Micro-units at The Wharf Could Be D.C.'s First

D.C.'s first micros?  Rendering: Hoffman-Madison

From a tiny flat on the Potomac waterfront, a young man stands looking dreamily out a floor-to-ceiling corner window.  He is only part of a rendering now, but in four years his small home will be real. Apartments at The Wharf, a massive public-private development planned for DC's Southwest Waterfront, could be the city's first micro-units.  The future building is at the corner of Maine Avenue SW and 9th Street SW.

The planned units measure just 330 square feet - about 30 square meters - to 380 square feet and feature sweeping views of the water.  The water is the focal point for this $1.5 billion 35-acre project, a public-private partnership between Hoffman-Madison Waterfront and the District of Columbia.  Perkins Eastman of DC is the residential and retail architect for the building called "Parcel 2", which will house the micro-units.  Rockwell Group is behind designs for the theater planned for the same building.

Micro-unit rendering: Hoffman-Madison

The micro-units could be the first in a new development for the District.  Another developer planned some for Chinatown, but those were never built. In July, 60 percent of respondents to a survey by UrbanTurf said they would consider living in a 275 to 300 square foot apartment.  And with a trend in micro-unit housing sweeping the country thanks in part to a smaller-is-better way of viewing housing, it was only a matter of time before über-small apartments arrived in D.C.   In July, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a design competition to design 300 square foot apartments.

With the city adding about 1,100 residents per month and 70 percent of those new residents under the age of 35 (statistics that Office of Planning director Harriet Tregoning is fond of citing), DC's growth is creating a veritable perfect storm for micro-units.

"Parcel 2", water side. Rendering: Hoffman-Madison

"Smaller units are flying off the shelf," said Matt Steenhoek, Associate Development Director with Hoffman-Madison Waterfront.  He said a small team from Hoffman-Madison Waterfront took a look at trends, demographic forecasts, and a growing "less is more" aesthetic.  The decision to put micro-units in Parcel 2 made sense, he said.  The building will have 500 residential units, 40 percent of which will be studio apartments, though not all in the 300 square foot range.

According to Steenhoek, developers took a look at demand forecasts for the next 20 years, as well as demographic trends: those point to smaller household sizes and people staying single longer. "Some of the housing that has been historically built will be somewhat obsolete," Steenhoek said. "We were looking at all these things and having this conversations in a small group and saying what we can we do and how can we be a market leader in that market for the District."

Rendering: Hoffman-Madison Waterfront

According to developers, the planned micro-units will feature built-in furniture and cabinetry, small appliances and wall-beds. "The idea is that someone could move in with one suitcase," Steenhoek told DCMud.  Data from the OP shows D.C.'s new, young residents aren't bringing much furniture - or cars - creating a niche for furnished apartments.

All units will feature large windows and some will have small French balconies, features designed to open up the spaces and make them feel larger.

Rendering: Hoffman-Madison Waterfont

"Parcel 2", Maine Avenue frontage. Hoffman-Madison Waterfron

Amenities are key to The Wharf's micro-unit concept - a concept that sees micro-units as launch pads for engagement with walkable, 24-hour urban offerings and symbols of freedom from suburban commutes.

Developers are betting micro-units will help help achieve that vision - a vision focused on the urban and social life outside right one's doors. "In that sort of paradigm you can live in a very efficient space because you are not spending every hour in there - you are out in your environment," said Steenhoek.

Parcel 2 plans call for a rooftop terrace and pool,  as well as a cultural performing arts center with a 6,000-person capacity. A co-generation plant is planned to power the building.  Affordable and workforce housing will be mixed throughout market-rate units and offered in all unit sizes, including for micro-units. Plans for the larger development, The Wharf, call for 3.2 million square feet of development, including offices, apartments, and a four-star InterContinental Hotel, four piers, and a three-acre park.

Parcel 2, as well as the larger Phase One, Stage Two development plan for The Wharf, have already received design concept approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. After five hearings before the DC Zoning Commission in July, the plans should get a preliminary decision from the Commission by the end of October.  Developers expect to break ground in 2013.  The answer to the question of what life will be like in a D.C. micro unit will have to wait for a while: they won't be delivered until late 2016 or early 2017.

