Pollin's Parkside Project: Bringing Down the House(s)

Public housing in Parkside will crumble and fall this summer, not from age or neglect, but by a demolition team, clearing the way for the new Linda Joy and Kenneth Jay Pollin Memorial Community Development. The Pollin project will replace one-for-one the 42 affordable rental units on site, known as Parkside Additions, while adding 83 for-sale units. The project was initially spearheaded by the late Abe Pollin and his Pollin Foundation. The District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) is seeking permission to raze the row of apartment buildings from 705-721 Anacostia Avenue, NE and, according to DCHA Spokesperson Dena Michaelson, hopes to demolish the buildings over the course of the summer.

Pollin Memorial Community Development, LLC's planned $35 million development would bring 125 new affordable for-sale and rental homes to the northeast site, an assemblage belonging at one time to three different government entities – the District of Columbia, the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA), and the National Parks Service (NPS). The developers courted the approval of all landowners back in 2006 and received approval for the project from the National Capitol Planning Commission (NCPC) in 2008. The NPS transferred its property to the District in 2007.

According to Michaelson, the developer is putting up $2 million to guarantee construction loans for the project. Michaelson said the entire project will eventually be paid for by the condo sales, and that Pollin, acting as a fee developer, will not gain financially from the sales. DCHA will be the property owner for the public housing and will maintain the units. Financing for development is being provided by the District of Columbia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), the District of Columbia Housing Authority, United Bank, Enterprise and the Abe Pollin Grantor Trust. DHCD is providing a construction loan, explained Michaelson, "a portion of the DHCD loan that applies to building public housing units is forgivable."

The project will provide 125 off-street parking spaces, one per unit, and the new residential structures will not exceed 40 feet or 3 stories. The 83 condominiums will be available to individuals earning between 40 percent and 100 percent area media income (AMI) and the 25 rental units will be offered to residents earning at or below 30 percent AMI.

A ceremonial groundbreaking in December was marred by a community boycott - an effort to convince developers and city officials to be more forthcoming about the project's community benefits which, though not final, had been viewed as skimpy. At the time, Michaelson indicated that a community benefits package would be available to the public upon its completion. When asked if an agreement has now been reached, ANC7C04 Commissioner Sylvia Brown said, "Short answer: no, no community benefits. Medium answer: there was a change in the ANC7D chairmanship and the momentum went out like air from a balloon. There hasn't been any other broad community update or discussion." Michaelson said the Pollin family has committed to giving $350,000 to the community, but was not sure what form the donation would take.

Meanwhile, DCHA will begin relocating residents to alternate public housing until Pollin's project delivers, a process that will determine the demolition date. "It's not a quick thing...it's a process to be able to relocate folks...to find the right size bedroom units, etcetera." explained Michaelson.

Current Parkside residents will have the first right to return to the new units. A press release from the ground breaking indicated the first units would be available in 2011. The phased project will complete in February 2013, according to Michaelson, who added that for-sale units will not be marketed until 2013.

Enterprise Community Investment is one of the development partners on the project. John Stranix, of Stranix Associates, is spearheading the construction effort with designs by Torti Gallas & Partners.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Columbia Pike Notches Another Improvement

After years of talking, planning, and building, life on Columbia Pike is looking better. Sure, Penrose Square park has yet to be built; ditto on the overdue trolley lines, but at least private development is moving along. The largest of those, Penrose Square, "giving Columbia Pike its own town center," is underway, if behind schedule. The Halstead (866-464-2578) is built and leasing, new retail is in, and Siena Park Apartments are thriving on the once desolate landscape.

Four years after Woodfield Investments began planning the Siena Park Apartments on Columbia Pike, the building is complete and filling with residents. Four months after leasing began, the development team held a "Grand Opening" and is boasting of renting nearly half the 188 apartments. The former site of a Safeway grocery store now holds a WDG Architecture-designed building with office and considerable retail space.

