Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

You know, the other night I was sitting around my house and my head was sort of cold, and I thought, wouldn't it be nice if there were big armchairs in here with these sort of metal helmets attached to them that swiveled down and blew hot air onto my head? But there weren't. So I put on a hat instead. I forgot where I was going with this.

Oh right. The open house. So THIS place – this is the place with the hot-air-helmet-chairs. I have to admit, I didn't realize until I got there that it was a house-slash-upscale hair salon. When I looked at the listing I thought it just had really quirky furniture. (Yes, I do this for a living.) Of course, as the agent helpfully pointed out, it doesn't have to be a hair salon. Just like you, me, and every other American – it could be anything! (The main difference is that with the house, it's actually true.) An office, a consulate, a private residence, whatever.

A beautiful historic rowhouse in the West End, with gleaming hardwood floors and tons of light, it's a live/work property, so the upstairs is still totally residential, with two very large bedrooms and a fine bathroom. Out back is a wooden deck and a large brick patio with a quirky little fountain, and lots of privacy. And the salon level could easily be converted to a regular house-type house where you do normal life stuff like sitting around and watching the entire first season of “Night Court” online while eating out of styrofoam takeout containers and then in a fit of existential disgust afterwards asking yourself, “yes, I'm biologically alive, but am I really living?” (I decided the answer was no. Then I watched Season 2.)

*Update: the present owners are going to remove the hair salon before the sale, so yeah ... no big chairs with air helmets attached in the living room.

1013 24th Street NW
2 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$1,299,000

The Nude That Ruled the Roost

By Beth Herman

Peppering her design discourse with words like "fun," "vigor," "whimsy," "syzygy," and definitely "comfort," above all interior designer Carol Freedman of Carol Freedman Design lives for color.

"I use it in abundance and have the courage to use it a variety of ways,” Freedman said, referencing her own Bethesda, Md. living room with its lush blue and purple color palette (think sky; sapphire; peacock; blueberry; robin’s egg; lavender; lilac; morning glory; grape).

A former environmental lobbyist, Freedman traded issues of the great outdoors for items found in great interiors, having come to design almost by birthright. Daughter of a professional interior designer, she achieved her first total room redesign (her bedroom) at age 13, and went on to reinterpret college friends’ dorm rooms with generous color, bedding and accessories. Both a quilter and artist, Freedman also studied drafting and drawing in landscape architecture classes, providing for a confluence of influences in her current—since 1994—career.

Of the residences she has transitioned from boring to beaming, Freedman said, “I think ensconcing yourself in a colorful, vibrant environment is a great way to live.” Citing everything from the color CPR and redesign of a home an architect had saddled with incongruent tones, to a client’s favorite teal, olive, caramel and rust-hued tote bag that was brought to her as the basis for a home’s redesign and color challenge, Freedman said her greatest joy comes from creating rooms from a single object or idea. “I really live for that,” she said.

Notes on a nude

In Chevy Chase, a quiet but spectacular heirloom painting of a nude in a 3,500 s.f. bungalow-style home was the catalyst for a redesign of the residence’s living and dining spaces—and family room. Rubenesque in physique with decidedly gold, bronze and copious olive tones, the painting was “incredibly evocative,” Freedman recalled. While she’d not worked with those colors before, the designer said she was nevertheless thrilled to use the artwork as the inspiration for the redesign of the home.

Accordingly, Freedman upholstered a loveseat and sofa, respectively, in olive and sage. Referencing the robust nude and desiring “sexy, shapely, interesting furniture,” the vintage loveseat is by enduring New York modernist Vladimir Kagan, and like the model in the painting, is broad and curvy. It’s also truly comfortable. “When you sit in these spaces, though they may not be huge, they’re very cozy and comfortable, which is something for which I always aim,” the designer affirmed. Accent pillows in sage, olive and rust, and a rust-colored plush chair from France, augment the space. To add texture, both the chair and especially an ottoman coffee table are made from woven, organic materials, and a cream-colored shag rug turns up the wow on warp and weft. A Donghia side table beneath the painting has shapely legs, a curved top with a ruffled quality and a gilt edge, reflecting the artwork’s anatomy, tones and also its gilt frame.

