Your Next Place

This 1920 modified Dutch Colonial sports a superlative front porch that's bigger than each of my first three apartments.  A big front porch is a must if you have adolescent children; it provides a place for them to go to get away from you, but keeps them close enough that you can still peek out the window during commercial breaks to make sure they aren't doing hard drugs or groping on the porch swing.  (I should know, I was caught attempting both on the porch during my teen years.)

Though it's over a century old, this house is extremely roomy, with sprawling, open rooms and an open-ish floor plan.  It's actually sort of eerie how accurately the original builders' aesthetic anticipated our contemporary tastes, sort of like if you found an old black and white photo of your grandparents and they had tattoo sleeves and lip piercings.  (Pause to imagine what your grandchildren are going to think when they look at your Facebook.)  With over 4200 square feet of space over four levels, you are guaranteed to never feel small and insignificant while between these four walls, except when your mother yet again casually mentions in an email how similar your childhood circumstances were to Barack Obama's.  The formal living room and dining room are huge and bright, and the massive kitchen was made for hosting dinner parties.  There are beautiful and authentic aged hardwood floors throughout; new hardwood is nice, but you really can't beat well-maintained old hardwood.

There's a beautifully rough-around-the-edges attic, with exposed rafters and unfinished wood floors, that would make a picture-perfect artist's garret, if you're into Les Miz reenactments. Way down below is a huge semi-finished concrete-floored basement that's perfect for storage, or using as a dungeon, if you're a pervert.  (I mean that in a good way, I don't trust anyone who's not a little perverted.)  Out back is a two-car garage, for your two cars, or your one sloppily diagonally parked car because why not, in a hundred years we'll all be dead.

3717 Ingomar Street NW
5 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$999,999

Populist Real Estate: Crowdfunding and Planning in DC

District Architecture Center, photo courtesy AIA, DC chapter

With DC growing by nearly 1,100 residents per month, according to the Office of Planning (OP), some residents might feel swept up in change.  But one OP initiative aims to frame DC residents as more than just "passive recipients" of planning and urban development.  The city is not alone; several groups - even a young DC company - are headed in that direction.

A "Citizen Planner Forum" was held Thursday night at the District Architecture Center, which opened last year at 421 7th St. NW.  The event marked the culmination in a months-long joint initiative of the DC Office of Planning (OP) and the Washington, DC chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to get input on place-making from people other than experts.

Real Estate and Crowdfunding

Before: Fundrise 1351 H St. NE, image courtesy Fundrise

Another example of projects built on the concept of collaborating with neighbors on development: Fundrise.  The new project in DC is based on using crowd-funding to buy properties, and the message "build the city you want to live in." Through Fundrise, the entity 1351 H Street has already gotten $215,000 in local investments to renovate a property on H Street, according to its web site.  The architect for the renovation is Michael Francis at Queue, LLC.

Daniel Miller is a principal at WestMill Capital Partners real estate development company and co-founder of Fundrise.  He spoke to the group Thursday.  Miller said Fundrise, which Launched just six weeks ago, is based on the concept that any resident of DC or Virginia can buy a $100 stake in a property and help jump-start a small business.  Miller said investors could also get returns.

Fundrise follows on the heels of WestMill's web site Popularise, a crowd-sourcing web site that allows property owners to survey citizens about what they want a property to become.  WestMill has used it to crowdsource ideas for its own property, but other real estate groups have used Popularise too.

Residents Re-framing Development Discourse

Offering another example of the way residents DC are already re-framing the discourse, Anacostia resident Veronica Davis talked about her experience as a co-founder of "Black Women Bike DC". 
Davis noted that growth can trigger tensions surrounding race and fears of being "priced out". An unexpected symbol of that tension, panelists said: bike lanes.

After: 1351 H St. NE.  Rendering courtesy Fundrise

Davis explained that for some residents of DC, bike lanes seem like harbingers of change, even omens of higher rent.  "We founded Black Women Bike to say – we do bike," Davis told the group. "And we needed infrastructure. Part of that is being visible."
 
That kind of citizen action is what the OP wants to encourage.  The aim is to "work together and not just talk at each other," OP director Harriet Tregoning told DCMud. "Our neighborhoods are going to be better-functioning if people feel they have a stake in their neighborhoods."