Construction by Paradigm Construction began in 2007. According to Margaret Smith Ford, a Partner at Woodfield Investments, the team "was fortunate that we had our financing in place before...financing options became so slim." Construction wrapped up at the end of 2009 and leasing began in January Smith Ford estimates that since that time 45 percent of the apartments have been leased. The building boasts a communal pool in the interior courtyard and a rooftop deck; a below-grade parking lot has 410 spaces.

The office and retail space on the ground floor is currently unoccupied, Smith Ford said the owners are "very close with a couple of tenants." Ideally the space would be occupied by restaurants, to include a sit-down full-service restaurant and "a couple of more fast-casual" restaurants. The office space could be occupied for "medical use or small consultants" said Smith Ford, adding that the site is "close" to the Pentagon. Future home of Blackwater? Probably not.

Siena Park is "a critical piece to the overall transformation of the Pike" opined Smith Ford. "Next year, when the Giant opens, it's going to create the critical mass you need to make [Columbia Pike] a destination for people looking for housing." People with cars, that is, until the proposed streetcar line delivers.

The five-mile streetcar line, a joint effort by planners in Arlington and Fairfax County, would run from Bailey's Crossroads (Skyline) in Falls Church, down Columbia Pike to the Pentagon City Metro. Because Columbia Pike is so narrow, the trolley would run on either side of the street with inlaid rails that allow cars to coexist with the tracks. Last year the Arlington County Board approved $3 million in funding and agreements with Fairfax County and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for environmental planning and preliminary design of the Columbia Pike Streetcar. The streetcar, though, is very much still in the planning phase and another year of planning is expected before any actual construction begins.

Arlington, VA real estate development news

Say Yes! to Organic East of the River

For the first time, the Fairlawn neighborhood, just on the boundaries of Ward 8 and Ward 7 and a few blocks from the Historic Anacostia neighborhood, will have access to fresh, organic products like its brethren on the other side of the Anacostia River. Yes! Organic's newest store will open in August, occupying all 7,500 s.f. of ground floor retail in Chapman Development's new affordable housing project, The Grays, at 2323 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.

The Grays brings 118 units of subsidized rental apartments to those making at or below 60% area median income; so far, 45 units have been leased. Renters pay $1,155 for a one-bedroom, $1,386 for a two-bedroom. Computecture Incorporated designed the building, which sits on a plot formerly home to an unsightly strip of used car lots and a tattoo parlor.

The site is the 7th Yes! to open in the District. The District provided $7.5 million in construction loans and $1.9 million in affordable housing tax credits to the developer, and an additional $900,000 grant to get a Yes! store through the Supermarket Tax Credit and Great Streets Program. The new project will create 27 jobs over the next four months.

Chapman was also previously responsible for the Lotus Square Apartments on Kenilworth Avenue, NE. Chapman recently announced that he and Gary Cha, owner of several Yes! Organic Market stores, would be partnering to open five more stores in other District neighborhoods. Mayor Adrian Fenty called the new store just the latest addition in Cha's "Yes! Organic empire" (making up, perhaps, from has gaffe when he announced at the 2008 groundbreaking ceremony that the store would a Harris Teeter.)

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Adventures in Architecture

His website, like the similarly-named song, says, "Don't fence me in." It screams "maverick" and "irreverent," while making its point with humor but laser-like clarity: Here's my job as architect; here's your job as client. A blog, to boot, addresses the more cerebral side of kitchens. With all of that, and a lot more, Jake Bittner of Bittner Design Office is redefining the process of design.

"It's really hard in design to be critical of what you’re doing," Bittner says. "A lot of times when people design, they sort of convince themselves that it's OK. They say, 'I know I need a pantry, but this 12-inch one, it's OK. Even though this doesn’t quite look right, I guess it’s good enough.'" Bittner says the process is hard and takes practice and experience, and a lot of knowledge of construction and millwork – “…what you can and can’t do and how you want to manipulate space or the materials to make them do exactly what you want. Since the client doesn’t know how hard it is, and doesn’t necessarily have the background to judge what they’re getting, people can get away with doing a really bad design. It’s important to be hypercritical of what you’re doing,” he concludes, analogizing the process to food. “You wouldn’t put foie gras on a plate with French fries, just because you like them both. It’s not just about putting things you like together in one space. It all has to work toward a definite goal.”