In the dining room, accessed through pocket doors emblematic of the home’s prodigious wood detail, deep rust walls provide a sense of depth and intimacy – the color teased through from the living room where it is found in the pillows and plush chair. Gold ultrasuede dining table chairs, both durable and functional in light of the household’s growing children, complement a heavy, pale pickled oak dining table by Birdman. An intricately-grained Berman Rosetti wood buffet flanks a wildly colorful patterned rug from Nepal.

All in the family (room)

With a vital, active young family, the residence’s family room became a hub for fun and color. Butter yellow walls provided a canvas for a bright, vintage flapper-era poster that the homeowner, whom the designer said has a “keen eye for art,” found at an antique poster store in Georgetown. In this room, though the art was not the driver (actually, the sofa came first), its colors are redolent both of the living and dining spaces and the poster. A soft, cozy, durable sectional sofa, which Freedman describes as “somewhere between periwinkle and violet,” is accompanied by a yellow gold leather Ligne Roset chair— sleek with clean lines but “very sit-able and comfortable,” the designer said. A whimsical gold, rust, black and blue rug picks up the colors of the room – including circular black tables—in its presentation of stripes and dots.

“When I saw all the dots in the rug, that’s when I decided to do all the fun, round pillows, so they sort of jump off the carpet and onto the sectional,” Freedman explained. Banks of three-quarter length windows across the room bathe the room in light, and a ceiling painted a pale sky blue helps open the space.

Another client, who was extremely color-shy, ultimately told the designer that her bold use of hues was “a revelation”—one that prompted a visceral reaction and changed his entire experience of a long, dark winter. It’s a message she continues to carry to clients about the joy of color. And though that infectious feeling caused her to fail a middle school project on design because she and a friend couldn’t stop laughing during the orals, clearly Freedman has persevered nevertheless.

Another Park Crest Residential Tower Going Up in Tysons Corner

The 14-acre development in Tysons Corner known as "Park Crest" will get another residential tower. Life insurance company Northwestern Mutual purchased the undeveloped portion of Park Crest earlier this year and construction is to begin on the 19-story, 300-unit apartment - "Two Park Crest" - next month.

The Penrose Group and Donohoe Companies are partners in the development of the Park Crest site, and continue to work with architect Lessard Design to make Two Park Crest a reality.

Two Park Crest will be the second tower built in the Park Crest development, and will be under construction soon, confirmed a project architect at Lessard Design (formerly Lessard Group, now without a website). Construction at the Two Park Crest site will join another parcel of Park Crest now under construction: a 5-story, 354-unit apartment "Avalon Park Crest" by AvalonBay, to deliver next July. AvalonBay purchased the 2.64-acre site for $13.3 million in 2010.

The entire Park Crest site lies on sloping terrain, and the change in elevation has lent itself to the creation of a "terraced waterpark" that will be incorporated into the Two Park Crest site, explained Priya Sambasivam, an associate principal at Lessard. The water feature will crisscross through greenery and drop 20-to-30' from start to finish. Other on-site features of Two Park Crest include an outdoor pool, a fitness room, a cyber cafe, a game room, an outdoor Bocce ball court, and a "small dog park." Sambasivam added that the tower lobby will be "a grand two-story atrium."

Two Park Crest will be architecturally sympathetic in scale and style (contemporary) to the first completed residential tower in Park Crest, the 18-story "Park Crest One Condominium," but feature a strikingly smooth glass curtain wall facade offset with vertical bands of brick - unlike the highly textured exterior of Park Crest One, with numerous bays and rounded corners.

