walkout basement, and with added floor-to-ceiling windows for a sense of openness and connectivity to the outside. Located beneath the new great room that was added when the rickety porch, which had blocked access to the yard, was demolished, the master suite became an oasis for the homeowners with a new 360-bottle wine cellar conceived on the same level.

“We telescoped the roof to do this,” Callison said. “In other words if you’d grabbed the edge of the old roof – just pulled it back towards the rear yard – that’s what we did to (accommodate) the addition.” And because the ceiling of the great room–which Callison calls the lodge room because it reflects the great lodges where he’s stayed as a fly fisherman–soared to about 15 feet as it absorbed some of the old attic space, turning what should be a warm, comfortable room into one that may overwhelm, Callison borrowed an idea from the dining room which utilizes molding around the perimeter at the ¾ level. The color above matches the ceiling, and the color below is darker, he said. “It’s a lot of interesting detail for almost no money–a way to take a large space and hold down the scale of the room, as well as connect it to the rest of the house.” Back in the dining room, the architect also retained the services of Barbara Billet of Billet Collins Decorative Painting Studios to paint a frieze that he created around the room. A flower design predicated on a Victorian stencil pattern, the frieze encircles the room with the exception of one special panel containing a passage about fishing, written by Caitrine’s father, an author. And in place of the Longleaf Pine flooring still in the original house, with an eye toward sustainability, Mountain Lumber Co. in Ruckersville, Va., specialists in reclaimed wood, used salvaged beams from an old Maryland barn for the great/lodge room floor.

Gilding the Defibrillator

“The house is a very simple, casual, unornamented bungalow, so over time my attempts on the inside were not to cross the line,” Callison reflected, adding that the objective, in addition to preserving the exterior character, was to find a way to breathe life into it with elements such as built-ins and friezes.

Professing that the project changed him a lot, Callison said every residential architect that comes out of school wants to do a Frank Gehry-style addition, but there are choices to be made. “The reality is that you can promote yourself by doing something everybody notices and sees as a signature design, or you can try and make the house a really good neighbor, working with the original structure, adding to the community by careful design.”

Washington DC real estate news

Perseid Adventures at 14 & W

On October 7th, Ward One Councilman Jim Graham relayed a message of good news to his listserv and Twitter followers from Bob Cohen of Perseus Realty, who had recently testified at a Council Hearing. Pressing Cohen on a start date for the YMCA redevelopment project at 14th and W, Graham quoted the developer as promising the the ability "to start construction before the end of the year.” The pledge to get the ball rolling on the 231-unit mixed-use development didn't garner much attention at the time, and citizens continue to wonder when to expect action.

Recently queried on the matter, Cohen would only answer that Perseus is unwilling to comment on the status of the project. He asserted that no official date has been set for a groundbreaking, but revealed that "[w]e'll be ready to announce something in the next couple weeks." Whatever could that something be? Developers Perseus, and their partners on the project Capmark Investments LP and FLGA Real Estate Group, had at one point anticipated a 2010 delivery date (the project "broke ground" in September 2008). But the market-plunge has booby-trapped the finance game, understandably complicating the developers' pursuit of funding, and Capmark declared bankruptcy in 2009, making the thought of a 2010 start date a pleasant surprise. Complicating the matter is the requirement to deliver a turn-key YMCA. But with lending spigots reopening for DC's multi-family market, and a passel of multi-family projects in the offing up and down 14th Street, Perseus and its backers appear to have found the heart to build now. The already thin District budget does not have any available funds to push the project along, and have previously granted a generous 20 years of tax abatement and $1 million in forgone sales taxes on construction materials for the project.

Helmuth, Obata, & Kassabaum and Dorsky Hodgson & Partners provided the design for what several online commenters have called an underwhelming facade. The residential portion will rise six largely glass-paneled, rather-vanilla-flavored floors above 12,200 s.f. of ground floor retail space and 170 below-grade parking spaces. Although somewhat plain, the building does show potential for elegance, if it can acquire some of the stone and metal detailing that give appealing character to industrial buildings like the Central Union Mission, the Studio Theater, and the stylish car-showroom turned upscale Italian restaurant Posto.

Developers have promised that eighteen units will be reserved for families earning less than 60% of the AMI. The centerpiece of the development is the the new Anthony Bowen YMCA, a 44,000 s.f. recreational and community facility to feature a "pool, state-of-the-art cardiovascular and resistance equipment, group exercise studios, and a child care area." But for now, local residents will have to build endurance at nearby gyms or stick to in-house push routines, as the YMCA doesn't look to be redone anytime soon.

Update: If you haven't already noticed the reports from the comment thread below, the 14th and W redevelopment project was recently sold by a Perseus entity to Jefferson Apartment Group (JAG), an Akridge affiliate, for $7.5 million. JAG also brought the Rockpoint Fund to provide much-needed equity. Perseus will stay on as development partner, and construction is expected to start as early as December 1st.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Dominion Heights Development Anxious to Break Ground

Earlier this year the Arlington County Board approved developers' request to attempt addition by subtraction at an infill redevelopment site in north Arlington. MacArthur Development LLC, in partnership with commercial real estate developer the Christopher Companies, will increase the number of residential units set for their "Dominion Heights" project at 3565 Lee Highway from 49 to 66, while slightly shrinking the gross floor area of the residential, office, and retail space from 79,037 to 77,858 s.f. With the building footprint remaining the same, the average unit size will shrink slightly. Developers successfully lobbied for permission to cram more units into the same amount of space with promises of LEED Gold certification. Well played.