Carolyn Sponza of AIA DC, also an architect at Gensler, said the main themes that emerged from four earlier focus groups were: a desire for more education about the way planning works, an idea for a planning network that would connect neighbors across wards,  the need for public spaces and "somewhere to sit", and a need for new modes of participation in planning. 

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Another Neighborhood Changer for JBG: NoMa's Capitol Square Breaking Ground Within Days

You’ve got to hand it to the Chevy Chase-based JBG Companies. The development group has a hand in a number of major projects around the region, yet seems undaunted about adding yet another game-changer to the list, and their latest may break ground within a few weeks.

That project is NoMa’s Capitol Square project, an almost two-block-square site located a block away from the NoMa-Gallaudet U Metro station that will eventually include a hotel, office space, retail and residential units.  The first phase—a Hyatt Place hotel—is just starting up, but the rest is all “phaseable,” the developers explain. That is, the developers will build in stages, waiting to move forward on office space, for example, until they have tenants in hand.

Still, it’s a major undertaking. Sited on two parcels—the first a triangle with New York Avenue, 1st Street, and N street as its borders; the second a rectangle on the south side of N Street (see map above), the project will add almost two million square feet of property to the area. Specifically, that will include 200 hotel rooms, 300-350 residential units, and 60,000 s.f. of ground floor retail space, all wrapped into what JBG is describing as a very pedestrian-friendly, retail oriented streetscape. “It might be like a Bethesda Row/Woodmont Avenue experience,” explained Dean Cinkala, a JBG partner.

But first things first. The starting project is Hyatt Place, a 14-story hotel with a fairly small footprint that’s been designed by local architecture firm Cooper Carry. “We literally just closed on financing and acquisition of the land,” said Cinkala. The company plans to begin demolition and abatement immediately, and expects to be finished by early 2014.

That’s at the western end of the triangular plot of land, where the nightclub Mirrors currently sits. The company also owns real estate on the eastern side of the block. That Smithsonian-worthy McDonalds at the corner of 1st and New York Ave. will also be history, transformed into an 800,000 s.f. office building designed by the New Haven, Ct.-based architect Pickard Chilton, which has burst onto the DC architectural scene recently.

There will be more office space on the south block, which isn’t wholly owned by JBG (a nightclub at 1st and Patterson streets will remain, as will another section abutting North Capitol Street). Perkins and Will, a nationally-known architecture firm with a Washington DC office, will be designing a second office building of roughly 575,000 s.f. there, which may be completed in two phases.

JBG properties include 5a and 5b within the red box

Schematic design drawings are complete for both buildings, which will include ground floor retail, but JBG isn’t moving forward on building either one anytime soon. “We don’t plan on building speculatively, given current market conditions,” said Cinkala. “We’ll submit the building[s] if and when the GSA [General Services Administration] puts out a solicitation.” The company has apparently targeted NoMa as an emerging home for the federal government, but Cinkala said he isn’t ruling out the private market—especially if financing for office buildings becomes easier to come by in the next few years.

The final piece of the pie is 33 N Street, a spot on the southern parcel. The current lease expires in November 2013, and Cinkala says the company is currently hiring residential architects to design a 300-350 unit building directly across from the hotel that will be ready to deploy next November. 

That’s a lot of building on the drawing board. To tie it all together, JBG is working with local landscape architects Lee and Associates to create an urban streetscape that draws pedestrians onto the side streets of N and Patterson streets.

It’s all about boosting the neighborhood’s dynamism, said Cinkala. “NoMa is clearly evolving into a mixed-use area. All this development will help the market mature, and create that live-work-play environment that’s so attractive.”

Washington, D.C., real estate development news

Brilliantly Big and Ingeniously Small

Q&A with Paul Sicari of McDermott Will & Emery LLP

and Terri Barnhart of Gensler

By Beth Herman

In a ribbon-cutting, red letter day kind of move from 600 13^th Street NW, international law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP officially took up residence on Monday in the shadow of the Capitol -- 500 North Capitol Street NW. Surely a view from the top.

Jettisoning a 205,000 s.f. former floorplate with superfluous aspects—in light of current video-conferencing technology—such as outmoded two-to-six-person conference rooms for out of town visitors, the decision to relocate the 450-member firm to 185,000 s.f. in an aging 1966 structure was a two-year (ad)venture in the making. An aggressive renovation process took around six months. DCMud spoke with McDermott Will & Emery LLP office administrator Paul Sicari and Terri Barnhart, a design director in the D.C. office of architecture firm Gensler, both of whom, along with MWE’s design committee, imagined and executed the renovation.