The condo delivered in 2008, and Penrose retained majority ownership of the remainder of the property. The 335-unit condo is 86-percent sold out and priced between $350K and $1.5 million said Mark Gregg, President of The Penrose Group. The other completed component of Park Crest is "The Lofts at Park Crest," a 131-unit apartment (95-percent occupied) with Harris Teeter grocery. The Lofts were sold to Behringer Harvard REIT for $67.5 million in January of 2010.

Two Park Crest will soon become the sole high-rise apartment under construction in the Tysons area, explained Gregg. Likewise, in 2008, Park Crest One was the first "luxury" high-rise condominium built in Tysons Corner in over two decades.

A third residential tower, the site of which was also purchased by Northwestern Mutual, is currently in conceptual design phase by Lessard Design and will likely be rental apartments. When complete, the entire Park Crest development will contain over 1,300 residential units, a mix of apartments and condominiums (high-rise and loft).

Of Park Crest's greater locale, Fairfax County planners believe that "by 2050, Tysons Corner will be transformed into a walkable, sustainable, urban center that will be home to up to 100,000 residents and 200,000 jobs." It's quite the goal, but they have nearly 40 years, and four metro stations on the way in their favor.

Virginia real estate development news

CityMarket at O Makes it Official Friday

Three years after signing a funding deal with the city, one and a half years after applying for federal funding, not to mention several intervening official groundbreakings, the CityMarket at O will begin actual construction on Friday.

Roadside Development and city officials will gather Friday at 10am for photographs and speeches but, for the first time, also to watch the machinery "eat a big chunk of the Giant," says a spokesman for Roadside.

Federal officials announced on October 11th that it had granted Roadside $128m for development of the market that will include a 182-key Cambria Suites hotel, 150 condominiums and 635 apartments, 84 set aside as affordable senior housing, as well as restoration of the O Street Market, one of the 5 original brick markets built in Washington D.C. Roadside officials say the project will generate 2400 jobs directly.

Friday's construction triggers the 2-year time frame promised to Giant, giving Roadside until November 18, 2013, to reopen the supermarket. Richard Lake of Roadside said the $128 HUD loan closed on Thursday. The remainder of the financing is provided by a $32m TIF funding from the city and $40m from Equity raised by Roadside.

Contractors will first demolish the Giant, then spend 6 months excavating. The new supermarket will be the first piece to reopen, followed quickly by 400 apartments and the hotel. Roadside does not yet have funding for the second portion of the work - the condos and senior center - said Roadside's Lake, but hope that financing will allow construction of that phase to begin shortly and deliver concurrently.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

I'm not usually one to laud the glory of bygone eras (if only because I can't stand to admit that I missed out on something), but this house definitely seemed to embody a sort of ideal. Built in 1940 (which is in that sweet spot right after technology to a reasonably advanced degree but before everything went to total and utter crap), it seemed to combine the class and subtlety of the classic with the clean lines and open spaces of the contemporary. Also, it had a ton of chandeliers. I'm a firm believer that you can never have too many chandeliers. (True story: when I was growing up, my grandparents had an RV with a chandelier in it. And you'll never convince me that it didn't look fantastic.)


A beautiful whitewashed brick home, you walk up a long sloping set of stairs bordered by a landscaped terrace and enter into the airy center of the home. All the main public rooms branch off this entryway; the living room is huge and flooded with light, and there's a beautiful formal dining room (loved the dark walls) as well as a cozier breakfast room off the (very fine) kitchen. Both have fireplaces, so when your significant other forgets (again) that you don't like onions in your stir-fry, instead of passive-aggressively picking out individual onions, you can just fling it, plate and all, into the fire. Honesty is the foundation of all lasting relationships.

Upstairs are the three bedrooms. The master suite is especially masterful, and sweet (wordplay!), with a large, chandelier-lit (of course) bedroom and a palatial bathroom that's far too elegant for the kind of disgusting things you do in there. The other bedrooms are spacious and finely detailed and just generally so classy that I'm quite sure that if I moved in and tried to put my cigarette-burned IKEA chair and unsheeted twin mattress in there, they'd spit them back into the hallway like someone who just noticed a dead mouse floating in their soda. There's also a gorgeous woodsy yard in back, with a small bluestone patio, and an attached two car garage. What could be more American than actually driving your cars into your house?

