The Limits of DC

100 years ago today, Congress passed the Heights of Buildings Act of 1910, a law that has done more than any other to shape the physical environment of Washington DC. The effect has been dramatic - not just on heights - but on architecture, density, land values, even on the city's collective psyche. Much has changed in the intervening century, but the rules have been modified little.

In honor of the June 1st centennial, DCMud will look at the issue of density and DC's height limits, presenting varying opinions on its effects, architecture, and desirability.

A History

No, the height limits are not based on the height of the Capitol dome (at 289 feet high, the 5th tallest structure in the city), a persistent myth. Instead, the 164-foot Cairo Apartment Building (subsequently the Cairo Hotel, now a condo) at 1615 Q Street, NW, aroused the reactionary rules when architect Thomas Franklin Schneider built the Egyptian-inspired building in 1894. Responding to petitions, city Commissioners issued rules limiting building heights, later codified by Congress in the Heights of Buildings Act of 1899, setting maximum height of 110 feet for business and 90 feet for residential projects. The 1910 Act modified the law in several important respects, most notably by permitting heights to rise not past 130 feet, but setting a formula to determine site-specific maximum heights equal to the fronting street width plus 20 feet, judged from the sidewalk, though many sites are sub-zoned for still lower density. An exception still exists for such architectural embellishments as spires and belfries.

Much has changed since 1894 when the Cairo ignited the debate - when Grover Cleveland was President, DC's Commissioners were unelected, and the District didn't even have a vote in Congress (imagine). Few DC denizens are now as shocked by the height of the Cairo as were their 19th-century predecessors. Building construction has progressed dramatically beyond the steel-frame and limestone-brick pile architecture of the Cairo. Firefighting ability, an issue when the Cairo crested above the reach of fire ladders, has likewise adapted to higher structures.

The Plan

Given L'Enfant's sacrosanctity, it should be noted that building height limits at the time the L'Enfant plan was adopted, naturally low due to construction limitations, were never officially part of his creation. Parisian Pierre L'Enfant envisioned the sprawling, low-flung buildings and wide boulevards of his native capital, while President Thomas Jefferson, an extreme Francophile, also dreamed of Paris on the Potomac, providing L'Enfant with inspirational maps of European cities with buildings that hugged the ground (wanting buildings "low & convenient, and the streets light and airy"). Still, formal limits or guidelines were never established.

With the march of technology, the District's earliest architects were without compunction in designing buildings to the upper edge of physical limitations, with no apparent regard for nostalgia. Some of the earliest buildings reached upward unhesitatingly - The Smithsonian Institution Building (begun 1847, 145 feet), Healy Hall of Georgetown (begun 1879, 200 feet), the Old Post Office Building (begun 1891, 315 feet), and of course the U.S. Capitol Building (298 feet).

That Was Then

Proponents of change point to the ever taller buildings creeping up literally on the DC border in Silver Spring, Rosslyn (see Central Place, at right), Alexandria, and Chevy Chase, and with them architecture, development, residents, jobs, and city views denied to DC. Urban planners, preservationists and greenies alike argue for greater density ("if you love the country, live in the city"), a position that also offers a strong economic punch while slowing sprawl. That the law is imposed from without raises the neck fur of DC's voting rights activists who prefer a little more self- determination than that.

Yet it must be admitted that DC is not just another urban environment devoid of national significance. Its existence owes to the founders' desire for an independent district; a national model as a symbol of democracy and showpiece for America's (then) novel experiment. DC is, after all, the only city designated by the U.S. Constitution.

Others prefer DC's uniquely stubbly skyline, greater green canopy, and open, sunny streets. Height limits provide a backstop (if also an upper limit) for property values, limiting developable land and with it competition for developers and landowners. And whatever its initial demerits, DC's low-rise viewscape has become part of its identity as a livable, European-style metropolis.

An Experiment Subject to Change?

If both arguments have some potency, are the two sides condemned to an intractable, Whitehurst-like eternal battle over the issue? Compromise, if there were to be any, would be unlikely to radically change the downtown federal core in an era of accelerating security. Nor are residents of historic neighborhoods like Georgetown or Capitol Hill clamoring for towers in their midst. Others, however, have painted themselves as underserved by the development community, retailers, and entrepreneurs. Marshall Heights and Deanwood - farther from the Capitol building than Rosslyn - have limited claims on the character of DC's downtown skyline. Advocates in both neighborhoods have bemoaned the lack of investment, retail and sit-down restaurants. Taller buildings don't remedy such shortcomings intrinsically but, carefully planned, can increase density to a tipping point that attracts other economic investment.