The Wharf's "Parcel 2" Floor Plan. Rendering courtesy Hoffman-Madison Waterfront

Your Next Place

This 1885 red-brick Victorian was exhaustively renovated in 2006, making it the perfect blend of the best things old and new.  Sort of the opposite of my house, which is the perfect blend of the worst things old (lead paint, horribly inefficient steam radiators) and new (cheap storm windows that don't close all the way, a "Did I Do That?" Steve Urkel poster that's been permanently steamed onto my bathroom wall.)

There's an excellent foyer with a little airlock-like entryway between two doors, so cold air doesn't rush in during the winter, and which you can also use as a sort of holding pen for prospective guests.  ("Sorry, I just now noticed you're wearing flip-flops, I can't let you come into the party.  Sorry.")  The salmon-walled, glass-front-cabineted kitchen has more personality than the love child of Oscar Wilde and Nicki Minaj (so the rumors ARE true!), and opens onto a small family room, which makes a crap-ton of sense since everyone eats dinner in front of the television now anyway.  (Not only do I eat while watching television, I've starved myself for two or three hypoglycemic hours just so I could eat dinner during my favorite show.  Yes, I'm thirty-four years old.)

Upstairs you have the luxurious master bedroom suite, and a five-star marble-lined, glass-doored master bath that's so nice you could reasonably pretend you're George Clooney at his Italian Lake Como villa, just make sure you don't look into any reflective surfaces and shatter the illusion. There's a garage too, so you don't have to endure the neverending Kafkaesque hassle of street parking.  I recently had to look after a friend's car for a couple weeks while she was out of town, and I swear the city is playing a practical joke on us with those parking signs.  "Two hour parking:  All cars will be towed after ninety minutes, except on weekdays and weekends, when all parking is prohibited.  Just kidding.  Possibly."

1518 T Street NW
2 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$1,495,000

Babes Development OK'd by ANC

The Advisory Neighborhood Commission held a hearing last night to approve development at 4600 Wisconsin Ave., affectionately known as the "Babes" site in Tenleytown.  In a hearing competing with a Vice Presidential debate and sudden death National League playoff, the ANC voted in a lightly attended meeting to support the residential project as Douglas Development gets ready to present the same plans to the Zoning Commission

The approval, the culmination of a Memorandum of Understanding between Douglas Development, the building's owner, and the ANC, gets Douglas past the neighborhood and to a final zoning vote.  Douglas's zoning application calls for a 6-story building with 48,000 s.f. of residential use above 13,000 s.f. of retail.  After a heated battle with some neighborhood turf bullies that feared dozens of new cars clogging Tenleytown, Douglas prevailed on turning the bottom two floors into retail by offering a host of transportation amenities (off-street handicap parking, a bike room, bike racks on Wisconsin, and a "digital multimodal display" in the lobby that lists updated bus, rail, bikeshare and car share data) rather than the 87 parking spaces that would have been required under current zoning regulations.

Douglas fought a contentious battle with some in the neighborhood that wanted garage parking to mitigate street parking, but the neighborhood acquiesced when, among other things, when Douglas agreed that residents would not qualify for neighborhood parking stickers and that commercial tenants over 3,500 s.f. would provide free validated parking. Jonathan Bender, the ANC Commissioner in whose district the project is located, said it was a tough compromise that neither side was entirely happy with, but that it allowed the project to go forward.   "This is a tremendous advance in Tenleytown...even if the ANC supported it without the parking restriction the Zoning Commission would never have supported this [without that parking condition]."  The concept of allowing new development while forbidding tenants of new residential developments has long been a contested one, with new residents feeling boxed out by local home owners.

Douglas also agreed to a check list of other neighborhood upgrades, including contributing up to $600,000 to underground utilities in front of the project, building a CaBi station at its expense if DDOT does not build one in the immediate vicinity on its own within 2 years, and enhancing the triangular park across the street.