3715 49th St. NW
3 Bedrooms, 3 Bathrooms
$1,775,000

The Geography Lesson

By Beth Herman

The result of a strong, symbiotic design-build effort between Square 134 Architects and Ellisdale Construction & Development, The Harrison, 5201 Wisconsin Avenue, was in many ways a significant architectural challenge.

With 48 units, a tin and brick façade, slate, glass or marble interior spaces and 9-foot ceiling heights, the 40,000 s.f. $10 million development in Friendship Heights straddles the zoning line between commercial and residential, and triumphed over considerable zoning challenges, Square 134 Architects Principal Ron Schneck said. “On Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenues, you have these very large commercial structures right along the street, and then very quickly you have residential next to that.”

At the time of the feasibility study, and many others like it, the architect said it was difficult to find affordable, developable spare space within the city. Built on a “very complicated” infill site that, in order to comply with zoning requirements, is technically considered an addition to the Bank of America, Schneck said in order to be an addition a "meaningful connection" must be established. In this case, the lowest level of the parking garage aligned with Bank of America, with shared parking a result. Additionally, the goal was to have the building respond to the aforementioned large scale commercial nature of Wisconsin Avenue, but also step down to the residential aspect, which is right there, the architect explained.

Addressing yet another facet of the architectural challenge, The Harrison was conceived to have the utmost flexibility. According to Schcneck, when a building of this nature is conceived, typically the demising partition is the bearing line, making it fairly easy from a construction standpoint. But The Harrison was created so that the building’s skin was its bearing, providing for maximum flexibility in arranging units. With no vertical spacing, the structure is more open with horizontal banding, easily accommodating several design iterations that included roving windows and reimagining about two-thirds of the original concept. “Elements could be modified to meet the unit mix,” Schneck said, noting The Harrison’s one-and two-bedroom market-rate units range from 500 to 1,200 s.f.

With a landscaped courtyard that includes fire and water features, plus individual front terraces, in-unit task lighting and porcelain tile, at market rate The Harrison was 80 percent sold by completion. "We really had to try and crack the zoning issues," Schneck said. "It came out of the ground at a time when nothing like it was under construction."

Full Raze Petition Rebuked by HPO for New Jersey Ave Houses

The Third Street Church of God will now plump for a full demolition of three historic rowhouses on New Jersey Avenue, a turnaround from their original plans to only partially raze the structures. The Church got a preliminary okay from DC's Historic Preservation Office (HPO), then got support from the Historic Preservation Review Board in June, both for a partial (not full) demolition of its property at 1232-1236 New Jersey Avenue, NW. After HPRB approved the partial raze request, the Church immediately asserted it would fight for a full raze, as the Church seemed to have felt pressured into partial preservation.

Making good on that promise, the Church is seeking to fully demolish the property by petitioning the Mayor's Agent with the plea of economic burden, a move that the HPO has just opposed.

The three rowhouses next to the Church on New Jersey Avenue date back to 1866, but have become severely decrepit in the last few decades of life. Still, HPRB determined that the front façades and brick party walls of the rowhouses maintained their integrity and could be braced and retained, resulting in the call for partial preservation this summer.

The most recent HPO report opposing the Church's full raze petition says "The conditions at 1234 and 1236 can largely be blamed on 20 years of deferred maintenance...the Board has always stood against approving razes of buildings brought to a state of dilapidation by lack of maintenance, as approval would not only result in the loss of historic fabric and character in the particular, but would reward and encourage such neglect in general."