Raising height limits in select locations could alter the investment dynamic in overlooked neighborhoods, creating entrepreneurial zones, a concept that has worked in numerous struggling cities. Washington DC's "Gateway" avenues present a vexing argument against the status quo: wide, heavily trafficked streets with commercial cores, Metro stations, and less restricted buildings heights one stoplight away. Paris, after all, has Le Defense (at right), a skyscraper-friendly district which only serves to underscore the aesthetics of central Paris and serve as an economic engine for the city of light.

DC has several such zones. East Capitol Street at the PG County border presents a high-speed thoroughfare, Metro station, and yet struggles to find the investment capital to finance its projects. Absent a raison d'etre, Capitol View Park Towers (at left) and Capitol Gateway struggle for existence in a low-density neighborhood, with development on hold.

Georgia Avenue at the Silver Spring border is a dream case study. Farther from the Capitol building than Old Town Alexandria, the two Georgias present a stark contrast - downtown Silver Spring, where painstaking planning has led to a dense and finally vibrant, livable urban core - and its DC root, which lives up to (and then some) its south-of-the-border locale.

Wisconsin Avenue at the city's northwestern terminus presents a different contrast. While the corridor does not want for high-end retail, apartment buildings, office towers, retail, hotels and supermarkets are springing up on the Chevy Chase Maryland side, while on the District's flank development languishes, save an undersized, wood-framed condo, sneaking in by not seeking increased density. Lots above the metro sit vacant or bear empty two-story parking pads, or serve as surface parking for a bus depot. Attempts at development, in spite of zoning approval, are allowed to be vetoed by single-interest groups who protest heights less than half those that exist two blocks north. Density caps on each of the lots render them not quite ripe for development.

Opponents of change need not worry about 50 stories rising in their Palisades backyard or soaring towers blocking off the Mall. The District's zoning authorities would administer appropriate zones for increased height, historic protection, architectural review and case-by-case examination. Modifying the height ban would, in any event, allow the District to make such determinations, making this debate not just an academic one.

Yet More NoMa Residents

Just a few days after NoMa announced its first new housing in a century, the downtown DC neighborhood will get yet another bump in residents with the opening of The Loree Grand on Tuesday. The Loree Grand at Union Place is the first phase of the Cohen Companies planned Union Place development, which is intended to deliver more than 700 new apartments, 9,000 s.f. of retail, a daycare center, and central courtyard open to the public. The Loree Grand, named after local resident Loree Murray who fought local gangs and drug-dealers and had her home firebombed as a thank-you, is the only portion of Union Place to begin construction so far. The opening of the apartment building brings 212 new rental units to 250 K St., NE, with 173 parking spaces in two levels below the 10-story frame. The building, designed by GTM Architects and built by ADC Builders, began construction in July 2007. The bulk of the 212 units are variations on 1-bedroom apartments with the remaining 30 units in various 2-bedroom configurations. The first two floors attempt to replicate traditional Washington DC row house design, with entrances both on the street and from the interior. Cohen did not pursue LEED certification on the building, but the building does support a green roof. Two weeks ago the Loree Grand began taking initial applications from artists for 30 artist-designed apartments, thanks to a partnership with the Cultural Development Corporation. Phase II of Union Place is currently on hold. Cohen also built the Velocity condos in the Capitol Riverfront (ballpark) neighborhood, and is exploring another mixed-use project at 14th and Virginia Avenue, SE. 

Washington, DC real estate development news

NoMa Bulks Up on Student Housing

NoMa's population just increased ten-fold. On Wednesday, 317 students moved into The Washington Center's student dorms - no, wait - "residential and academic facility" at 1005 Third Street, NE. Sure, it may be a large group of temporary students, but when your entire neighborhood consists of less than enough people to fill a Metro bus, you tend to count these things.

The residential center, in NoMa's sparser eastern section, is provided by a non-profit that places an international array of students into DC-area internships. The students are NoMa’s first residents in more than a century, according to the Business Improvement District, adding to the 40 or so residents that currently live in townhouses within the BID. The project, designed by Davis Carter Scott, broke ground just last spring.