DCMud: What can you tell us about the site?

Barnhart: When it was offered by Boston Properties and Clark Enterprises, it was a building on the boards for a renovation for a B-class upgrade. We ended up doing a much more extensive renovation than was originally intended.

Sicari: It was the first home of the SEC, and when they moved out, a division of the IRS moved in and had been there for years.

DCMud: So we’re talking about everything: mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, elevators, a labyrinth of safety and security systems, aesthetics—a total gutting.

Sicari: On the dozens of hard hat tours I gave, I’d tell people the only thing that stayed was the concrete, but to that we made changes too. In fact we took the roof off the building and added a 9th floor with a roof terrace, (affectionately) called the 10^th floor.

DCMud: Explain the program.

Barnhart: MWE put together a design committee, and we did a visioning session with them to see how to transform the building. We came up with the catch phrase ‘brilliantly big and ingeniously small.’ It represented how a global firm—there’s something very unique about them—how they hold their relationship with their clients, and they wanted to represent that. There’s a lot of client focus and community service built into the firm’s culture as well.

DCMud: So how did this manifest in the design?

Barnhart: We translated the culture into finishes and materials where we have this very large space for the conference center, and certain collaboration areas, but then we tried to focus it down into patterns and materials with different scales throughout. The artwork responds to that as well.

Sicari: The visioning session Gensler conducted with the committee was a virtual tipping point for me in setting the tone and design of the space. The catch phrase really helped define us: We’re an Am Law top 20 law firm, but what differentiates us from our competitors is we have a lot more of these customized smaller practice groups. Our competitors probably don’t have an alcohol/ beverage group. You almost never find a substantial IP prosecution group. We want clients to feel like it’s a boutique firm, even though we’re a giant footprint. ‘Brilliantly big and ingeniously small’ became the lens through which we looked to design our spaces.

DCMud: How did you define spaces?

Sicari: With a firm made up of a lot of small practices, it’s easy for people to get into their silos so they don’t get to know the person down the hall. Even though it’s still a law firm with a lot of walls, we talked about taking a space and making it more of an open concept. We used a lot of glass in the design. We created zones where people are forced to interact. Law firms in the past tended to create three or four copy areas— a copy area on each floor in the name of convenience. We said we don’t want that—we want to create one giant space where people might bump into one another and get to know each other.

DCMud: Doesn’t that mitigate productivity?

Sicari: We created spaces where people can grab coffee, or put their lunch, or pick up a color print job, and thereby interact with their colleagues. Knowing your neighbor is just as important to us as is someone being fast at picking up copies.

DCMud: Are there examples of how the firm may have increased productivity through design?

Sicari: A ‘team room’ is a great example of a concept that we had. It wasn’t about a room; it was about workflow and providing better support not just for our lawyers but for our clients in this more technological 24/7 age that we live in. A team room is a space for a collection of three or four secretaries working staggered shifts and hours, so that we can provide uninterrupted coverage 12 hours a day, five days a week. This kind of thing used to be called a secretarial pool, but that implies anonymity.

DCMud: We understand you are seeking LEED Gold for this reconditioned space. Can you talk about the materials used?

Barnhart: Veneers and substrates are FSC-certified. We used low-VOC paints, glues and sealants, and low-flow plumbing as well as higher efficiency VAV’s. Because of the building’s location and repurposing in an urban setting, we were able to obtain points as well. Occupancy sensors are in place and a lot of glass brings in natural light. There is a fitness center and bike racks.

Sicari: The building is now known as the McDermott building and is within eye shot of everyone who passes through Union Station. That was an exciting element for this location as well. We are really proud to be here.

Washington D.C. design news

Marshall Heights Residents Get Cheap New Digs

Mayor Adrian Fenty joined executives today from The Community Builders in the Fairlawn - Marshall Heights neighborhood for a ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating the completion of Ward 7's $20 million Fairlawn-Marshall Apartment renovation, providing another subsidized housing project for the Pennsylvania Avenue neighborhood. The mixed-income housing renovation marks the first DC project for The Community Builders, a Boston-based, nonprofit housing developer with projects in 14 states.

