Friday, April 15, 2011

Washington Property Company Planning Georgia Ave and Wisconsin Ave Residences

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In 2005, Washington Property Company purchased two plots on the area's major arteries: 10914 Georgia Avenue in Wheaton and 7100 Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda with the intent of building two residential properties. That the company is now nearly ready for construction and is building apartments is not surprising, as financing for apartments becomes easier and apartment vacancy rates hit historic lows.

10914 Georgia Avenue is slated for a mid 2012 groundbreaking for a five-story, 221 unit multi-family residential building. The site, next to the Wheaton Metro station, is part of an 8-acre area that has been targeted by Montgomery County as part of a mixed-use revitalization of downtown. Revitalization will create 1,300 residential units and 600,000 square feet of retail between a Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA ) site at Georgia Avenue and Viers Mill Road, County Parking Lot 13 across Reedie Drive, as well as the Washington Property Company purchase, among others. B.F. Saul has been chosen as the developer for the bulk of the project. "They're in the process of concept plans with WMATA," said Pete McGinnity, Business Development Manager in the Montgomery County Redevelopment Program. "This is a multi-phase plan that will roll out over the next several years."

Currently, the Washington Property Company site is home to the First Baptist Church of Wheaton, which has plans to move to a bigger lot at 3110 Emory Church Road in Olney, Maryland, after building a new church.

For the company's second act, now the site of an Exxon service station, there's time to wait until the design comes together. The Washington Property Company submitted preliminary plans late last year to build a nine story building of 96 residential units atop 3,000 s.f. of retail space.

"We're still assembling parcels and working on things," said Daryl South, Vice President of Development for WPC. Though the developer is not ready to disclose formal plans for the space, they say plans will come this fall.

The developer recently broke ground in the formerly shunned Ripley District of Silver Spring, with plans to build a sixteen-story, 306,000 s.f. building with 286 rental units at 1150 Ripley Street, the first major construction project in the neighborhood in twenty years.

Bethesda, Maryland real estate development news

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Mayor Predicts Lift Off for Skyland

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D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray predicted on Tuesday that the contentious development of the Skyland shopping center will be underway as early as September. News of the impending construction caught its developers and occupants by surprise, but both seemed to take announcement of the project's birth in stride.The foundering Southeast D.C. shopping center has been in the government's crosshairs for more than a decade, with Washington D.C. planners dreaming of Skyland Town Center, an economic nativity centered around big box retail and new mixed-use, 18 acre community. Planning for the site began more than 20 years ago, and rather than buy out the owners individually, in 2005 the city began eminent domain proceedings against its many owners, and has since claimed title to the property with the intent of handing it over to developers to redo. But jettisoned owners, backed by property rights advocates, have fought tenaciously to reclaim their titles they say were wrongly seized.

Meanwhile, erstwhile developers Rappaport Companies and William C. Smith & Co. et al have continued to promote the expected vitality from a redesigned building despite the lapse of time and lack of forward motion. For several years promoters and the District government maintained that Target was on board, anchoring the project, lubricating capital, and ensuring success. With Target now officially out, Walmart has become the dream (potential) anchor. But with a thicket of legal challenges, no signed tenants, financing uncertain and lack of a land agreement with the District, the project seems much the same as it did 5 years ago, excepting approval of plans by the Zoning Commission last summer.

Despite the Mayor's confident prediction, the developers are sanguine, noting that much work remains even if some demolition takes place on the Mayor's schedule. "There are still eminent domain issues" says Sheryl Simeck, Vice President of Marketing and Communications for Rappaport. "The next step is for the District of Columbia to own all of those parcels. We've taken it as far as we can." Lawyer Elaine Mittleman, representing several owner-tenants, agrees, and says the transfers of title were not only unconstitutional but ineffective, making demolition unthinkable. Mittleman's suits have been denied by the courts, but other suits continue to work their way through the legal dockets, and Mittleman points to a variety of ailments to the District's claim to clear title.