The population figures may be a bit misleading, as the gerrymandered BID boundaries narrowly miss several large multi-family housing projects such as Senate Square. NoMa BID reps hasten to add that "9300 people live within half a mile of NoMa," and office buildings are going up everywhere, so don't get the wrong idea, the place is hopping. But soon technical geographic distinctions won't matter; Constitution Square - one of NoMa's largest projects - will begin renting its 440 apartments late this summer, and the Loree Grand will also soon open its doors to 212 new residents across the street from The Washington Center.

The $38m project was developed by Paradigm Development Company, and will be sufficient to provide for approximately 80% of the interns drafted by the TWC each year, who are currently housed in apartment buildings throughout the area. In addition to the college-style design elements like shared kitchens, shared rooms, high speed internet and the nostalgia-inspiring common areas, the building will also offer classrooms, offices, a large auditorium space, a computer lab, a fitness and a lounge area.

Washington DC real estate development news

The Family Man

He opens the gate, inadvertently flashing a purple cartoon band-aid on a finger of his left hand. David Jameson, architect and family man, self-described "enactor of change" (his definition of an architect), welcomes a visitor to the iconoclastic Jigsaw Residence he shares with wife Nancy and their two young children.

"This is not a big house in the world of Bethesda or D.C.," Jameson says of the soaring, 3,000 s.f. home his firm, David Jameson Architects, originally built for a client from the foundation and exterior walls of a post-war rambler. But in this nondescript Maryland neighborhood, Jigsaw Residence looms larger than life. And for Jameson, who grew up on Maryland’s Eastern Shore eagerly anticipating his local newspaper’s “Associated Press House of the Week” (something he’d always redesign), the home represents a lifetime of invention.

The View from Within

“I actually grew up in a pretty cool house myself,” Jameson recalls. “It was just a simple, single level house, but it was on a fresh water pond and the whole back was glass. Whoever designed that house, though it was very modest, knew that the value or pressures of that site were all about the water,” he continues, “so they made the back of the house tremendously open and porous.”

Sited on a busy suburban corner, and despite its 22-or 24-foot ceilings (Jameson wasn’t sure which), clerestory windows and prolific use of glass, Jigsaw Residence’s “views” include traffic and a series of redundant, characterless, corner-to-corner post-war ramblers and other reasonable facsimiles. With that in mind, Jameson splayed the house around a central courtyard from which, thanks to the glass walls, views of nearly every room are visible, as is the courtyard from the rooms. In this sense, the house embodies the concept of reflectivity.

“You’re both inside and outside and back inside again at once,” Jameson says, speaking to the juxtaposition of wall and glass, solid and void, that create a relatively unobstructed view without being directed outside to the street. “When you look through the etched glass wall of the stair tower, there’s a house 15 feet away, but you don’t feel it. When you’re in the living room, there is tons of glass, but it either looks toward the courtyard or looks toward the sky, above the houses outside,” he adds. As a result of its glass-to-wall ratio, a choreography of light, dark and shadows, which Jameson calls “tenebroso,” permeates and transitions through the house throughout the day, also directing its inhabitants’ interests away from the street.

Are You Experienced?

Inspired largely by his children, Jake, 4, and McKenzie, 7, the latter of whom he says constantly sketches and reinterprets things and can write almost the same story, week after week, “but with a different sort of experience,” Jameson – who closes his office early on Friday afternoons to be with them – defines his work as “experiential.” At the Warp and Weft carpet showroom in the Washington Design Center, its design is the antithesis of the way carpet showrooms are presented throughout the world, Jameson explains, noting that at most, one walks into them only to see massive piles of carpets that must be navigated and peeled back, but not easily removed from their stacks.

At Warp and Weft, Jameson incorporated ripsawn oak flooring, much like clients would have in their own homes, with carpets displayed as compelling “architectonic elements.” The carpets can then be pulled out and spread on the floor, as if in the customer’s own residence, for full effect. The showroom’s entry – a departure from conventional entrances where the prospective customer can actually choose to walk past – is an arch “where the ramp becomes almost a sculptural wave, skateboard ramp, fashion promenade, ledge for various types of chairs,” and which draws the client into the space. “Before you know it,” Jameson says, “you’re half way in to the showroom.”