If the Mayor's Agent does approve the Church's petition for a full raze, then the cleared site would be incorporated into the Church parking lot, in order to offset the 15 spaces (in the 32 space lot) that will be lost due to the addition on its property at 1208 3rd St.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

Wow. This incredible Grand Colonial sits on a massive quarter-acre lot in Barnaby Woods, looming hugely over the neighborhood like something huge that looms over things. (Khloe Kardashian?) The white brick looks incandescent in the afternoon light, and the huge tree-shaded corner lot is exquisitely landscaped and slopes gracefully to the street; you won't find many houses like this in the District, short of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

This classy house also features five bedrooms, four full baths, and more hardwood flooring than ten bowling alleys. Also, three fireplaces, in case two fireplaces is simply inadequate for your combustion requirements. Man, this house was just huge. They could film a remake of “The Shining” here, though it would be a shame to ruin the floors with all that fake blood. The master suite upstairs also features a beautiful veranda, from which you can survey the entire neighborhood, as they no doubt jealously eye your huge landscaped corner lot and veranda. There's a screened-in porch that's ideal for lounging, and a formal dining room for, well, formal dining.

There's also a two-car garage, which comes in handy. Growing up, my house had a two-car garage but we only had one car, so quite often my father would sit on an overturned bucket in that empty space, staring off into the night and wondering where he'd gone wrong. At other times, we used it for jetski storage.

6520 Barnaby St.

Washington DC 20015
$995,000

"College Main Street" for Catholic University Breaks Ground

The Bozzuto Group and Abdo Development broke ground today on the joint $200-million development "Monroe Street Market," an undertaking that will create a 9-acre, mixed-use village surrounding a new "college main street" to serve Catholic University of America (CUA) in Brookland.

By offering the South Campus land for development, CUA "did the opposite of what many universities do, and put the land [five city blocks] back into the city's tax base" said Jim Abdo, who was exuberant that the project is moving from "vision and concept to actual reality" and is now embarking on three years of construction; the first phase, by Bozzuto Construction, includes 562 residential units, aiming to deliver in mid 2013.

In May of 2008, Abdo beat out tens of competitors including EYA, Monument Realty and Trammell Crow for the right to purchase the South Campus from CUA, and subsequently turn the land - a collection of empty lots and old dormitories - into university-serving amenities and housing.

The $200-million project is receiving "no public subsidy of any kind," Abdo confirmed in his speech, which was followed by Tom Bozzuto, who expressed gratitude to "the vision of Pritzker [to invest in the project]... when virtually no other investors in 2008/2009 would [offer financing]." Fully entitled before the fall of 2008, developers relied on confidence from "alliances and great partnerships" to escape being sidelined completely by the great recession.

In the summer of 2010, Bozzuto and Chicago-based Pritzker Realty Group (which controls the non-hotel real estate holdings of the Hyatt hotel founders, the Pritzker family) announced a $75-million joint investment fund in multifamily housing, and then revealed that a significant portion of that fund was being invested in Abdo's plans to develop Catholic University's South Campus.

Bozzuto added, "In September of 2008, when the world was crashing around us...the bankers at Bank of America stood ground with us." Bank of America was also in attendance at the ceremony today.

Architects at Torti Gallas (responsible for land-use planning and a portion of design), Maurice Walters, and KTGY have combined the collegiate Gothic look of the century-old CUA with the Brookland neighborhood's arts and crafts style.

Of the location, lay-out and design, CUA President John Garvey said, "[The development] will increase the safety of the neighborhood and improve the aesthetics of the area."

Monroe Street, from Michigan Avenue to the Monroe Street Bridge, will be turned into a main drag and will be "the backbone" of the development. At the Michigan Avenue end will be a 1,000-s.f. public square with central fountain and a 70' clock tower.

The entire development includes over 900,000 s.f. of gross floor area and will be constructed in phases. In all, there will be 718 residential units (8-percent, or 63,000 s.f., will be affordable at 80-percent of AMI) both apartments and condos, 45 single-family townhomes (three of the 21-unit string on Kearny Street will be affordable at 80-percent of AMI), 83,000 s.f. of retail space, 15,000 s.f. of artist space (27 studios), a 3,000-s.f. community arts center and 850 below-grade parking spaces.