Still, the government might win by attrition, outliving tenants slowly driven out by uncertainty and by a neglected shopping center that becomes ever more decayed. Some tenants have paid rent to the District government, others have not done so for years. "It's a tragedy" says Mittleman. "There's no funding, no agreement, no title, no tenants. It's the opposite of economic development." Mittleman says the government has stonewalled her FOIA requests and has failed to provide answers to many procedural requests, complicating representation of the owners. Still, having seen eviction deadlines come and go, tenants remain more frustrated than fearful, and yet none seem to doubt the ultimate resolve of the government to see the project through.

The development team also includes Harrison Malone Development LLC, the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization (MHCDO) and the Washington East Foundation, Silver Spring based architects Torti Gallas, and Washington D.C. based WCS Construction.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Arlington's Affordable Housing: Macedonia Near Completion

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Bonstra Haresign Architects and Nauck Development Partners (NDP) have nearly completed construction of Macedonia, the affordable housing building for the Macedonia Baptist Church in Arlington. NDP is a partnership between the Church, the Bonder and Amanda Johnson Community Development Corporation (BAJCDC) and AHC Inc.

"We've tried hard to create a building that does not look like affordable housing," said David Baker, senior architect at Bonstra Haresign.

Construction for the four-story building of 36 one-and two-bedroom units began in 2009 and will be available for move-in by the end of this month for residents making less than 60% of the area's median income. 40,000 s.f. of space will be dedicated to offices, one of which will house the BAJCDC. The $14 million project was funded by low-interest loans, a county grant and $6 million in county funds.

The most challenging aspects of the project has been the topography of the parcels at 2219, 2229 and 2237 South Shirlington Road. "There's a large slope which means the rear at Garfield is ten feet higher in the back. This made addressing parking access more of a challenge," said Baker.

The building is EarthCraft certified, Virginia Housing Development Authority's version of LEED certification. Every tenant will have a balcony as well as access to the lower green roof common area.

Along with AHC Inc. and JBG, Bonstra Haresign is also designing The Jordan, a four-story, low-income, 90-unit building three blocks from the Ballston Metro. The Jordan is similar to the Macedonia in that both buildings are predominantly masonry, said Baker.

The development resides on the former Bob Peck Dealership and Showroom site at Wilson Boulevard and North Glebe Road. JBG is now building out its plans for 800,000 s.f. of mixed-use development at the location, requiring a land swap between JBG and AHC.

Baker said The Jordan will be ready by the end of this year.

Arlington, Virginia real estate development news

Monday, April 11, 2011

The History Lesson

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By Beth Herman
Lacking funds for law school and denied employment as a journalist by the Dayton Herald because of his race, Paul Laurence Dunbar read Tennyson and Shakespeare in empty cars as a $4-a-week elevator boy. When a Washington, D.C. high school was created in 1917 to honor the man who would eventually become what historians called "a seminal African-American poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries," the building’s tall ceilings and fluid use of natural light gilded a rich academic tradition – one that paralleled all Dunbar ultimately achieved as a literary icon. Razed in 1977 and succeeded by an adjacent Brutalism-style structure emblematic of its day, in time the eponymous high school was plagued with energy, aesthetic, programmatic and security issues precipitating a new design slated for a late October/early November groundbreaking. Helmed by EE&K Architects+Engineers in association with Moody Nolan, Inc., the modern Dunbar Senior High School will honor the 1917 structure’s design-forward elements, such as its facility for light and ventilation, while positioning it as a cutting-edge 21st century educational and civic presence. The Way We Were According to Moody Nolan D.C. Manager Patrick Williams, a victim of time and trends, Dunbar became “…a palette of everything that could go wrong with a school.” In addition to the building having closed O Street and disengaging one of the plans within the L’Enfant grid, Williams said the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, OPEFM, has identified a decline in the D.C. student population. In that regard the current high school’s size, at 343,000 s.f., is larger than the current demographic requirement. Accordingly, a decision was made to demolish the 1977 structure, though not before building a new 250,000 s.f. school steps away on the former 1917 site (the initial school measured 263,416 s.f.) so students will not be displaced during construction. “The 1977 high school had open classrooms – no walls around them, with the idea that people would teach and collaborate within a much larger, flexible environment,” said Sean O’Donnell, Principal of EE&K Architects+ Engineers. “What happened is that it became an acoustical problem with people disrupting one another,” he explained, speaking to another of the school’s core issues, adding with the integration of audio-visual equipment and emerging technologies in education, a totally open scenario became even more challenging. A dearth of windows in the 1977 building in response to the energy crisis of the era was thought to enhance energy performance, O’Donnell explained, noting the practice actually had a negative effect on students and teachers. With outside views and natural light credited in achieving an optimal learning environment, the architects’ objective is to include abundant glazing, redolent of the 1917 large and heavily-fenestrated structure, ratcheting up significant points in pursuit of LEED Silver (or higher). 