Likening his brand of experiential architecture to the pre-war 1939 Steinway Model S piano in his home that replaced a less formidable instrument, Jameson calls the piano an art object. “When we pulled the old one out and put the new one in, you just hit the note once – you touched the ivory key – and you heard it. It’s indelibly different – a marking of space and time – a quality-driven experience emblematic of the way I think about architecture,” he said. A set of 1949 Hans Wegner chairs, their style made famous in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debates, punctuate the Jigsaw Residence’s dining room, something Jameson also calls “experiential, beautiful, compelling and poetic.

“If you look at the structure of these chairs - the arms in the back and the way they’re crafted, where it curves from the flat to the vertical - they’re at one with one another and they sort of nest together,” he explains. “It’s an experience by a furniture master from Copenhagen.”

Hearts, Souls and Renderings

Defining his practice, Jameson describes it as “somewhere between analog and digital,” and also “non-linear.” With sketching, testing, “recriminating of original thoughts” as much a part of the process as the use of 3D modeling software, Jameson also compares the firm’s work to an EKG. “The work gets a little better, then we learn something about it, and it goes backwards, gets a little better, goes backwards. There are many iterations,” he says, recalling a singular quote from a client who, at the end of a long project, said, “It’s nothing of what I expected, but everything I was expecting.”

Practicing since 1998, Jameson, who traded visions of a career in major league baseball (he went to Virginia Tech on a baseball scholarship) for a profession he calls “not so much a profession but a way of life,” reveals he would love to live in every project his firm designs. “There’s a part of my soul and a part of the client’s soul left in every job,” he says. “Building projects is a journey in life, not a business deal. It’s stressful because it’s about sums of money that are not inconsequential; there’s a lot of importance to almost every decision…Transforming the built environment is time consuming – emotionally-laden with the time, the cost, things that can go wrong. It’s tremendously rewarding, but not for the faint of heart.”

Minnesota - Benning: Apartments and Sit-down Restaurants Coming

Ladies and Gentlemen: We have lift off. Today, Mayor Adrian Fenty and Co. gathered at the Minnesota Avenue Metro station in Ward 7 to throw a demolition party for development partners Donatelli Development and Blue Skye Development at the site of the future Minnesota-Benning project.

This particular press mixer was the culmination of two years of Land Disposition Agreements that sought to answer the question: How can the District best put $80 million to good use in a neighborhood known for its high crime, heavy traffic and lack of sit-down restaurants? One of the neighborhood's first sit-downs, Ray's the Steaks, only opened this past April with the help of a grant from the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development's office, and the District wants another.

The answer the development team came up with was the Eric Colbert & Associates-designed Minnesota Avenue-Benning Road, NE, (formerly known as "Phase 2") a five-acre, three-building mixed-use development. The transit-oriented goliath will stand adjacent to the Minnesota Avenue Metro and the new, $95 million Department of Employment Services (DOES) headquarters (a.k.a Minnesota Avenue-Benning Road, NE Phase 1).

The location of the project is part of the larger Great Streets initiative, a joint venture between DMPED, The District Department of Transportation (DDOT), and the Office of Planning that seeks to transform some of DC's more blighted neighborhoods into "great streets - places where people want to be." Upon delivery in the fall of 2012, the Minnesota-Benning project will boast 325 rental housing units at 60% AMI, 48 for-sale condos offered at market rate and 23,000 s.f. of retail and restaurant space.

Five thousand s.f. of those 23,000 s.f. will be reserved solely for sit-down restaurant space and 4,000 s.f. will be set aside for local business, assures DMPED Director of Communications, Mary Margaret Plumridge.

So, let's say you have a great idea for a sit-down restaurant in Ward 7. Will you be eligible for the same type of grant DMPED made available to Ray's the Steaks? Those details are still being ironed out, and the District seems at least mindful of the fact that this will require something more luring than an empty space.

Either way, construction begins Spring 2011.

DC Real Estate and Development News

Shelly Weinstein to Safeway: Tear Down this Wall

Tempers are flaring in Bethesda over the reconstruction of the Safeway at Arlington Road and Bradley Boulevard, a project that is expected to kick off any day.

On Thursday, May 20th, the Montgomery County Planning Board considered a site plan amendment that altered the location of a planned screening wall between Safeway and their residential neighbors in the adjacent Kenwood Forest Condominiums. Although a wooden fence already exists between the two properties, the proposed stone and masonry wall was to act as a more substantial sight and sound barrier between the new 43,097 s.f., two-story shopping center and the neighboring backyards.