The site has long been planned as a residential location, a previous owner intended high-end condos on the site, and though Douglas initially floated a plan for office space above retail after purchasing the property in January of 2009 (the site had been a pool hall recently), it soon began developing a plan for housing above the retail.  Click here for the most recent images of the project.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Designing Eden

Q&A with Ron Schneck of Square 134 Architects

By Beth Herman

As a mixed market rate and subsidized housing development, Eden Place at Beulah Crossing—with Phase 1 at 400-414 Eastern Avenue NE—in some ways has been seen as a bellwether of revitalized multifamily housing in D.C., but not for obvious reasons. DCMud spoke with Principal Ron Schneck of Square 134 Architects about the firm’s role in making aesthetics a key component of affordable housing.

DCMud: Tell us about the genesis of Eden Place at Beulah Crossing.

Schneck: Under the Fenty regime, there were a series of RFP’s put out to galvanize underutilized city-owned sites in the District. Washington Interfaith Network was involved with this one, specifically Beulah Baptist Church.

DCMud: What makes this housing project different?

Schneck: We chose an Arts and Crafts style. There’s always a site plan condition that’s governed by economics, and the problem with large townhome developments typically is you always fluctuate between designing individual town homes vs. a block of buildings that create one mass. The more material and colors that you can have at your disposal makes (the former) a lot easier.

DCMud: Tell us about the site.

Schneck: The existing site was public housing that had been abandoned for many years—a real blight on the community. The church identified the site, and we worked with two development groups: UrbanMatters Development Partners LLC and Denning Development, who partnered with Beulah Baptist Church—which was critical in convincing the community that this was something it needed. NCD Management was integral as they provided development and construction management.

DCMud: What is the time frame?

Schneck: Eden Place at Beulah Crossing is being developed in two phases, with the first broken up into two different buildings on Eastern Avenue NE. Part A of the first phase, along Eastern Avenue, has been completed and is occupied. Part B of Phase 1 is probably going to be finished by the end of the year if not sooner. There are to be 63, approximately 1,500 s.f. units altogether when Phase II along Dix Street NE and 61^st Street NE is built (estimated completion 2013).

DCMud: Describe the interior space.

Schneck: Most are three bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, and there is the gabled space. They’re big, inhabitable bedroom or playroom-type bonus spaces. These townhomes have really nice finishes: hardwood floors; brushed nickel; chrome; some with stainless steel; Energy Star appliances; nice interiors that are market rate. The first floor is contemporary open concept.

DCMud: Is it fair to say the neighborhood is undergoing a lot of revitalization, which doesn’t stop with Eden Place?

Schneck: There’s more development scheduled to go on around it—plans to take over abandoned structures.

DCMud: How do you frame this and your role in it?

Schneck: The reason I’m doing multifamily housing right now is we’ve more or less maxed out the suburbs. Everyone understands that they don’t want to live 60 miles away from where they work. That’s why the housing market is so strong in D.C. because everyone’s moving back into the city, and it’s not just young professionals anymore—it’s families. (The Office of Planning reports about 1,100 residents moving into the District each month.)

DCMud: So what kind of design gauntlet does this throw down for you?

Schneck: The challenge for architects is to try and find a language and a style that is appropriate for that new demographic, which is ‘the family in the city.’ Granted, this is not downtown, but it’s not suburban and also not urban. It’s that buffer area that I think we’re going to be seeing more and more of. People want to live in the city.

DCMud: Speaking of the city and its challenges, what area impresses you the most?

Schneck: I’m a big fan of Penn Quarter. When I first came to D.C. in 1996, the neighborhood did not exist or at the very least had nowhere near the vibrancy it has now. It reminds me that D.C. is a big, international city, and it happened so quickly that it’s now a dynamic area. Penn Quarter and Columbia Heights are the two neighborhoods that happened seemingly overnight. In a couple of years’ time, they have completely transformed and impacted the surrounding neighborhoods.

Shops Open in Fairfax’s New “Urban District” at Mosaic

Sponsored Post

One stroll through Mosaic District and you’ll think you’ve landed somewhere between Capitol Hill and Bethesda.

DC’s favorite shops and restaurants are flocking to Mosaic District, a $150 million Edens development with retail anchors such as Matchbox Restaurant, Black’s, Cava, MOM’s Organic Market, Nieman Marcus Last Call Studio, Dawn Price Baby, Anthropologie, South Moon Under, Angelika Film Center and much, much more. Target, the largest retailer at Mosaic District, will open its doors this Sunday, October 14^th.  A full list of retailers, opening dates and events is available at the Mosaic District website.


