Will Old Post Office Deal Accelerate Hoover Building's Demise and FTC's Move From Apex?

The General Services Administration's controversial nod to billionaire Donald Trump's bid for underutilized Old Post Office has refocused attention on the eastern end of Pennsylvania Ave. where several key government buildings could be in play.

Top of the list is the J. Edgar Hoover Building between Ninth and Tenth Street.

In November 2011, the Government Accountability Office released a report detailing what to do with the tired and unpopular J. Edgar Hoover FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Hoover Building, a Brutalist piece of concrete completed in 1974, has few current fans, even among the District's vocal preservationist crowd.

"Nobody will shed a tear when it goes," said Steve Calcott of the District's Historic Preservation Review Board. It's also much maligned as a "block-killer" for Penn Quarter as security considerations nixed any plans for street level retail. "We're just waiting for the day when the bulldozers arrive," said Karyn LeBlanc of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District.

The structure is equally unloved by the G-men as well, apparently. According to the GAO report, leaks, lack of windows, and poor access make the Hoover Building despised by its inhabitants, many of whom are now farmed out to other buildings in the D.C. area post-9/11 for security reasons.

The FBI desperately needs to centralize those agents to streamline operations and react more swiftly to threats. That's compounded by the fact that since 9/11, the number of FBI personnel working in and around Washington has nearly doubled, from 9,600 in 2001 to more than 17,600 in 2010. Given too that the FBI building and its agents are a prime terrorist target, the GAO's report also references key security weaknesses in the building (the specifics of which are classified in this report) that make it a prime candidate for replacement outside of the aesthetics.

The GAO's recommendations should cheer anybody eagerly awaiting a wrecking ball for the old structure. The government watchdog agency noted that at 2007 prices, remodeling the existing Hoover Building to come into compliance with EnergyStar and LEED certification would top $1.9 billion and take nearly a decade and half of work to complete.

Conversely, demolishing the unloved building and replacing it with another at the same site would cost a relative pittance, just $850 million, completed over nine years. Meanwhile, building the FBI a new headquarters somewhere else in the Washington metro area would cost about $1.2 billion and take seven years.

The rapid appreciation of real estate prices on Pennsylvania Avenue could make selling the land to a private developer an incentive for the GSA to find a new home for the FBI. The land that was $41 a square foot in 1963, when the GSA purchased 233,000 s.f. to build the FBI building, is now worth more than one hundred times that, says Gerry Widdicombe, director of economic development at the Downtown DC BID.

That would mean a windfall for the GSA of $500 million to $800 million, (minus $20 million or so for demolition) -- half the cost of building a new FBI building on a new site, Widdicome said.

It would also create a prime spot for a developer to bring more retail, given that Donald Trump plans a luxury hotel and restaurant across the street. "You knock down the FBI building, you can have a serious conversation with a department store like Harrods, or Bloomingdales, or Selfridges, since you would have the necessary volume," he said. "There's no doubt that the Trump deal for the Old Post Office will move the conversation about the FBI building forward."

While a suburban campus location for the FBI might appear the ideal choice, if only to free up the

real estate beneath the building, Britain's FBI equivalent, MI5 has stayed in Central London as the agency has grown, moving into a rehabbed government building, Thames House (right) in 1994.

Towards the same end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Art Deco Apex building, built in 1938 and currently occupied by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is also being sought after as an expansion for the National Gallery of Art. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who heads the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and oversees the GSA's plan of disposing federal buildings, has made it clear he wants the FTC out of the Apex Building and the National Gallery of Art in. "One way or another we are going to get that building," he told GSA head Robert Peck in a recent hearing on Capitol Hill.

Despite criticism of the Donald Trump deal for the Old Post Office Pavilion, the GSA has had recent success in transforming dormant federal

properties into vibrant spaces. In 2002, the GSA partnered with San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels to open the Hotel Monaco in Penn Quarter in the former Tariff Building which had stood empty since 1987. The opening of the hotel was soon followed by the Spy Museum and Zola restaurant in the 800 block of F Street.