Bittner talks about Grand Central Station as a frame of reference. “You walk into that space and it’s just powerful,” he says. “The volume is perfect, and the windows and the light. Maybe not so much now, but 20 years ago, all the signage and handrails – all the other accessories that went with it – were perfect. Most people aren’t going to notice the muttons on the glazing or that the handrail is 2 ¼ vs. 2 ¾, but you just get it. It works when it works.”

The Building Life

Reflecting on the time as a 7-year-old he’d sworn an oath to architecture, the New England born and bred Bittner revealed that in 1998, following graduation from architecture school at Arizona State University (ASU), he eschewed a life of mitered glass offices and power lunches. Instead, the newly-minted architect went to work as a carpenter for a Nantucket custom builder.

“I didn’t know construction,” he recalls, deciding that architecture school, as much as he’d embraced it, “just didn’t get me there.” With construction intrinsic to what he wanted to know about his profession, Bittner worked as part of a four-member team in the framing, sheathing, insulating, siding, tiling and millwork aspects of home building. “I would have been there for years,” he says, noting he left in 1999 “only because Nantucket housing is really hard to come by on a carpenter’s salary.”

A call to design a house from a Connecticut builder brought him back home, followed by digital rendering work (computer rendering was “really primitive” in those days, he recalls) and designing spec houses. At the encouragement of new bride Maggie, who’d asked him to “get a real job,” Bittner went to work for Southport, Conn. architect David Scott Parker, where he became involved in very high end residential work. Interiors were a large part of the practice where Bittner was exposed to antique and custom furniture, wall finishes, carpeting and draperies. “I learned all the real detailed stuff that goes into making a good space,” he says. An eventual move to Washington, where his wife, an event planner, had attended college, resulted in several years with AAI Poggenpohl’s mid-Atlantic distributor in Chevy Chase, Md., where Bittner says he got to do everything from sales to design to construction management, further broadening his architectural horizons.

The Writing Life

Because the road to architecture for Bittner never was, and rarely is, straight (he credits ASU with exposing him to the theoretical side of architecture, importing professors from Cranbrook and Columbia), instead of drawing his way into a project as most in his profession do, the process for him begins with a great deal of writing.

“My wife thinks I’m crazy,” he says of his own design process, explaining that at the outset of a project, he “writes pages and pages and pages,” admittedly “using words to dig,” which he ultimately edits (drawings and computer work eventually ensue). This helps him “get outside of the project’s core” - to really focus on the message. In architecture and design, he says, the message, or point of view, is essential. With kitchens and baths among the most challenging for architects and designers, according to Bittner, they are his favorite projects. Toilet, tub and shower have to be there, for example, but whether the room is a retreat: a place to collect oneself, or something else, will inform the design. “When you wake up in the morning, is it bright and light? At night, is it going to be tranquil and peaceful as you get ready for bed?" How this space is going to make you feel, Bittner indicates, establishes the room’s direction.

The Price of Dreams

Citing his unfettered New England roots and experience in all facets of the profession, Bittner maintains his “brutal honesty” in not underselling design work. “So often, a client will come to an architect,” professing all these great ideas with a $100,000 budget, he says. Bittner adds the architect makes promises, including completion within a year, but in the end the dream costs $300,000 and is nowhere near finished within the time frame.

“These really are people’s dreams,” Bittner says resolutely. “When they set out to hire a designer and build custom things, you’re dealing with very valuable things that I think are not respected by a lot of people. Those dreams go deep and the trust a client puts in you means you have to take good care of them.”