Also onsite are new townhomes by DC’s leading urban developer, EYA. The townhomes at Mosaic District feature three and four bedroom floorplans, contemporary architecture, garage parking, plus the company’s signature rooftop terraces. New homes start from the mid $600s and include luxury finishes such as hardwood flooring, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The townhomes are now 50% sold out and a limited number remain for Spring 2013 move-in.


In addition to the 40 shops and restaurants onsite, Mosaic District offers a shuttle to Dunn-Loring Metro station for easy access to the Orange line and downtown DC. It is perfectly situated where I-66, Route 50 and the Capital Beltway meet and Tyson’s Corner is a quick ten minute drive. Mosaic District is EYA’s 17th new home community in northern Virginia and a destination designed by leading retail shopping center developer Edens.

Grosvenor, Skanska Close on Ballpark Site, Hope for Construction Next Summer

The Capitol Riverfront neighborhood got another shot in the arm today as developers announced a new project adjacent to the Nationals ballpark.  Developers Skanska USA and Grosvenor Americas closed yesterday on their purchase of the long block on 1st Street, SE, between M and N Streets, just north of the ballpark, and hope to begin construction by next summer.

The site, known as Square 701, will hold four buildings with more than 650,000 s.f. in total:

-An 11-story, 224,000 s.f. office building (built by Skanska, designed by Gensler, see rendering below),

-A 170-room hotel (by Grosvenor),

-Two residential buildings with a total of 285 units and connected by a "trellised glass bridge" (by Grosvenor, designed by Hickok Cole).

In all, the site will offer up to 55,000 s.f. of retail space.  The land had been owned by Potomac-based Willco Companies since 1948, and was cleared of buildings several years ago; in a simultaneous transaction Grosvenor purchased nearly the entire block from Willco and Skanska purchased the northernmost portion of the site from Grosvenor.  The site is adjacent to the hole Monument Realty excavated in 2007 and has left sitting ever since.  Rob Ward of Skanska says that while Grosvenor and Skanska are not technical or financial partners on the project, they will be working in tandem to unify the site.

Ward tells DCMud that while Willco had its own plans for the site, both Skanska and Grosvenor are developing new building designs, which have been wending their way through DC's zoning process throughout the summer.  Ward expects that under the most optimistic circumstances work could be underway on either the residential or office component as early as next summer; to date the developers have been in discussion with the ANC and zoning officials but "don't have enough design to pull permits yet."  Ward says the project is "basically by-right zoning" and "consistent with what the city has in mind for the site."

The new building is being designed to earn a LEED Gold platinum rating.  McCaffery Interests will be representing Grosvenor on construction elements of the project, which include the alley (Cushing Place) between this site and Monument's land.  The alley is expected to be reopened, though Ward notes that he has no news on Monument's projections for work to resume.  Below is a site plan - north is up.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

10 Questions with ... Eric Colbert

10 Questions is a new weekly feature in which we interview some of the leading District figures in real estate, architecture, development, and planning. This week's subject ... architect Eric Colbert.

As much as any architect working today, Eric Colbert is responsible for the look and feel of contemporary D.C.  Once called "the architectural god of 14th Street," Colbert and his firm, Eric Colbert & Associates, is known for his subtle but artful aesthetic, and his projects are everywhere.  Whether you know it or not, when you think about District architecture, you're thinking about Eric Colbert.

1.  What’s a typical day for you?

Wake up at 5:45 and am on the Potomac River by 6:20 am in my kayak doing a workout near Brookmont.  In the office by 9:00 am.  Most of our projects are local and I often make a site visit to one of our construction sites during the day.  As the owner of the company, it is my responsibility to distribute work to the employees and insure that our resources are being used efficiently.  At least 3-4 times a week potential clients come to me with possible projects that they want me to analyze.

I normally work through lunch.  Leave office around 7:30 pm.  I have no TV and usually read a couple of hours in the evening.