Widdicome said that demolishing the block-killing Hoover Building, as well as re-purposing the Federal Trade Commission building as a museum, together with the new 250-room Trump Hotel at the site of the Old Post Office Building would go a long way towards improving the Eastern end of Pennsylvania Avenue, which columnist Russell Baker called "a marble graveyard" after dark.

Next up, says Widdicome, will be repurposing the underused Pershing Park and Freedom Plaza, as well as relighting Pennsylvania Avenue to make it more amenable to pedestrians. "Things are finally falling into place for Pennsylvania Avenue," he said.

Washington D.C. real estate redevelopment news.

Skyland Town Center's Phase One

It's been a long slog, but the work is finally building momentum at Skyland Town Center, where construction on the 18-acre site is expected to complete this year and retailers have finally been committing.  Chase Bank and CVS have already signed leases for Phase 1 of the project, which will include 84,000 s.f. of retail and 263 rental apartments when it completes later this summer.  Rappaport has been in discussion with numerous restaurants as well, despite the obvious impediments to restaurant leasing at the moment.  Lidl and Starbucks, also both committed retailers, will get underway later this year, the latter will take the place of the CVS trailer now on site.  A second phase of the project will nearly double the retail (to 136,000) and residential unit numbers (to 513) when that phase begins, though a start date is not yet determined.  A 4-story medical office building will eventually round out the final development, though a start date is not yet set.

The contentious project is one for the history books.  Initiated by the National Capitol Revitalization Corporation (since dissolved) in 2002 to bring development to a decaying and retail-starved area in southeast DC, developers had visions of urban renewal and improved retail opportunities. Developers, primarily WC Smith and Rappaport, began to assemble and acquire the land, but the existing retailers and landowners weren't convinced the project had legs, and many chose not to sell or abandon their businesses to an uncertain future.  Enter the District government, which chose to acquire the remaining properties via eminent domain, i.e. a constitutional prerogative that permits the government to seize private property for "public" use.  Developers dangled Target as a future tenant, which fell through, but with the District government on its team the recalcitrant owners were defeated, and by 2011 Mayor Vincent Gray predicted construction was "imminent."

That was not to be.  Planners needed an anchor, and eventually signed Walmart, but in 2016, with no construction yet underway, Walmart withdrew from its commitment to anchor the site, as well as another site in Ward 8, and the search was on to find a replacement. The project broke ground in February of 2018, and in May of 2019, Rappaport announced that German grocer Lidl had signed on for almost 30,000 s.f.  The other leases soon followed, including one of the only drive-through Starbucks in the region.  Until the completion of phase 2 a large portion of the site will remain a construction lot, but for now, the neighborhood is one step closer to having the grocery options, sit-down restaurants and conveniences of neighborhoods west of the river that have so long bedeviled the residents in the project's vicinity.

Project:  Skyland Town Center

Address:  Intersection of Good Hope Road and Alabama Avenue, SE 

Developer:  Rappaport, WC Smith, District of Columbia

Architect:  Torti Gallas

Interior Design:  Carlyn & Co.

Construction:  WCS Construction

Use:  480 apartments, 134,000 s.f. of first floor retail

Expected Completion: Phase 1:  Fall 2020.   Phase 2:  TBD

Washington D.C. retail and real estate development news

Arlington Strip Mall to Receive Mixed-Use Makeover

In an effort to revitalize the “neglected” neighborhood at the intersection of Pershing Drive and Arlington Boulevard in Arlington, Abbey Road Property Group is planning a mixed-use project that will include 35,000 s.f. of retail space and 188 residential units. 7 Blocks away from the Clarendon Metro, the 287-acre site at 2201 North Pershing Drive is currently home to two older strip malls; Abbey Road has requested that the area be rezoned to allow for the residential portion of the development.

At its completion, the project will consist of two buildings. The first will have five stories, the second, four, each with retail below and residential space above. The retail portion will have at-grade structured parking behind the buildings while residential parking will consist of one below-grade level of parking per building.

Matt Birenbaum, Principal at Abbey Road said the development would be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, one of the first in Arlington and the metro area. The development has also been recognized by the Washington Smart Growth Alliance for its reuse of an old shopping center. According to Birenbaum, the retail space will target a small format grocer for the corner of the intersection and restaurants and smaller shops for the remainder of the space.