An "Arts Walk," along 8th Street between Michigan Ave and Monroe St, will be a pedestrian- only corridor flanked by two 5-story buildings that will provide 27 ground-floor artist studios (at below-market rent) and 13,500-s.f. of retail at the southern ends along Monroe Street. The top four floors of the buildings will contain 152 residential units.

Along 8th Street, south of Monroe Street, are numerous industrial and arts uses, including Brookland Artspace Lofts, and Dance Place. The site is adjacent to the Red Line Brookland/CUA Metro stop, making it a "transit-oriented development."

The Monroe Street Market development will also improve the intersections of Michigan Avenue at Monroe Street and 7th Street, as well as complete the Metropolitan Branch Trail along the Metro Track, and add "aesthetic improvements" to the Monroe Street Bridge.

The Zoning Commission approved the development's plan in December of 2009, after Abdo was selected as the developer in 2008, six years after Catholic University set down in its 2002 Campus Plan that the South Campus area should be "phased out as a student housing area, and reserved for cooperative ventures between the University and other appropriate organizations.”


Washington D.C. real estate development news

New Apartment and Safeway for Downtown Wheaton Gets Going Today

Fall brings more change to downtown Wheaton, as today marks the start of construction of The Exchange at Wheaton, 486 apartments in a 17-story building and 60,000-s.f. anchor-tenant Safeway on Georgia Avenue. Groundbreaking, by Foulger-Pratt, will occur at 10 am today on Patriot Realty's "Wheaton Safeway" redevelopment that will create a transit-oriented development directly across from the Wheaton Metro. Designed by Baltimore-based architecture firm Hord Coplan Macht, the new building has the appearance of three individual towers of concrete and glass connected at the center. 

Safeway shoppers will use an underground parking garage, and apartment residents have three levels of parking above the store. A cutback in the massing in between each tower allows for a fifth-floor courtyard above the residential parking garage. The new Safeway will open for business in 2013, and will be followed by several other retailers at the location: a Starbucks, SunTrust, and a Bergman’s Drycleaners. Developers originally intended to break ground early this spring, which puts the project only modestly behind schedule, not a bad achievement, all things considered. 

Maryland real estate development news

What Came First, the Kitchen or the Egg

By Beth Herman

It was something like the old Kohler commercial where the homeowners walk into a voguish architectural firm, instructing the equally-voguish principal to build a house around a faucet.

For interior designer and decidedly more approachable Principal Beth Leas of Interior Revivals, LLC, a seminal grey brick cement terrazzo kitchen floor in a Great Falls, Virginia residence was considered a key style component of the home, and in many ways even defined the mid-1990s residence. Originally built and owned by an area architect, the kitchen nevertheless presented a two-pronged design challenge for Leas.

At first glance, the vast 1,800 s.f. space had a decidedly poor layout, with appliances spaced so far apart they did not accommodate the lifestyle of the busy young family living there now. Tantamount to that, the aesthetics of the existing floor did not impress the homeowner, who'd felt strongly about replacing it.

“To me, a house should have a certain look, and you should never destroy that look,” Leas said. While she maintained a home's personality is established through furniture, the contemporary and natural feel of this house was largely articulated through its organic kitchen floor.

Additionally, with the refrigerator and sink separated by about 14 feet, Leas counted this among other user-unfriendly elements. Because the homeowners, with three little boys, were from extended Italian families and loved to cook for parties and family gatherings, proximity and efficiency were determining elements in reimagining the space.

Better utilizing an empty counter in the center of the room, Leas created an island with cooktop, along with a peninsula and lower bar seating area for the children for snacks and homework, but which separated them from the potentially hot cooktop temperatures. In an effort to efficiently harness space and incorporate aesthetics, a favorite lighted wood and glass china cabinet was relocated to the cooking area, with its elegant display always in sight.