"Community feedback was very positive," reports Christopher Companies Executive Vice President John Regan Jr., "Everyone just really wanted to get this thing started after five years of waiting." The County Board obliged, and now after several years of meddling with the real estate plan while lack of financing slowed up the project, developers are ready to move forward with a recent influx of capital. But a little more sitting and waiting is in order, as the final site plans must be okay'd and building permits issued. Designated a “Special Revitalization District, ” the project site will soon (relative term) feature four stories of residential space stacked atop 8,000 s.f. of ground floor retail which will likely feature a restaurants. Developers have also proposed a small office space for the building, as well as a two-story below-grade parking garage offering 130 spaces.

The brick building will be horizontally banded by precast light-colored stone and a detailed faux-wood, oversize cornice, as well as vertically accented by protruding, dark-green, aluminum bay windows. A minor setback of the top floor allows for penthouse residents to enjoy an outdoor deck; while a 5,000 s.f. landscaped terrace is also available for use by the entire building. Features like shower areas for bicycling retail workers and preferred parking for low-emission vehicles will help the building achieve their LEED Gold rating upon completion.

Developers are anxious to get their hands dirty as soon as possible, but don't expect the County to give the green light for a groundbreaking until April, says Regan. Construction will last 14-18 months.

Arlington, VA Real Estate Development News

NoBe Gateway: White Flint Blowin' Up

After receiving positive feedback from the Montgomery County Development Review Committee, developers of "North Bethesda Gateway" in White Flint expect their Sketch Plan to go before the Planning Board sometime in January, marking the beginning of what will likely be a multi-year public approval process. While construction, or even detailed architectural renderings, are some time off, developer Hilary Goldfarb of ProMark Real Estate Services says even the first nibble of action is "very exciting." The project involves a unique partnership of three local property owners (Jack Fitzgerald, Lake Waverly, and JWW) who've joined forces in the planning process in order to maximize entitlements and enable the transfer zoning rights amongst their separate parcels. As the plans stands, roughly 11 acres of office buildings and surface parking lots will be redeveloped into nearly two million s.f. of retail, residential, and office space in compliance with the White Flint Sector Plan.

The Sketch Plan is a rather new requirement in the Montgomery County Planning process that further drags out the frustration of developers, but extends the tantalizing spectatorship of real estate development junkies. Goldfarb explained it as literally the "very first step in a several year process." Although the Sketch Plan only offers a basic understanding of the overall development concept, with many details likely to change, it also provides an interesting chance to witness a development project slowly transform from a zygotic aerial diagram (this one drawn by architects at WDG) to full-grown actuality (one hopes). Upon completion of the first two phases of North Bethesda Gateway, developers intend to deliver three office buildings, a hotel, extensive ground-floor neighborhood retail options, and a variety of rental and condominium housing opportunities situated in three distinct multifamily buildings. Developers seek to create a pedestrian friendly atmosphere with this redevelopment; by including several large public plazas in their plans, streetscape improvements, and extensive landscaping, the project will provide a walkable transition from the White Flint Metro to White Flint Mall.

Given that the development site is adjacent to the White Flint Mall, White Flint Plaza shopping center, and less than a quarter mile from the White Flint Metro, as well as bounded by Rockville Pike with the North Bethesda Marketplace just across to the West, developers believe they have the epitome of a transit-oriented urban infill project in the works. The development, though still in the embryonic stages, joins a wealth of activity in the area's development pipeline. JBG's North Bethesda Phase II, and Federal Realty's Mid Pike Plaza are in line on the train of development that Goldfarb insists will eventually make White Flint "the economic engine of Montgomery County." Chew on that Bethesda.

Montgomery County, MD Real Estate Development News

Stonebridge to Start Phase 2 in NoMa

Real estate developer StonebridgeCarras and financier Walton Street Capital are betting on NoMa again, announcing they will start the next speculative phase of Constitution Square in May. Stonebridge is just now completing Two Constitution Square, which it also built without a tenant, a bet that paid off big when it sold the property in May for $305m to Northwestern Mutual, and now Sarah Krouse reports in the Washington Business Journal that the Bethesda-based developer will attempt an encore with another speculative phase. Principal Doug Firstenberg tells DCMud that next May his company will break ground simultaneously on a 200-unit apartment building and 345,000 s.f. of office space and, rounding out a good week, that Harris Teeter will open at Constitution Square on December 8th and that Equinox founder and chef Todd Grey will now open a sit down restaurant in the newly completed phase 1.

Firstenberg, who pre-leased 100% of Phase 1 to GSA and DOJ before trading the building, said Phase 2 will be "targeted to go after some of these large GSA bids that are out there." Stonebridge will again use SK&I Architects to design the residential space and HOK Architecture for the commercial portion. The residences are expected to be available by late 2012, the office space should be ready for the first tenants in early 2013. The third and final phase of the 7-acre site, still in conception, will add 470,000 s.f of office space.

Firstenberg says the restaurant, to open in March along with the hotel, will be "NoMa's first upscale, sit down restaurant," good news for residents at the Flats 130 where 60 of 440 units have leased since its opening October 1st, and where significant retail leases have already been signed. Stonebridge is expected to flip the office building once lease-up is complete. "We're not long term owners in the project" said Firstenberg.

Washington DC real estate development news