“I think that this (the project) represents an opportunity to redevelop an older strip center and turn what was an automobile-oriented, 1950’s setting into a more pedestrian development pattern. It will be mixed-income, mixed-use. We are really reworking the streetscape, bringing the building up to the street. It could be a model for the redevelopment of old strip centers into more pedestrian-oriented sites,” he said.

The development’s zoning hearing is scheduled for the fall. Developers hope to start construction in the middle of 2008 with occupancy beginning in late 2009 or early 2010.

Today in Pictures - Union Market

Union Market - formerly known as the Capital City Market - is readying for its debut as D.C.'s newest culinary destination. Edens and developer J Street are redeveloping the historic site to create a "best-in class, year-round, indoor food market." More than 40 local vendors may set-up shop in the new Union Market, say its promoters.

Various plans were considered for the site before settling on the Edens plan. Union Market will celebrate its reopening June 3 with Sunday Supper in conjunction with the James Beard Foundation. The site has been the intended target of a much larger redevelopment project, but remedial work is now underway on the site for its conversion to a restaurant haven. Below are recent photos of the undeveloped site.
















Washington D.C. real estate development news

Flats at Blagden Alley Back to Life

When we last visited the Flats at Blagden Alley in July 2006, developer Walnut Street Development had canceled sales of the condo project before breaking ground, with sources saying only one of the 45 units had gone under contract, with the developer stating a likelihood of pursuing residential rental space in the near future. The Flats are indeed coming back, again as condos, but this time as ‘affordable’, to be built by North Carolina-based Self Help, a non-profit whose mission is to “create ownership and economic opportunity for minorities, women, rural residents, and low-wealth families.”

The Flats will front M St., the alley and 9th St., one block from the Convention Center in the heart of Shaw and directly across from the Whitman. WSD’s version, designed by Eric Colbert, had been priced from the high $200’s to the $800’s; the new plan calls for one-bedroom units to start in the upper $100’s to mid $300’s, with target incomes from the mid $30,000’s to the mid $80,000’s. The original project was designed to be a mix of 45 residential condos, ground floor retail, artist lofts, and office space for associations and small businesses; the revised plan calls for 49 one-bedroom condos and 14 two-bedroom condos. Self Help says it expects completion in late 2008.

Camp Springs Eternal

If there are no sadder words than "what might have been," many planners must be feeling a bit melancholy these days, not the least of which would be developers of the Town Center at Camp Springs in Prince George's County. If ambition were reality, the Branch Avenue Metro would have joined other metro-oriented developments like Silver Spring or Clarendon, or maybe at least Twinbrook, but then Father Economy intervened. And though several residential projects have delivered, the promise of retail to round out the community is unfulfilled, and the site closest to WMATA's vast surface parking lots remains a sandbox.

In 2008, Archstone secured approval for a massive 19-acre mixed-use development, the Town Center at Camp Springs. The Town Center plans called for 801 rental apartments and 65,359 s.f. of retail to attract young professionals and employees of several nearby federal facilities. Though groundbreaking was supposed to begin this past fall, like so many projects, the Town Center remains another undeveloped Metro site, another victim of the times.

Peter Jakel, a Communications Manager for Archstone, told DCMud, "the project is planned for a future construction start, but we have not yet established a definite start date." An all-too-familiar chorus for a promising metro-oriented development.

In 2008, Archstone Senior Vice President Rob Seldin described his project as a sort of tipping point for the County, that drawing in young professionals and their entrepreneurial spirit would mean jobs and a new tax base. Seldin explained that, historically, "in PG County, it is typically very difficult to have housing approved, so really, what's been happening is these highly educated, highly skilled, highly compensated workers have been systematically disenfranchised, so they go to Arlington." The horror. Camp Springs would, according to Seldin, offer the same Arlington appeal to the young professional demographic and draw them into Prince George's County. But now that many college-educated, potential-homebuying, young professionals are unemployed and living at home, the Town Center at Camp Springs target market has dwindled.