Framing a new granite composition sink that reflected the home’s natural elements, an existing and enormous window connected the space to a sunroom on the other side that angled down. “You didn’t look directly into the room, but you were looking through its angled glass roof,” Leas explained, adding she wanted to mitigate the openness and sightline. To that end, the designer introduced a stained glass element that let in the light, “but made you feel as though you were no longer standing in front of a big hole.”

Addressing the controversial kitchen floor, Leas conceded neither she nor her tile professional had seen anything like it (though she later saw it outside of a building, she said). A decision to retain it was predicated on power washing its three-inch cement grout component, which had become grainy-looking over time and needed brightening. To complement the floor’s grey tones, Leas painted existing Craftsman maple kitchen cabinets a muted grey and installed quartz countertops redolent of the terrazzo floor, tying the space together.

Lighting was achieved through an integration of recessed lights and hand blown Italian glass pendants. “Everything else was kept very simple,” Leas said, noting she introduced bright, sophisticated, artisan-like Oggetti Luce fixtures in a variety of colors. Subway tiles on the walls with granite and abalone shell trim reinforced the kitchen’s natural visage, and black appliances replaced existing stainless steel which the designer said conflicted with the cabinets’ grey palette.

“At the end of the renovation, the client said it felt like the kitchen was supposed to have been that way from the beginning,” Leas affirmed, “which is the way design is supposed to be.”

14th Street Project Altered, Moves Forward, After ANC Review

14th Street's newest residences have made it through community input, now a bit smaller, and with a new look. "The Irwin," a 6-story, mixed use building designed by Torti Gallas and Partners, will take the place of a 1960s-era warehouse at 1326-1328 14th Street, now with a new slightly shrunken design and new facade since it was first conceptualized six months ago, as a result of ANC, HPO and neighborhood input.

But in replacing the "hole in the urban fabric" on 14th, the Torti Gallas design team said that it has not been frustrated with the process. Conversely, they claim to have enjoyed working with the HPO (what architect doesn't want a committee to change their design?), the immediate neighbors, and the ANC 2F Community Development Committee in shaping the direction of the project.

The next step by owner/developer Irwin Edlavitch and architect Torti Gallas will be to take the revised design to the Historic Preservation Review Board for approval in December, and to the Board of Zoning Adjustment next spring with the request for a variance from parking and loading requirements and to allow multiple roof structures of varying height.



The initial design concept from June is seen below. The design was for 61 residential units, ground floor retail, 5.3 floor-to-area-ratio (FAR), 75' tall (size permitted by the Art Overlay zoning regulations).  The HPO requested a one story reduction, an increase in the "attic reading" at the top story, and that the "frame" of the building be brought to the property line. This design was taken to the ANC at the end of August, which requested that the design be presented to immediate neighbors and that the building "relate more to the historic context of 14th Street and be made to look more residential".

In light of the new directive, the building was given a new skin and distinct bays. The new version was submitted to the Board of Zoning Adjustment and presented to the ANC in September, which asked the design team to eliminate the "frame" and replace the terra-cotta rainscreen with masonry materials.


The end result of the participatory process is the current design, which will go before the HPRB in December, after a presentation to the full ANC. As described by Sarah Alexander, Associate with Torti Gallas, "This design incorporates a more traditional skin of red brick masonry with still keeping the playful 'artistic' moves [including the] entry canopy and rooftop stair towers." There will be an entry lobby visible from the street that will have an "art gallery feel."


With approximately half the ground floor space taken up by a lobby, garage entry and loading space, there will be around 4,000 s.f. left for use by a retailer. The project includes 53 residential units, 20 parking spaces (all covered or below grade), a small fitness room and roof terrace.

On the other side of the restaurant at Thai Tanic, located next to The Irwin, C.A.S. Riegler is in the process of creating a 5-unit boutique condo, at 1324 14th Street.

Next door, 1320 and 1318 are currently under construction, to be turned into The Pig, a "nose and tail, farm to table" creation by Eatwell DC, which should be open for business next spring, and more apartments by Tikvah Inc.

Washington D.C. real estate and retail development news