The plan is part of the redevelopment that will replace the 1950's era architectural pockmark with a more attractive, larger store sitting above a parking garage. Elza Hisel-McCoy from the Montgomery County Development Review Division explains that the original plans for the dividing wall were "added sort of last minute" by the Safeway team on the morning before their July 23rd, 2009 site plan review hearing.

"When Safeway engineers went back to look at the placement of the wall, there were issues," and since the Safeway engineers felt a wall on Safeway's property would no longer be possible, "an amendment to place the wall on the condo's common area" was put forth.

The seven members of the elected Kenwood Forest Board went for the idea, but at least 40 members of the Kenwood Forest Homeowners Association did not.

A Kenwood Forest resident for more than 30 years, Shelly Weinstein is heading up the opposition to Safeway's new wall location proposal. While the movement of a wall might not seem like such a big deal on paper, Weinstein characterizes the issue as a symptom of the larger problem: namely, that homeowners in the Kenwood Forest community are being deliberately excluded from on-going development negotiations between Safeway and the Kenwood Forest Board - negotiations that she says allow Safeway to encroach on private residential property, increase traffic flow through neighborhoods, and construct a parking garage without making assurances that dynamite will not be brought in to blast rocky terrain.

According to Weinstein, the Board has the right to enter into contracts with a developer or contractor without consulting the other 116 homeowners in the community if the work that's taking place will last less than a year. "If the Board enters into a one year contract with Safeway to build a wall on our property and then renews that contract annually, then they can get around getting permission from the individual homeowners for the work and get around easement requirements."

That's a tall order, says Weinstein, especially when you're talking about negotiations that could allow Safeway "in some cases, to put a wall within 6 feet of some of our homeowners' decks."

At the time of publication, Safeway PR representatives could not be reached. When asked about the results of the May 20th Planning Board hearing, Safeway Eastern Division Real Estate Manager, Renee Montgomery, confirmed that she was heading up the project but preferred "not to be quoted" and referred us back to Safeway's PR team.

Staying quiet about the subject might be understandable when you consider that, for the time being at least, Safeway has the site plan approval it needs to move forward with construction and an agreement with the homeowners' association.

"The screen wall is no longer a condition of the site plan approval," says Hisel-McCoy, who adds that private agreements between the Kenwood Forest Board and Safeway reps will determine just how that portion of the plan plays out.

Safeway hopes to begin demolition and construction work any day now and the new store is slated to open by the 2011 holiday season. But don't count Weinstein out just yet. The Bethesda resident also happens to be the former Environmental Director of the Department of Energy in the Carter White House and has found a cause in this issue.

The Kenwood Forest Board met last night at Concord-St. Andrews United Methodist Church to discuss, among other subjects, the Safeway development. Weinstein planned to use the opportunity to announce that she's filed an official complaint about the Safeway negotiations with the Maryland Attorney General's Office. With any luck, she says, "We can stop the Board from moving forward with any contractual agreements with Safeway until we can re-open this process and let the homeowners get involved."

With the Attorney General's Office mediating the development, she hopes to answer once and for all "whether or not the [Kenwood Forest] Board violated its authority by not including the homeowners."

She anticipates opposition from the Kenwood Forest Board but says "It's senseless to get into an argument with them when we've been trying to get involved with the project for over a year." Wall or no wall, a new Safeway is on its way.

Maryland Real Estate and Development News

Del Ray Rising (II)

Add another project to the growing list of development to fill in Del Ray. The latest: Del Ray Greens, at 2903 Mt. Vernon Avenue. With the paint still wet at Mt. Vernon Commons across the street, and the Lofts at Del Ray Village now under construction just down the block, change on Mt. Vernon Avenue is already in motion. If would-be developer Julie Wadler has her way, the Anthony's Auto site at the corner of Mt. Vernon and Commonwealth will add to the transformation, as it morphs from a carbon glutton filling station to a carbon-neutral office space.
The metamorphosis could begin taking place by this fall, according to Wadler, who has a self-professed longstanding fixation with environmental awareness, and simply couldn't resist the idea of turning something so environmentally unfriendly into, well, the opposite. If the vision is fulfilled, the former pumping station will be replaced with a small office sporting with a LEED Gold (fingers crossed) rating, phenolic panels (a recycled composite) and a "farmable, vegetated roof." The latter will be parceled out to the community who can ascend the building to harvest their own arugula or snap peas.