LEED for Future Leaders 
On the road to LEED, for HVAC purposes a ground source heat pump system will be installed beneath a new ball field, with the current one, which sits in the footprint of the 1917 building where land is now needed for construction, eliminated. An underground cistern will collect rainwater, and water from Dunbar’s projected state-of-the-art swimming pool is expected to help flush toilets and serve as a possible component of the HVAC system. Green roofs will collect and control rain water quantity and quality on the site, and budgetary constraints withstanding, photovoltaics are anticipated to generate power. Terrazzo floors are being explored, according to the architects, due to their ease of maintenance, extended lifecycle and possibility of integrating elements like recycled glass into their design. “You start to think about somebody putting their soda bottle into a recycling bin in the school and you can see how it comes back into the tangible materiality of the building in floors and countertops…,” O’Donnell said. “It’s going to be as diverse an array of sustainable options as we can possibly create here, all with the idea that these things will become educational options as well.” In addition to meeting the LEED educational requirement, students will be exposed to the process of sustainable technology and how it may affect their lives when they leave and enter the workplace. 

 As the 1977 structure is fundamentally concrete, plans to recycle it include grinding for fill or as a component of another concrete product, though not necessarily in the Dunbar project. Demolished steel will also be repurposed. Counting among its celebrated alumni members of government, the arts, military, education, science and sports, including Senator Edward Brooke, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C. Mayor Vincent Grey and Duke Ellington, Dunbar Senior High School was the first African-American high school in the country. With two academic wings in the 1917 structure orbiting an “armory,” which served as the heart or social axis of the school, the new design will emulate the original concept with an atrium/armory feeding four levels that each contain an “academy,” or area of concentration, like smaller schools within a school. These are a 9th grade academy, an engineering academy, a business academy and computer academy, flanked by faculty offices for an easy integration of students and teachers. Connecting to the four-story academy building, plans are for a two-story facility containing shared resources from the pool, gym, media center with library and large theatre, and student services and operations such as a college counseling space – in a retail storefront design. Additional urban design attributes of the building will include a south-facing entry plaza sited toward an existing park across N Street. The Dunbar Recreation Center, also across the street, will be engaged in the public space infrastructure supporting the school, O’Donnell said. 

Design by Delegation 
“We found that very early in the design process, we were able to interview different alumni,” said Williams, noting a collective decision to honor Paul Dunbar in the entry space also called the “lantern.” An image of the poet along with some writings may complement a wall of honor for the school population. With a long civic view from New York Avenue, and the library/media center sited at the juxtaposition of 1st and N Streets, O’Donnell said the concept at this point is also to dedicate some or part of the media center to Dunbar’s legacy. The son of escaped slaves and author of a dozen books of poetry, four books of short stories, five novels and a play, Dunbar also worked for the Library of Congress. Faced with an uncertain life at best, the determined poet met a litany of insurmountable challenges, influencing generations before his light was extinguished by tuberculosis at the age of 33. “The alumni have told us they really want the building to celebrate the rich academic tradition of Dunbar Senior High School and certainly celebrate Paul Dunbar’s life as an individual,” O’Donnell said of the $122 million project. “We’re tremendously excited about it.”