Capitol Hill: Razing Townhouses, Raising Money

Fifteen historic homes on Capitol Hill have been pulverized to make way for what appears to be a surface parking lot. The townhouses (pictured below last year) happened to sit where the Louis Dreyfus Property Group plans to build Capitol Place, a 380,000-s.f. mixed use development with 302 residential units and 20,000 s.f. of retail.

In April, DCMud reported that Dreyfus had applied for, and received, an extension of their zoning application, giving them more time to find financing for the mixed-use project. But construction crews from Aceco, based in Silver Spring, are now tearing down the last bits of the century-old homes, and unconfirmed reports suggest the site may be used as a surface parking lot to raise money for eventual construction. Dreyfus could not be reached for comment. While the zoning application for a PUD extension was approved, the raze permit for the old homes was issued in June 2008, a permit that came with a two-year time limit.

The block misses the Capitol Hill Historic District - a legislatively demarcated zone which ends at F Street, NE - by one block. The demolition was an unexpected move given a recent conversation DCMud had with the Developer. Just last month, Robert H. Braunohler, Regional Vice President for Louis Dreyfus Property Group, left the impression that movement was not imminent. "At this point we are actively trying to raise money to go forward with a project that will be part condo and part rental," said Braunohler, added that the project does not have "a firm construction schedule."

Capitol Place was designed by New York-based Cook + Fox Architects. For more pictures of the demolished buildings, so our last story on the project.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Obama Cool in the Age of Insecurity

If the good citizens of Annapolis ever decide to invade the District of Columbia, drunk, chewing on unlit cigars and armed to the teeth, they will make it no further than 99 New York Avenue, the fortress headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms. But until that day, the ATF building will remain the worst building in Washington D.C.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the federal government redoubled its efforts, begun after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building, to make sensitive government buildings more secure. In the fifteen years since Oklahoma City, bollards, planters, walls, and retractable security gates have replaced park benches, eliminated landscaping, and narrowed sidewalks around most federal buildings in Washington and around the nation. For most of our important ceremonial buildings, the GSA has cleverly concealed these security measures within the architecture. For instance, few visitors to Washington would ever guess that the low wall around the Washington Monument is the last line of defense against a dump truck packed with explosives.

But even in Washington, the ATF Headquarters, designed by Israeli/Canadian/American architect Moshe Safdie and completed in 2008, breaks new and disturbing ground for architectural insecurity. Driving along New York Avenue (because nobody would ever want to walk near this building) one is arrested by the colossal barricade trying desperately to fill up the block. The ATF offices cower on the south side of the site away from New York Avenue, like a dog expecting to be kicked. In between the barricade and the building is a lovely no-mans-land. Dead end steps lead down from New York Avenue into this secret garden as if the garden had originally been intended as public refuge from the traffic noise of New York Avenue only to be walled off at the last moment by neurotic security consultants.

On the south and east sides of the site, just steps from the New York Avenue Metro station, gateway to the burgeoning NoMa neighborhood, the bulk of the building is hidden behind a single-story security cordon, making 2nd street feel like an alley where a few of the cordon's undistinguished storefronts have been turned over to retail. But these spaces feel like they've been banished from the kingdom, left to live as undesirables outside the castle walls. The only unobstructed view of the actual office building is from the narrow N Street side, but even here the building is sequestered from the street by bollards and planters and too-tall walls and even taller fences and a pointless pergola.

The dead end steps, the DMZ garden, the inhospitable retail, the planters and bollards and pergola--on all sides this is an unremarkable office building subsumed by architectural paranoia, dressed up with empty urban gestures. So why is this building in Washington DC at all? Why not exile it to a remote site outside the beltway?