The project has been a long time coming for Wadler, who says the project has moved much slower than expected, thanks in large part to regulatory hurdles. "The city process just took forever" she says, noting she bought the property "probably six years ago." Actually, less than 5, according to tax records. "Well, it seems like six years," says Wadler, who has spent the past 3 just getting it through the city. She purchased the filling station for $1.2m after it had been remediated - "we bought the land clean" - she says, but has done extensive environmental testing since that time to satisfy Alexandria. "Part of the reason for building in the first place was to put something green there. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it right."

Despite being close to having final permits for the project, Wadler, the President of epiphany productions, has other ongoing concerns and doesn't foresee moving forward on the project until the fall. When the moment arrives, the architect of the building will be Old Town-based Skip Maginniss of Maginniss + Del Ninno, who Wadler chose for his "similar vision" for the site.

To satiate Alexandria's artsy mandate, Wadler held a competition for two mosaics that will adorn the building's entrance. A 9th grader from Alexandria and a 7th grader from Arlington won the contest for the 7' x 6' mosaics; their schools will be responsible for producing the final piece.

Of the eco-friendly design, architect Skip Maginniss says his firm proposed the green roof, "but Julie took it one step further" to create the farmable vegetation. The minor modification requires only deeper soil pans - up to 8 inches instead of the typical 4.5 inch pan, to accommodate plant varieties suitable for a "kitchen garden." Maginniss says skytubes, larger window space and a roofdeck will enhance the internal experience while providing contributive green features, and that such natural environmental controls allow them to build in "only modest mechanical controls," cutting back on building expense and utility costs.

As for the exterior design, Maginniss says he "spent probably close to 18-24 months working with the neighborhood and the city studying various options and coming up with a design that's compatible yet distinct in the neighborhood...something that was attractive but looked like it was a LEED-certified building."

Alexandria, Virginia real estate development news

Of Clocks and Claro Walnut

Despite a 30-year career focused largely on high end D.C. residential architecture, Michael Callison belies the image of the frenetic, laced up, buttoned up, urban practitioner. For him, pretense is not an option.

With an admitted “holistic approach to architecture,” the relaxed and circumspect Callison projects a kind of warm, homegrown though confident image, one that resonates both in his residential designs and his custom furniture.

“I’m as concerned about the garden and the furniture as I am about the architecture,” Callison said, which he adds is a kind of philosophy many architects have had over time. Referencing aptly-named “father of landscape architecture” Frederick Law Olmsted, who, Callison said, embodied holistic design, he maintains that everything in the environment is part of the design. “When Olmsted was helping with the Chicago Exposition (Midway Plaisance for the 1893 Colombian Exposition), he was concerned about the color of the boats that were in the pond. So that’s the level of detail that’s always attracted me to residential architecture, and furniture design is just a natural result,” Callison explained.

In the Beginning

With that in mind, Callison’s furniture begins with the design of the home itself. “You don’t just get to a point (with the client) and roll out a portfolio,” he said. “It (furniture) is site specific: The environment that’s being created will speak to a kind of furniture that’s appropriate.” Inherent in the project’s genesis for Callison is to explore the client’s own desires, and then pull everything together. “It also has to be more than reproduction, because what I do is not reproduction,” he said. “It’s about understanding the tradition of the design style well enough to add to it.”

An illustration of the process is a Tudor-style house in Wesley Heights on which Callison has worked over time. Inspired by the English Arts and Crafts style exemplified by British architect Charles Voysey (1869-1951), as well as the work of Scottish architect Charles Rennie MacKintosh (1868-1928), Callison designed a 7’3” grandfather clock which he explained is a “sort of mashing of their styles, where I found places for a little bit of originality.” Where MacKintosh’s work tends to be angular and rigid, Callison elected to create a more sensuous shape for the clock, which he indicated reflects its location in the house. Sustainable in its use of weights and pulleys as opposed to requiring electricity, the clock was a birthday gift from the wife to her husband and complemented – by virtue of its origins – a china hutch Callison had previously designed for the homeowners.