Silver Spring - Georgia Avenue Switches from Office to Residential

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Design had been fleshed out, brochures were been inked, and the PR machine for Silver Spring's office tower at 8711 Georgia Avenue had been ambling along. At least until this past January, when plans were scrapped as Guardian Realty filed an amendment to eliminate the office plans and replace it with 160 residential units, keeping retail space. The hearing is scheduled for April 21st after the extension was granted in mid-January of this year.

Under the working name of 8711 Georgia Avenue Parking Lot LLC, the name passed down from original owner Zalco Realty Incorporated onto Guardian Realty Investors after the site was sold in 2007, Zalco intended to create a 13-story class A office building with a slice of retail two blocks from the Metro. Without a working tenant and with demand for residential rentals at an all time high as a result of the housing crunch, developers have now switched to residential.

"The owner [Guardian] tried to find someone to occupy the office spaces before it was built, but in this economy, it is difficult to find a tenant," said Yun Kim, senior designer for WDG Architecture, the design firm for the project. "Converting the proposed building from an office space to residential makes more sense in this economic climate."

The April 21st hearing is to review the change in use, said Robert Kronenberg, spokesperson for the Montgomery County Planning Board. "The building footprint will stay approximately the same. The amount of retail on the ground floor with remain the same. The difference is just in the changeover from office to residential." The change of plans would delay the North Bethesda based developer from a late 2011 early 2012 start.

A development in Silver Spring on a similar timetable is Silver Spring Park, formerly Moda Vista Residences, the Fenton Group LLC development in the former Fenton Street Market space that will make way for a 59,870 s.f., 60-foot-tall Fairfield Inn & Suites hotel with 110 rooms, a 28,170 s.f. office building, and a 58-unit apartment building. Groundbreaking for Silver Spring Park is projected for spring of 2011.

Silver Spring, Maryland Real Estate Development News

Friday, April 08, 2011

Eastbanc to Unveil West End Residences

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At long last, Georgetown's Eastbanc will unveil its plans for West End library and fire station sites on the 25th of April at a meeting of the ANC. After months of meeting with local community groups to fine-tune plans, Eastbanc intends to roll out its plans more publicly for redevelopment of the two sites.

Eastbanc's proposal is for a 52-unit low-income (max 60% AMI), 90 foot residential building above a new fire station on M Street, and a 10-story residence of up to 180 units above a new library and retail filling the 2300 block of L Street. The developer was selected by the District of Columbia in March of 2010 to redevelop the 4 city-owned sites - 1 at the fire station and 3 contiguous sites between the West End Library and special operations facility at 23rd and L, each a 2 story, deteriorating building subsumed by development and recent population surge. Eastbanc is not releasing its designs until the ANC meeting, but early renderings (at left, above) indicate the projects will be in keeping with the designer's minimalist, contemporary style.

The project is being designed by New York and Mexico-based TEN Arquitectos, (for Taller de Enrique Norten) and will add 10,000 s.f. of ground floor retail to the street.

Enrique Norten, lead designer on the West End project, started TEN Arquitectos in Mexico City in 1986 designing small, modern single-family homes. The firm has now swelled to an international presence, though still with a predominantly Mexican portfolio, and seeks to "straddle the line between Mexican and New York sensibilities," says a spokesman, who says Norton creates for a "very minimalist aesthetic." The architect has received attention for his redesign of federal buildings throughout Mexico as well as several high profile projects in New York City.