This was the strategy of the American Consulate in Istanbul, the first of the post 9/11 embassies, which New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman dubbed the place Where Birds Don't Fly. The suburban embassy is too hard a target for terrorists to bother with, but more to the point, its very inaccessibility has made it a symbol not of our highest values but our worst fears. The best that can be said of the Istanbul Consulate is that it is not in Istanbul at all, but far away from anyplace that matters, like the crazy aunt in the attic. But in Washington DC, the ATF has stumbled out onto the front porch, wearing nothing but a top hat and tutu, and is screaming at the neighbors about alien invasions.
Fortunately there is prescription for this architectural nervous disorder: Philadelphia architects', Kieran/Timerlake’s design for the new American Embassy in London. Perched atop a gently sloping berm and surrounded by a reflecting pool, the glass cube, swathed in bubble wrap, is alighted on an open colonnade at street level. The design for the new American Embassy is distinctly urbane and utterly unflappable: Obama cool. Posed conspicuously on the south bank of the Thames, surround by a decidedly urban neighborhood of office buildings, this building is not afraid of the crowds. It will be the life of the party. Home to the "High-Tech-Modern Architects," Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, London is a showcase of technological innovation in architecture.

But even in such sophisticated company, Kieran/Timberlake's design stands out. The bubble wrap insulates and regulates sunlight and features next-generation "thin film" photovoltaics, a technology pioneered in the United States. But more important than the transparent skin, is the openness at the street. The first floor colonnade is a stylish storefront, taking its cues from the transparent Apple Stores, drawing in shoppers from the marketplace of ideas. Openness, transparency, technology: these are the values that America's buildings should symbolize around the world, and the values that should inform our federal buildings here at home. The ATF building will go down as one of the starkest expressions of a dark age in American federal architecture, but there is light on the horizon.

Alexandria's New Community Space - Rockin' Out at Duron Paints

Alexandria's Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities is (RCPA) discovering that interesting things can happen when commercial property owners willingly part with their land because the city wants to use it and architects create a plan for said land, pro bono. The result of these two unusual occurrences is just now coming to fruition as RCPA seeks approval for a new community building and open space at 4109-4125 Mount Vernon Avenue near the entrance to Four Mile Run.

The City obtained the four lots through Alexandria's Open Space Program in 2007. The City had previously identified the spaces for their proximity to Four Mile Run and when the property owner approached the City, they agreed on a price ($4.8 million, including an escrow set aside for required environmental remediation), securing the space for future public use, according to Laura Durham, Open Space Coordinator for Alexandria. Once home to a Duron paint store, a dry cleaners, a check cashing business and a Pizza Hut, the spaces may in the not-so-distant-future become a temporary farmer's market and a community center. The Duron building is the only extant structure, the other three were razed between January 2007 and January 2009. Demolition of the three buildings on site cost approximately $150,000.

Durham explains that normally a public team would go through a public planning process and eventually hire a private consultant to do the site plan and engineering for a project. But the Mount Vernon open space properties are different. A group of architects from firms throughout the area, who Durham says like to call themselves Architects Anonymous, joined forces to create a concept plan. Officially called the Northern Virginia AIA Small Firms Rountable, Architects Anonymous (better than NVAIASMR), stepped into the process when the City deemed reuse designs for the site too expensive and was considering razing the fourth structure. The do-gooder architects explored adaptive reuse for the Duron property and proposed a design that would open up the interior space to allow for community gatherings and activate the outdoor space for community use.

The privately developed plan is now going through public review; the proposal "won't be the final design...it's a really good starting point" said Durham. The team is seeking a special use permit from the City of Alexandria Planning Commission on June 1 to allow a public building on the site and, pending approval, will also require approval by the Alexandria City Council.

Durham says any plans for the site will be implemented in phases. Initial work would involve retrofitting the Duron building to bring it up to code. Additionally, the design team recommends constructing stages near the north entrance and a secondary stage on the east side loading dock to be used for outdoor performances. Other improvements would happen over time "as funding became available" said Durham. The open space will read like a series of "rooms of a park" with different public uses and with "significant landscape improvement over time," added Durham. The plan will seek to be "green," using pervious material when installing paving or other improvements. Other green options include a rain garden and using recycled concrete. Even the stage would be "green," the design calls for two large cisterns to flank the north stage, capturing rain water for site irrigation while supporting a canopy over the stage. The plans should dovetail with designs, now in the works, for the improvement of Four Mile Run.