The DC Housing Authority (DCHA), the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), and the Department of Mental Health were also on hand to celebrate the part they played in funding the overhaul of 98-units within eight buildings spanning the 2700 block of Q and R Streets, SE as well as the 5000 block of Call Place Street, SE.

Adrianne Todman, DCHA's interim Executive Director, credited the newly remodeled homes as a shining example of "the power of partnership" in DC, adding that projects like this one show that "Housing Authorities are players in real estate deals."

Beginning in February of this year and wrapping up in August, the Fairlawn-Marshall redevelopment was made possible through financing provided by the Housing Production Trust Fund, DCHA, The Department of Mental Health, Enterprise Community Partners and Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Additionally, Community Builder's VP Rob Fossi paid credit to Aegon for bringing "in money from Holland to make this possible."

Renovations encompassed everything from the installation of energy efficient heating and cooling systems to kitchen and bath upgrades to new security entries. At the conclusion of the conference, Mayor Fenty led attendees on a tour of the updated apartments designed by the Bethesda-based Environmental Design Group.

Because they are financed through Low Income Housing Tax Credits, all 98 units will be income and rent restricted. Thirty units will receive public housing assistance from DCHA, with an additional 10 units being designated for supportive housing for disabled clients through a contract with DCHA and the DC Department of Mental Health.

Your Next Place

Fresh off a million-dollar renovation in 2005, this Cleveland Park classic, which dates to 1906, combines the best of old and new in a perfect melding of opposites, sort of like sweet and sour chicken, but with less flourescent red food coloring.  The renovation left the facade intact, but restored the interior from the studs out, and it shows.  Right off the bat, walking up the front porch, you realize that this is a special house.  You know how a lot of nice houses have hardwood floors?  This house has a hardwood ceiling - on the front porch.  Talk about setting the bar high.

But it lives up to it; the foyer features custom oak woodwork, with a built-in kissing bench and antique lighting.  The living room features an original oversized window, along with several reproductions of original windows; there's also new fantastic crown molding, and original pocket doors.  In the formal dining room is an antique cherry mantle with a wood-burning fireplace and Ann Sacks tile.  And both rooms also boast ornate, vintage chandeliers.  You don't realize how much of a difference a good chandelier can make until you see one in action; it's like a hat, only for a room.  A good one can really bring everything together.  The kitchen has marble countertops, a six-burner (plus grill) Viking stove, and the Sub-Zero fridge is fronted with wood paneling, making it look like a cabinet (with a refrigerator inside of it).  There's a powder room, with historic recovered stained glass, and each bedroom is nicer than the next, peaking with a huge, extremely unique attic bedroom that I totally have dibs on if you and I ever end up living together in this house.  The house is also wired for sound, so you can totally embarrass your significant other in front of all your friends by playing that "Call Me Maybe" song at your housewarming party, and there's also a video surveillance system, you voyeuristic creep.

The backyard is massive, and there's parking for three cars.  The lower level, which is essentially a standalone unit, doesn't feel at all like a basement, thanks to the high ceilings (high for a basement, anyway), and clever placement of larger-than-normal windows.  This basement was actually livable, as opposed to most basements, where you move in thinking it'll be really quiet and heat-efficient, and then two weeks later you're somehow on a 32-hour day and have to do all your grocery shopping after midnight because "that's when all the spy satellites are blocked by the moon."

3310 Ross Place NW
4 Bedrooms, 3.5 Baths
$1,850,000

Abdo Breaks Ground On Gaslight Square

With a bulldozer on-site and several golden shovels in hand, Abdo Development celebrated the groundbreaking of Gaslight Square this morning, the first for-sale condo project to emerge from the post-recession Northern Virginia economy. Actual construction on the 120-unit project will begin later this week, with James G. Davis Construction Corporation serving as general contractor. Design is courtesy of Abdo's in-house architects, with Reston-based Architecture Incorporated designated as the architect of record. The combination of red-brick and large black-rimmed industrial style is an apparent play off the Wooster and Mercer Lofts next door.