The project, when begun, will deliver in three phases. Ideally, the first phase will offer 416 units, a 7,000 s.f. private club house with pool, followed by the second phase with similar amenities and 385 units. Phase three will be the retail space, all designed by The Preston Partnership, LLC. What year this will happen, no one seems willing to guess.

Other nearby metro-centric projects have fared better. Metropolitan Development's Metroplace at Town Center, situated between Auth Way and Suitland Parkway, began leasing its 397 rental units in 2006, and report being 92% leased. Across from Metroplace are two more residential projects, Chelsea Way and Tribeca, both developed by Wood Partners. Without the added value of retail from Town Center, however, Camp Springs will continue to be relegated to the category of sprawl rather than high-density metro-oriented development.

Prince George's County real estate and development news

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.

Crystal City Office-to-Residential Conversion Expected to Start this Spring

Feeling the residential boom immediately to its south along Route 1 down to Alexandria, and finding itself with plenty of suddenly empty office space due to the US government’s recent base realignment and closure measures, Crystal City is making big strides to transform itself into a more residential-friendly neighborhood. First up is Charles E. Smith Commercial Realty’s plan to gut and convert Crystal Plaza 2, located at 220 20th Street S., from almost 200,000 sf of office space to mixed-use residential. The company expects to start the conversion this Spring, with a target completion date of Spring 2008. Crystal Plaza 2 was once home of the US Patent and Trademark Office, before the agency moved to Alexandria in 2005. According to Arlington County records, Crystal Plaza 2 was approved last September for 266 residential units (including six additional floors on top of the existing structure), plus 29,000 sf of retail space. The building will also be re-skinned with new glass and metal. No final decision has been made yet on whether the units will be rentals or condos.

Kenyon Square in Columbia Heights Fills Up its Retail Space

Continuing its rapid development from a neglected thoroughfare along 14th Street NW into the next residential hot spot, Columbia Heights is now getting the retail it needs to follow and service the wants of all its new condo dwellers. The latest retail announcement comes from Donatelli Development, which has announced six new tenants for its Kenyon Square project, located on the northeast corner of 14th & Irving Streets, above the Columbia Heights metro station and across from the DC USA retail center. The newly signed Kenyon Square retailers, which are scheduled to open in May or June, are: Starbucks, FedEx Kinkos, Raidance MedSpa, Georgetown Valet, BB&T Bank, and The Heights restaurant (from the owners of Logan Tavern and Grillfish). These stores will be joined by Target, Best Buy, and Washington Sports Club when DC USA opens next year. Kenyon Square will contain 153 condos designed by Torti Gallas. Delivery is expected this Summer.

Flats at Blagden Alley Cancels Condo Plan

Walnut Street Development confirmed today that they will halt sales for their most recent condo development in DC following disappointing interest. The project, a 45-unit condominium one block from the new Convention Center, named the Flats at Blagden Alley, was to house artist lofts and office condos in addition to the residential units. A WSD spokesman cited "a change in the market" and said that the developer, which has not yet received final condo certification from DC, will continue with the building and finalize condo approval but target the rental market, leaving open the possibility of condo sales closer to the Fall 2007 completion date - or thereafter. The project, designed by Eric Colbert, is still slated to break ground early this Fall. Sales began in late Spring, reportedly selling only 2 out of the 45 units. Numerous condo projects in the immediate area have recently completed, and Faison Development is in the final stages of building its 185-unit condo project directly across the street, where more than two-thirds of the units have sold.

DC USA Project in Columbia Heights Breaks Ground

On May 6 starting at 11 a.m., the National Capital
Revitalization Corporation (NCRC), together with
developers including Grid Properties and The
Development Corporation of Columbia Heights, will
break ground on the new DC USA project in Columbia
Heights. The event will begin at 11 a.m. on Hiatt
Place between Irving and Park Road. DC USA will be
a 500,000 square foot urban retail and entertainment
center next to the Columbia Heights metro that will be anchored by Target and include Bed, Bath and Beyond, Washington Sports Club, and Best Buy. It is expected to generate more than $12 million in new tax revenue per year for the city and will create more than 1,000 permanent and 700 construction jobs. Completion is scheduled for early 2008.