In the Wood

Working with Vermont transplants and master craftsmen Crawford C. Hubbard and P. Fife Hubbard of Hubbard Cabinetmakers in rural Butler, Md., who Callison says really understand the tradition of furniture making, the architect further develops and augments his designs (the clock and china hutch specifically) by choosing appropriate materials. He calls that aspect of the process “really fascinating,” recalling that because English Arts and Crafts furniture was often made of walnut, Fife Hubbard had presented him with something called claro walnut which has a rich northern California history. “The particular claro walnut we used for the clock was instrument grade, which is the top of the top,” Callison said. “When a board looks really good with a lot of nice checkered, wavy grain in it, they’ll set it aside for making fiddles and things like that.”

In his Head

“People become architects for different reasons,” Callison said, speaking to great inspirations. “Mine has been that I really enjoy making things, including making furniture, crafting interior spaces, and designing door hardware.” Crediting his proclivity for furniture design to years of working with interior designers such as Mary Douglas Drysdale, whose dance card includes more than 100 pieces of custom furniture, Callison revealed that in his sophomore year of college an overall aptitude test had placed him “off the charts on the bad side.” However his art aptitude “was also off the charts,” he quipped, “but on the good side.” Architecture seemed like a logical progression of his talent.

Though creating furniture is a great passion, Callison affirms he’s “an architect first.” Noting that furniture “is a small, specific thing,” and he embraces the opportunity to master the precision involved in chair height, for example (the difference between a seat that is 15 inches or 17 inches can mean immeasurable discomfort), he defines architecture as “bigger, involving a site; a neighborhood.” Furniture, however, is faster, he explained. “In architecture, you design something one year and in another it’s done. Furniture is done in six months. Having an opportunity to go back on a smaller scale that you can actually get your hands around is very satisfying to me.”

Skyland Hearing Nixes Neighbor Concerns

Skyland Town Center had its day before the Zoning Commission on Monday, reviewing the development team's Planned Unit Development (PUD) application for the Skyland shopping center and residences. The applicant's sponsors are proposing that the city rezone the entire site, currently a mix of residential and commercial usage, to an entirely commercial C-3-A district.

The rezoning is central to the developers dreams to turn the aging, low-density retail site into 450-500 residential units and 280,000 s.f. of retail, creating a mixed-use destination retail center. The project has been mired in controversy, not the least of which is the fact that reluctant owners of the property are locked in a struggle with the city and development team, which together want to use eminent domain proceedings to force the owners off their land. Owners contend that the city has pushed the envelope of judicial proceedings rather than negotiate with the owners for sale of the land, noting the unenviable fate of property owners in similar circumstances. In the now infamous Kelo decision, the Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that developers are within their right to force owners off their land in the name of economic development, a result which still makes conservatives and property rights advocates seethe.

Yesterday's hearing brought up additional concerns, this time from a nearby group of homeowners with the opposite problem. In a May 12th letter submitted to the Zoning Board by Fort Baker Drive residents, attorney Martin Sullivan suggested that the most effective method for protecting the adjacent homeowners from construction risks could be forcing Skyland to purchase four of their homes. Ironic, given that the owners of the underlying Skyland properties don't want to sell, but the city is forcing them to do so. But neighbors believe this would protect them from damage resulting from the excavation and construction process going on next door. In a double irony, the developers have declined the offer, and the Zoning Commission appears unwilling to make them do so.

In last evening's hearing, Commission Chairman Anthony Hood went as far as to "commend the applicant [Skyland Holdings]" for its thorough construction management plan and its responsiveness to neighbor concerns.

Although not completely unsympathetic to the Fort Baker Drive homeowners, Chairman Hood found that the construction management plan submitted by Skyland Holdings was more than sufficient in addressing concerns about property damage. Any repair and damage to the properties that are sustained during construction of Skyland will be repaired by the developers, said Hood, and promises to do so are "enforceable."

Our more focused readers will have noticed a twist, something that landowners complain of as one of the injustices of the system that is pushing them out: that the applicants for the zoning change do not hold title to the land. The development team has applied for, and the city is considering, rezoning land that neither owns. Advocates for the owners have challenged this aspect of the PUD process, so far to no avail.

Skyland Holdings LLC is a joint effort of The Rappaport Companies, William C. Smith & Company, Harrison Malone Development LLC, The Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, and the Washington East Foundation).

By June 4th, the Skyland team will have to submit its final community benefit plan and list of proffers to the Zoning Board. Look for a final ruling on PUD at the end of June.

DC Real Estate and Development News

Del Ray Rising (I)

It took years of planning, 3 generations of family financing, and alot of perspirational equity, but the Lofts of Del Ray Village are finally under construction. Developer-architect Gaver Nichols purchased the property eight years ago with several partners and poured the foundation last year, but when the financial world underwent cosmic implosion, things got interesting. Now, with a new financing plan in place thanks to "Grandma's CD's," construction is about to get underway.