The real estate for the $82 million project was purchased in 2007, with the plans approved shortly after and the large plot of land cleared, fenced, and poised for action; but like so many other projects, the busted housing bubble and subsequent market collapse derailed deals. Thankfully, D.C.-based Federal Capital Partners have stepped in with $24 million in equity and mezzanine financing, with United Bank chipping in another $48 million worth of construction financing. The injection of capital will at least get phase one under way, the first of three proposed four-and-a-half-story, 40-unit buildings as well as the platform for building number two. Depending on how condo sales go with the first phase, explains Jim Davis, Principal of Davis Construction, the rest of the development will progress accordingly. "Construction of the first building should take roughly a year," says Davis, putting an initial delivery in early 2012.

Each building will be separated by a wide, landscaped quad, complete with sidewalk, trees, benches, and gaslights, hence the name, but will not feature any other amenities - no pool, concierge, gym, etc. - in order to minimize the condo fees, which have grown in surrounding condominiums. One of the most innovative features of these units, says Davis, is the elevator-cum-condo-entrances, allowing residents to park below grade and take the elevator directly into their unit (Davis credits Abdo with the idea, though its been used as nearby as Turnberry Towers, as well as in DC). Placing the stairs and elevator shaft directly between two units also provides for improved sound and odor control, and "eliminates the normally inhibitive front entrance corridor, allowing light to enter each unit from both sides, similar to a townhouse," says Davis. Ranging from $700,000 to $1.4 million in price, the one and two-bedrooms will offer anywhere from 1,200 to 2,000 s.f. of space, as well as private outdoor terraces.

With Skanska's mixed-use project having broken ground across the street, and Monday Properties racing to construct the tallest building this side of the Potomac, it is certain that Rosslyn is heating up.

Arlington, VA Real Estate Development News

Perseus Building Office Project on 14th Street

1728 14th Street, Image courtesy Bonstra Haresign

The stoic facade of the Granger building at 1728 14th Street will be getting an overhaul, now that developer Perseus Realty has closed on the purchase.  The developer sealed the acquisition of the property - located between R and S Streets - in mid-August, John Clarkson of Perseus told DCMud on Thursday; the DC Property Sales Database shows the building sold for $4.8 million. Perseus and Ogden CAP Properties are partners in the joint venture.  Also on board is Bonstra Haresign Architects, and Andrew Poncher of Streetsense for retail leasing.  The firm is behind a number of other 14th street projects including the AME Zion church renovation and lower-level addition, the Q14 Condominiums building, as well as Studio Theater and The Aston at 14th and R, all within a few blocks down the street.

Current Granger Warehouse Facade, Image Courtesy Bill Bonstra

Plans for the site include the adaptive re-use of the warehouse building, built in 1988, and the new design includes four floors with 28,000 square feet of retail and office space.  Of the many developments slated for 14th Street, this is one of the few office concepts (Furioso's project being the other).  Clarkson, who provided an up-to-date rendering to DCMud on Thursday, said Perseus expects to begin construction on the project in February 2013 with a 12-month construction time.  The Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2F wrote a letter in full support of the project, which also received preliminary approval from the DC Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) in July.

Like 1728, most of Bonstra Haresign's other 14th Street projects have also been located in the historic district, Bonstra Haresign managing partner Bill Bonstra told DCMud.  "What is really important is understanding the context and what I call the DNA of the site."  The site, 60 feet in width, likely once housed three townhouses, Bonstra said.  "That understanding allowed us to come to terms with the appropriateness of the architecture."

The project also sits in the context of a rich history of commercial buildings on 14th Street, many of them built in the Nineteen-teens and Twenties as automotive showrooms.  Back then, 14th Street was a trolley corridor and a place to window shop. "There was a tradition of retail and commercial buildings and we looked at that tradition as a model."

The design pays homage to the street's architectural tradition with a formal facade with strong center and side doors and a masonry structure, yet also incorporates generous amounts of glass, color, and contemporary planes. Design for the masonry incorporates striping, detail, setbacks, and reveals.  "What we set out to do was respect that tradition of commercial buildings on the street but also make it a building of its time," Bonstra said.  "We believe that the front elevation of this building will be a nice complement to historic buildings, but it will be a part of our time architecturally."

Bonstra said the building will contribute to the true mixed-use history of 14th Street, ultimately providing more of what the street lacks: neighborhood businesses and offices.  The property also includes two historic townhouses north of the Granger warehouse building, but Perseus doesn't have plans to alter them at this time, Clarkson said, though those townhouses might get some interior improvements in the coming year.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

The Mission in Logan Gets Extension

The former automobile show room and current home of Central Union Mission in the 14th Street Historic District is one step closer to a long-awaited redevelopment following a Historic Preservation Review Board meeting on Thursday. 