2.  What or who is your biggest influence?

When I started my company, for many years I shared offices with the developer, Sandy Wilkes.  He taught me a lot about how to organize and run an office, and remains a close friend and client.  Gary Squire is another long-time client that has taken a strong interest in my company and has been an effective mentor.

3.  What neighborhood do you live in?

I have lived in numerous DC neighborhoods, including Adams Morgan, Eckington, Penn Quarter.  I currently reside in Chevy Chase, DC.

4.  What is your biggest DC pet peeve?

Phobia about building height.

5.  What is the #1 most played song on your iPod.

I play a lot of songs from Cold Play’s “Mylo Xyloto” album and Leonard Cohen’s “Old Ideas” album.

6.  Favorite DC haunt?

9:30 Club.

7.  What’s your favorite thing to do on a Sunday afternoon?

Be outdoors, kayaking, hiking, etc.  I just returned from a 2 week, 227 mile kayak trip through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River.

8.  If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

I travel quite a bit and always enjoy returning to Washington, DC.  There is no place else that I would rather live.

9.  If you couldn’t be an architect, what would you be?

If I couldn’t be an architect, I would probably want another type of job in the construction or design industry.  I love all aspects of creating a building, furniture, or any built form.

10.  Name one thing most people don’t know about you.

I am addicted to crime novels.

CAS Riegler Development on 9th to Break Ground Early Next Year

After years of tiptoeing towards growth, Shaw’s 9th Street plan is taking a big step in that direction in 2013, and one more real estate development is now officially in the pipeline.

Adam Stifel, one of the founding principals of development company CAS Riegler, says the group, in partnership with Douglas Development and CityInterests, is close to construction on a residential project at the corner of 9th and N streets designed by PGN Architects. The partners say they hope to choose a general contractor by the end of October and plan to break ground early next year.  "We’re all set and it’s pretty much entitled,” said Stifel, explaining that the project has received approvals from the local ANC, the DC Board of Zoning Adjustment, and the Historic Preservation Review Board. “Now we’re working on getting it priced out from general contractors.” Stifel would not name the four or five companies bidding on the construction project.

The development site includes a lot at the corner of 9th and N streets that’s currently being used by garden center Old City Green, as well as an existing historic building at 1264 9th Street and a building located on Blagden Alley inside the block which formerly served as Fight Club DC, a privately-owned skateboarding/art/music space that closed in 2010. The corner lot is owned by Douglas Development, while CAS Riegler and CityInterests own the property around it.

Earlier estimates had placed groundbreaking in late 2012, but waiting until early 2013 to begin construction means that Frank Asher, owner of Old City Green, doesn’t have to vacate the property until after the lucrative Christmas tree season. Asher has spoken out more broadly about independently-owned businesses being forced to leave an area once it begins to develop.

The project's design has come a long way since its initial renderings, which featured a "Portland-esque" (as Stifel put it) aesthetic that was big on wood and steel. After multiple changes following meetings with retailers, neighborhood stakeholders and historic preservation officials, the design is now a little more conventional, giving a nod to the nearby row houses with its varying facade and incorporating--but not mimicking--the historic façade at 1264 9th Street.  The building will back up to Blagden Alley, but Stifel says the connection along the alley will be too small to incorporate any alley amenity or streetscape.

The development will include roughly 70 apartment units; most will be one-bedrooms, with some two-bedroom units scattered throughout and a few larger units located on the building’s penthouse level and its corners. The project will also include a level of underground parking and about 8,000 square feet of ground floor retail. "I think we'll end up with a restaurant taking most of it," said Stifel. "I think it's a really good corner space that's meant to be a restaurant or café."

Stifel, who himself lives in one of the company's Shaw buildings, says he thinks the area has a huge amount of promise. “Shaw has a lot to offer, and a lot of beautiful building stock,” he said.  “As a guy who lives and breathes this stuff, I have a lot of confidence in this market.” He said that he envisions the development will have an urban feel similar to The Hudson, PN Hoffman’s boxy, high-ceilinged apartment building located across from the P Street Whole Foods in Logan Circle.