Alexandria, VA real estate development news

Revitalizing Mount Pleasant Street

As neighborhoods throughout Ward 1 - including Columbia Heights, U Street and the 14th Street Corridor - have developed and morphed, the Mount Pleasant Street corridor has, for better or worse, remained largely the same. Yesterday, the Office of Planning (OP) furthered a process to change that when it released the Mount Pleasant Street Revitalization Strategy draft plan for public comment. The plan seeks to support existing local businesses and encourage new investment on the half-mile stretch of pavement from Park Road to the intersection of 16th Street and Columbia Road. OP seeks to reinvigorate the commercial heart of Mount Pleasant, starting with short-term plans over the next 24 months and continuing with five and ten year goals. Residents and businesses can comment on the draft through June 18th.

First, blame Columbia Heights. The OP draft draws a correlation between the increase in economic development in surrounding neighborhoods with the decrease in business for the Mount Pleasant commercial area. Citing the 2008 opening of DCUSA and fire at the Deauville Apartments, the document draws a bleak economic picture of the Mount Pleasant commercial corridor over the past few years.

OP's study of the demographic, housing and commercial profile of Mt. Pleasant resulted in recommendations to consolidate retail uses in a core area and keep non-retail venues at the periphery. The current retail scene, it found, is dispersed and discourages shoppers from going beyond the immediate vicinity, resulting in the polarized patronization of local businesses. Bunching retailers and locating non-retailers, such as doctor's offices or a yoga studio, it predicts, will draw non-residents to the area and more potential customers to the retail core.

The three principles of the study: improve the corridor's economic climate; diversify commercial activity by attracting non-retail and creative uses to the area; and promote sustainable development practices to improve the physical condition of the corridor. From these principles come five goals.

The first is to capture more of the local customer base and create a welcoming environment for entrepreneurs. The plan suggests this could be done within 12 months by promoting the demographic and ethnic diversity of the corridor. Easier said than done, but the plan recommends creating a "small business manual" to demystify the various authorizations and permits needed to operate in the District (if only it recommended reducing the number of forms and permits actually needed). Additionally, OP suggests reworking the way liquor licenses are distributed and managed.

Next, the strategy seeks a PR campaign to promote unique qualities of Mount Pleasant - with increased signage and a marketing and PR plan like the one entreating people to vacation in Virginia, only smaller. "Mount Pleasant is for hipsters" could work.

Third, OP wants to make Mt. Pleasant Street a "Green Street" by encouraging local businesses to partner with government agencies to create rain gardens to control surface runoff, add bike racks, use recycled materials and add alternative funding for such initiatives.

Fourth, lure in non-retail businesses like health care offices, educational facilities and creative enterprises. The Creative DC Action Agenda offers a game plan for establishing creative corridors and arts-friendly regulations to make it easier for such uses to come to the area.

Finally, the plan seeks to assure existing businesses that they will not get the boot when new development comes online. The core of this goal is linking business owners or would-be owners with financing sources, such as non-profits, and create training for small businesses on funding and business operation fundamentals.

A Mayoral hearing will take place Saturday, June 19, 2010 at Bancroft Elementary School for those interested in learning more about the plan.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Rhode Island Avenue Has its Day

Rhode Island Avenue's improvement is underway. Seriously. Years of planning have dragged, private development has been promised, but flopped, and even the District government has given itself a full 16 years to pull its plan together, maybe. Despite the unfulfilled promise of the boulevard, today marks a major groundbreaking for Rhode Island's most ambitious project as developers break ground this morning on Rhode Island Station, a project conceived back in 2001.