With limited discussion, the board voted to accept staff recommendations granting a two-year extension to the project on the southeast corner of 14th and R Streets, accepting refinements made in response to the Board's 2006 direction, and restating that it is consistent with the Preservation Act.
Developer Jeffrey Schonberger (Alturas LLC) has been planning to renovate and expand properties at 1625 - 1631 14th Ave., NW since 2006, pending relocation of the homeless shelter that now owns and operates the building. The current structure - a 5-story former Studebaker show room built in 1922 and three, 3-story brick row homes originally built in the late 1800's but remodeled after the turn of the century for commercial uses - will involve restoration and new construction.
According to the Historic Preservation Office staff report prepared for Thursday's meeting, the redevelopment will include restoring the four buildings' facades to their early-20th-century appearance, building a seven-story addition behind the rowhouses and adding underground parking in what used to be the showroom basement. The double-height auto showroom would also be restored and the buildings appearance maintained to the greatest extent possible.

The ground floor of the project will be designated for retail, said Eric Colbert of Eric Colbert & Associates, the architect for the project, predicting at least one restaurant in the mix. Blake Dickson Real Estate will be marketing the retail space.  The upper floors of the row homes and the additional rear structure will form residential units including some two-story units, Colbert said. The Mission building was built by the Wardman Construction Company.

Delays primarily related to relocating Central Union Mission, once slated for Georgia Avenue but now scheduled to go to the Gales School, have hindered development in the past.

Colbert and Schonberger said after the meeting that construction documents would be filed next month and that they would be ready to break ground on the project in 7 to 12 months.

Washington D.C. real estate and retail news

Hockey House

Q&A with Bob Wilkoff of Archaeon, Inc. Architects

By Beth Herman

Because of a contemporary mom’s burgeoning interest in professional hockey, predicated on a Washington Capitals' championship season, the cramped first floor of a late 1970s 2,800 s.f. residence in Potomac, Maryland, underwent a significant reorganization. The goal was for client advantage in viewing much-anticipated games on the family’s flat screen TV from the kitchen and other points. With a few strategic slap shots, Bob Wilkoff of Archaeon, Inc. Architects brought her game plan home.

DCMud: Describe the home’s interior and some of the challenges for you in opening it up to the space that featured the TV.

Wilkoff: The house was dated and compartmentalized—no open flow from space to space. There was a convoluted access to get from the garage and entrance foyer into the kitchen through a series of corridors, and a tight breakfast room. The kitchen was landlocked in the back corner of the house. There was also a very small family room that was adjacent to the kitchen but not contiguous to it in any way: You still had to go through the breakfast room, through a corridor, back into the hall, past the laundry room to get to the family room.

DCMud: Were there any prior renovations at all?

Wilkoff: The kitchen had been redone about 15 or 18 years ago and had held up well, but it was claustrophobic. A built-in computer desk in the corridor between the breakfast room and main entrance hall wasn’t used, becoming just a catch-all for things. It wasted a lot of square footage.

DCMud: So how did you begin to use the superfluous square footage?

Wilkoff: The client wanted to make the family room feel bigger without expanding the house, and open up the kitchen to the family room so she could watch the game. We were not going to add a single square foot to the house—everything was being done within the existing footprint. I might add that though the dining room had a cathedral ceiling, it was also not spacious. In fact it felt like you were in a tower.

DCMud: What was the process?

Wilkoff: We opened up as much of those areas as we could. We took out the knee wall handrails in the entrance foyer stairwell -- a typical ‘70s detail where you have a half-height drywall partition up to a wood cap handrail. It had some bold forms but also closed everything in. There was no sense of a vision beyond the space of those walls. A balcony over the foyer that overlooked the dining room had that same detail, so we cut out all of those drywall handrail walls down to the stringers of the stairs and landings, and put in a stainless steel cable rail design which opened everything up dramatically without changing the space of the stair structures at all.

DCMud: And the rest of the square footage?