Washington, D.C., real estate development news

Tribute to Paul Hughes

In Memory of Paul Hughes 
1943-2012

Environmental Activist and Visionary

Founder and President, DeConstruction Services, LLC

and ReBuild Warehouse

by Beth Herman

At 7 p.m. on the bone-chilling evening of December 23, 2010, when Washington had long since gone for the holidays, and though he had a persistent cough, fever and raging bronchitis, Paul Hughes gave me an hour of his time. It was a phone interview and try as I might to postpone it to another day, when some semblance of his strained, raspy voice would have returned, Hughes was intent upon keeping the appointment. Though I pictured the then 67-year-old environmental activist huddled over eucalyptus-infused steam, swaddled in a polar fleece wrap on the sofa of a dimly lit room, in reality I learned he was sitting upright at his desk, multitasking, computer humming, lights blazing, as though it was just another day (or night) at the office.

True to his deep sense of humanity and character, something revealed to me not so much by his robust bio and hard-won list of achievements but rather by the unrelenting credit and opportunity he gave to everyone else, Hughes was a quiet revolutionary. Cuirassed in earth-friendly prose and practices, he soldiered on, in fact early on, long before concepts like “renewable” and “sustainable” became as commonplace and easy to swallow as butter and toast.

Though legions of green crusaders roamed the planet, a fierce dedication to recycling, repurposing and renewing people’s lives—maybe even more so than the old lumber he pulled out of deconstructed homes through his Fairfax, Virginia-based DeConstruction Services, LLC—was what distinguished Paul Hughes.

In addition to harvesting old materials and making them available at supremely reduced rates to the public through his 501(c)(3) organization ReBuild Warehouse, the former nonprofit grant and environmental services consultant gave dozens of nonviolent ex-offenders a chance to turn their lives around. With valuable training and full-time employment offered through his businesses, Hughes invested in human dignity as much as anything else.

“It’s going 180 degrees against the trend,” he’d said in that 2010 interview: http://www.dcmud.blogspot.com/2011/01/recycling-lumber-and-lives.html . “Most contractors are trying to get away from employing a lot of people…so they can offload liability costs, worker’s comp and matching social security. They contract everything out to subcontractors and let them worry about where to get laborers—often just day laborers to whom fewer laws apply, and who have little hope of pulling themselves up.”

His life

Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, and marrying his University of Toledo sweetheart, Linda, Paul Hughes “…had his fingers in so many pies—he just had so many different interests,” according to his wife. Following their 1967 marriage, Hughes was instrumental in setting up Hospice of Northern Virginia in a former school building—the region’s first hospice. With an eye to environmental issues, he also vehemently resisted the Lorton incinerator project, though sadly lost the battle.

When ReBuild Warehouse, established in Springfield, Virginia 2008, suddenly lost its lease three years later, in typical fashion and wasting no time, Hughes diligently acquired a smaller space as an interim measure to continue to serve and educate the community. Staff (largely volunteer), hours and convenience were cut back, but he kept moving forward.

Hughes’ good friend Hank Blakely called him “a force of nature.” A lay minister at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax in which Hughes was also active, Blakely is also on the board of directors of the Reston Citizen’s Association, vice president of Sustainability Reston and also of parent company the Fairfax Coalition for Smarter Growth—an organization started by  the visionary Hughes.

In his spare time, Hughes spent weekends canvassing flea markets and farmer’s markets, handing out brochures about the environment. “He was so far ahead of everyone else in his environmental thinking—particularly in the beginning— it could be frustrating when people couldn’t comprehend his vision and sense of urgency,” Linda Hughes said.

According to Blakely, Hughes was the "Johnny Appleseed of nonprofit organizations in Northern Virginia. He put his heart and his money where his voice was on these issues. He absolutely backed the things that he believed in,” he said about his friend, who was also Northern Virginia Green Party chairperson.

Toward the end of our phone interview on that pre-holiday evening, I recall making a note to myself to meet Paul Hughes, but like many of us I simply put it off, content to keep myself updated through ReBuild Warehouse’s e-newsletters about their many challenges and achievements. He died on September 15 from cardiac arrest following a bicycle ride with his wife.

With all he had accomplished, Linda said there were many more things he wanted to do. He could still see ahead. The economy was changing and things were opening up again.

Said Blakely, “It never struck us that Paul would go away. It just felt like he would always be here.”

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