With the help of a recent promise by DC officials to allocate more than $7,000,000 to jumpstart construction, Bethesda- based Urban Atlantic and Baltimore- based A&R Development Corp will kick off work at the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station. The 8.5 acre, $108,000,000 project promises 274 new residential rental units above 70,000 s.f. of retail. Couple that with the opening of the bike trail, earlier this month, better connecting Brentwood to downtown, and hope for a better neighborhood seems justifiable. Just ask the residents, who in a recent survey overwhelmingly rated "variety of goods and services" as "very poor." In "physical appearance" the area received 88 votes for "very poor," 81 for "poor," 24 thought it "average," and 4 vision-impaired souls deemed it "good". None opted for "excellent."


Maybe that perception will change now that the avenue's pioneers are beginning work, having struck a fresh deal with WMATA to build a 215-car garage next to the Metro Station in exchange for putting its development on the sprawling WMATA parking lot. Instead of pavement, the design by Lessard Group Architects will add street-level retail with sidewalk cafes and apartments above, when completed in 2013. Political speechmaking is scheduled to kick off this morning at 10:30.

Washington, DC real estate development news

Artists Line Up for Housing

The scene at Flashpoint art space in Penn Quarter at 7:45 this morning was a flashback - hopeful denizens waiting in line for the newest housing offering. The scene was not, however, a replay of the condo frenzy of 2005, but a new subsidized housing venue aimed at struggling area artists. Eleven eager applicants waited in line for one of 30 units designated as "artist housing" in the new Loree Grand nearing completion in NoMa, the first phase of Union Place, a new 212-unit apartment building at 250 K St., NE. The benefaction comes from a partnership between developer Cohen Companies and the Cultural Development Corporation (CuDC), encouraging "artists, arts administrators, and arts educators" with dedicated subsidized rental apartments. The CuDC began accepting applications today and will continue through May 24th. So who's an "artist?" To screen the uncreative, an independent panel of arts professionals will review three artistic competencies: demonstrated body of work and commitment to an artistic practice, active ongoing participation in the arts industry and potential for an affordable live-work unit to positively impact an artistic career. Commercially successful artists need not apply, as the unit allotments are based on need. But don't picture starving sidewalk caricaturists in tie-dyes; in DC "struggling" is a relative term. The CuDC is looking for painters, filmmakers, graphic designers, even "arts administrators"and educators, with incomes based on the DC Department of Housing and Community Development's income limits. That puts income minimums at $34,958 (have IRS forms in hand) for a studio and income maximums at $82,160 for the largest two-bedroom apartments. Cohen purchased the land for just over $1 million and has spent $45 million on construction costs with ADC Builders and GTM Architects, the general contractor and architect, respectively. The 10-story Loree Grand - one of the few multi-family buildings underway immediately east of the railroad tracks, will also offer 3,700 s.f. of retail space, which Eric Siegel, Executive VP at Cohen, says he hopes to fill with a food-wine-coffee shop along the lines of Tryst in Adams Morgan or Busboys and Poets. 

No retail tenants have yet committed, and Siegel dismissed rumors of a hot yoga studio. First-in-line Lisa Simmons camped in her Mini for the night to ensure her place in line (pictured at right). The DC native is a short-film maker whose focus is "urban dance in urban spaces." The self-professed nomad now floats between her mother's and boyfriend's places and leapt (well, slept) at the chance to be surrounded by other artists close to Union Station's transit options. Painter Matthew Mann heard about the housing through CuDC's Red Circle, which brings together artists and business leaders. Mann was in line so early for the appeal of "affordable space" that "wasn't derelict." Julia Suszynski and Katherine VanWyk, interns with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, are hoping for a new apartment when their subsidized intern housing runs out. Both heard about the housing through their current work and Suszynski said she thinks artist housing "is an interesting way to segment people." Both hope to qualify as arts administrators. Emma Fisher, Communications Manager with CuDC, said she was happy with the early turn out and expected more applicants throughout the day. Units should be ready for move-in by June. Rentals run from $999 to $1330 for a studio, and up to $1657 for a two-bedroom. Correction: The income guidelines quoted above are determined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, not by the District government. 

Shaun Courtney contributed to this story. Washington, DC real estate development news