"Tenacity pays off," says Nichols, who closed on a new financing package three weeks ago with the help of a sizable collateral from the aforesaid grandma and other extended family. "We were able to make the bank happy through the coordinated effort of all the partners," says Nichols, who "had to convince the bank that real estate is not an evil thing," not to mention getting plans through the city government. "It just shouldn't have been this difficult."

Nichols estimates that a year from now the finished product will be unveiled: a single wood-framed building with brick veneer; four townhouse components, each comprised of double two-story units. The condo units run from 2,053 to 2,949 s.f. Nichols says the units will be primarily offered for rent, though if the right offer to purchase came along he could be tempted to part with his "labor of love."

The most unique part of the project is that each of the units will be built to the higher commercial code, but with interiors that enable them to function as live-work spaces, residential condos, or pure office spaces, depending on the needs of the tenant (or buyer.) Each of the 5 partners will control two of the units, increasing the odds of a mix of uses. Nichols stresses that the development is comprised entirely of locals with a vested interest in the community - even the benches on the sidewalks, which will be dedicated to relatives that helped out at the project's inception but did not live to see the completed building.

Nichols is also designing a 4-unit condominium down the street, proof that "the avenue is coming alive." But he may be more excited about the lessons learned from this experience, which he plans to translate into what could be called a Design-Build-Finance model. Nichols doesn't want others repeating his experience, and has initiated a Collaboration of Architects and Real Estate experts (CARE) that he sees as a way to add value to other people's property. "Through our expertise of designing, building, architecture, and planning, we can take someone's land or building who doesn't know what to do with their building, and we're able to help them...show them how to better position their property, whether its financing, construction, or planning, not just the design."

At least one of his neighbors knows exactly what to do with their property, and how hard it is to get things done in Alexandria, but that's a story for tomorrow.

Footnote: Subsequent to publication, Nichols informed DCMud that the building would "probably qualify" for a LEED Silver ranking as designed, and that he is "looking at" geothermal heating as an option as well.

Alexandria Virginia real estate development news

New Apartments to Surface on Georgia Avenue

The Heights at Georgia Avenue is closer to beginning construction this summer, a little over a year after the development team received zoning approval to replace surface parking lots and older commercial buildings with a new mixed-use development. Project partners Neighborhood Development Company (NDC) and non-profit Mi Casa, Inc. have filed for construction permits to build the six-story, 69-unit apartment building. The new building, at the corner of Georgia Ave. and Lamont Street, will sit only a few blocks from the planned development at Park Morton. Estimates have the building delivering in early 2012, a bit behind its original plans for opening in early 2011.

The development team is working with Grimm + Parker Architects on the design. The project will have a green roof, with solar panels that power some of the common area lighting. Adrian Washington, a Principal at NDC, said the design team wanted to make a statement about the "important corner" and that the rooftop trellis element "creates a strong corner" for the block, while the rest of the design strikes a balance between a contemporary building and something that "fits with the neighborhood." The apartment building will deliver over 10,000 s.f. of ground floor retail and 69 rental units, half of which will be affordable housing available at 60% to 80% AMI. Within walking distance to the Georgia Avenue/Petworth metro station, the building will offer residents 29 below-grade parking spaces.

Since receiving zoning approval in March of 2009, the development team has been working on finalizing plans to apply for permits, negotiating relocation agreements with existing businesses and securing financing. In January, the District Council approved a $447,000 tax abatement for the project and the team has an application in with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for additional financing options. "We're on track for everything...the financing is what is slowing us down" explained Washington. The HUD application process is "taking a lot longer than we thought it would take," he added, but the federal housing agency is "the only game in town," so wait they must.

Washington said his team has spoken with two or three potential tenants, but no one wants to make a commitment this far in advance, "nothing much is going to happen until you've got a building that is coming up." The developer described the attitude he and his partners at MiCasa have for the project as "bullish." That said, Washington admits "developing infill sites in the city especially in neighborhoods in transition is hard" especially in this "very difficult economic environment."

The developers purchased the property in June of 2008 for $2.75 million under the entity Georgia and Lamont Limited Partnership. Hamel Builders is the general contractor.

Washington DC real estate and development news