Wilkoff: We then gutted the series of corridors that were there and put in a new corridor that went from the entrance foyer to the family room, but we put it at a 15-degree angle. This allowed us to steal more space out of the family room to make it almost four feet wider—to use all of those (haphazard) corridors as a single corridor within this angle. We opened a giant peninsula from the new kitchen to the family room. There was also an over-sized powder room off of these old corridors. It had been dead space at the time, so they’d made the powder room really big and the laundry room as well. We reconfigured the powder and laundry rooms to a more typical size. In this way, we were able to steal another 18 inches of that old space and make the family room 18 inches wider one way and four feet wider the other way, all from the dead space.

DCMud: So really without picking up any square footage, you incorporated a great deal of wasted space into the two new living spaces—and the hockey mom client achieved her vantage point(s) in grand style.

Wilkoff: It feels as though the space has been doubled. We also used new cabinetry, fixtures, hardware, appliances. In fact the angled corridor is a porcelain ceramic tile—floor-to-ceiling—for a more dramatic feel. And it created an entrance portal into these spaces, so you feel like you are going through a transitional space. Some AV cabinets were built into the corridor with the same wood used on the kitchen cabinets. The same cabinet detailing was echoed in the dining room so these three spaces related to one another.

DCMud: And the TV—the renovation’s raison d’etre?

We gutted a dated and dare I say hideous fireplace, and put in a remote controlled gas unit. We took the huge wall between the fireplace and the kitchen’s new end windows and put the big flat screen TV on it. It’s centered between the family room and kitchen, so anywhere you are in that space, the focus is on the TV.

DCMud: A real game changer. And speaking of focus, what D.C. building would you say has inspired you the most as an architect?

Wilkoff: I grew up watching Italian craftsmen hand carving stone on the lawn of the soon-to-be National Cathedral. It was old world craftsmanship that is gone today. There were tents on the Cathedral’s front lawn that sheltered these workers all along Wisconsin Avenue as they carved gargoyles and numbered stones going into this gorgeous building. It left a huge impression.

Washington D.C. design news

Another Big Push for Southwest Revamp

The federal government has issued a Notice of Intent that could potentially remake part of Washington D.C.'s Southwest quadrant, asking the private sector for input to make better use of the agency-heavy neighborhood.  The area, now dominated by superblocks, highways, feeder roads, checkpoints and nondescript, outdated federal buildings that make it feel more like a secure compound than one of the city's neighborhoods, was intentionally erased in the 1950's when urban planners last redesigned the area and has since faced scrutiny by myriad planners.

The government's notice, issued on Friday and calling the area "Federal Triangle South", could be the beginning of the most significant reshuffling of GSA-controlled space in the greater DC area, though the area covered in Friday's issuance is only a small portion of the land dominated by government agencies.  The notice was also admittedly vague, with no timetable and an official "inquiry" only to be released in 90 days.  But the space at issue is also part of the "Southwest Ecodistrict," a 110-acre redevelopment zone.  Along with the reinvention of the Southwest Waterfront, now just months away from beginning, and the rebuilding of 10th Street, the redevelopment could herald an entirely new neighborhood, transforming housing, roads, railroad tracks, parks and streetscapes.

The Southwest Ecodistrict, shepherded by the National Capitol Planning Commission, would stretch from Constitution Avenue along the Mall down to the edge of the waterfront.  But because the land is controlled by a mash of private, municipal and federal entities ("walkability" sites don't even consider it a neighborhood) that make any coordinated redevelopment not unlike herding barnacles, the project has remained in the planning stages.  The project centers on recreating Maryland Avenue which, like Pennsylvania Avenue, radiates from the Capitol Building, but which has been subordinated to railways, highways and monolithic buildings.

The government's solicitation notes the value of the land and its incongruent underuse: "Challenges in the Federal Triangle South include older buildings that are driving high operating costs, a backlog of required capital improvements, land use inefficiencies, space inefficiencies, and lack of area amenities...GSA seeks to leverage the value of its real property assets to provide more efficient facilities for Federal Customers and potentially create the catalyst for a revitalization of this area of Southwest Washington."

Challenges abound.  It is not clear how entire federal agencies could be moved, nor how far the federal government is willing to go toward allowing mixed-use development and relocation of federal agencies.  But, if the concerned parties permit, the vastness of the area could allow planners to start over much as was done 6 decades ago when the government opted to tear down troubled neighborhoods in favor of a pristine federal enclave.

Washington D.C. real estate development news