Completed projects and proposals bear that out, with designs that encompass simple, angular and monument- style towers with expansive footprints as well as diminutive rectangular buildings in more clustered urban spaces, most of which reject the graph paper effect of even lines and flat facades in favor of broken, asymmetrical contours and surfaces. (see visuals: Harlem Park in NYC above left, James Hotel in Los Angeles, above right, Mercedes House in NYC below 1, Chopo Museum Mexico, below 2, New York library below 3, Reforma in Mexico, below 4)

Sean Stadler, Principal of WDG Architecture which was chosen as the architect of record to execute the designs, says Eastbanc's choice of Norten demonstrates Eastbanc's commitment to "trying to assert good architecture into the community." Says Stadler, "they approach development not just from a dollars and sense position. I think that TEN Arquitectos is thinking with a much more global eye on architecture than DC tends to, and I think that's part of the strategy that Eastbanc has had in the past." Citing Eastbanc's other accomplishments at 22 West and Ritz Carlton Georgetown (a former power plant), Stadler credits Eastbanc with the transformative effect of well executed project. "If you look at the old power plant in Georgetown, its really made it a much more personable place."
To accomplish the LEED - possibly gold - ranking that Stadler says the team is striving for, and which Eastbanc didn't apply for on prior projects, the architect says to expect efficient glass, solar shades, exterior louvers, a green roof, and the latest wastewater management strategies. Noting the "strategy in this project in reducing our carbon footprint," Stadler calls the mostly glass, louvered shell "a much more efficient vehicle to stop heat from entering the building. Its not an eyebrow, but a more European approach, an operable full louver, somewhat like a blind on the exterior." According to Stadler, the exterior blinds block heat before it enters the building, in contrast to interior blinds, but also "visually adds texture and depth to the facade."

Eastbanc's Joe Sternlieb says the April 25th unveiling will be just the end of a years-long roadshow, acclimating the public and seeking input that has honed the design. "We tend to do alot of community meetings before we file...we've had over 60 community meetings so far over last 4 years, and retooled project many times based on community feedback." Sternlieb says he hopes to file the PUD application with the zoning forces in the first week of May, in conformance with milestones dictated by the District government, though he declines to set a timeline for construction, saying only that construction could begin within a year of zoning approval, or late 2012, at best. Only the library-police site is subject to zoning review, with the fire station "within the zoning envelope." LeMay Erickson Willcox Architects, which has expertise in designing fire stations, is helping craft the M Street site.

While the library and fire station will be rebuilt on site, the special-operations unit will be moved elsewhere.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Donohoe's Trifecta in Woodmont Triangle

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At the end of this month, the Montgomery County Planning Board will likely hand down its approval - with possible amendments - to Donohoe Development Company's Woodmont Central, the multi-phased, mixed use project that will redefine the urban landscape of the underutilized Woodmont Triangle area. "We've been working on this project for many years," said Peter Gartlan, President of Donohoe. "We've made many amendments, we've gotten our site plans re-approved and we're looking forward to moving ahead with our plans."

The biggest draw for the area is 8280 Wisconsin Avenue, now the site of a Texaco station, the area's only car wash. Once the building is razed, Donohoe will develop a 91,600 s.f. Class A office building with 11,000 s.f. of retail. Gartlan said he hopes to break ground on this facet of the project in 2013.

Nevertheless, Donohoe plans to break ground on the two residential buildings in the second quarter of 2012. First up is Phase 1B, also known as The Gallery of Bethesda at 4800 Auburn Avenue. The building will replace old commercial buildings and surface parking with 234 units, 5400 s.f. of retail and its own pedestrian street with public art displays. The second building, now dubbed Phase 2, also know as The Gallery of Bethesda II, will be a 221-unit building at 4850 Rugby Avenue with 19,500 s.f. of ground floor retail. WDG Architecture is on the hook for design of each of the three buildings.

The Montgomery County Planning Board has already approved the preliminary plans of a project that's been in the works following the amendment to the 2006 Bethesda Sector Plan.

Until the 2006 amendment, said Gartlan, density was site-specific. "The adjustment that allows non-contiguous transfer of density was changed specifically to help cultivate the redevelopment of Woodmont Triangle, which is what used to be the center of Bethesda," said Gartlan. Because of the amendment, Donohoe was able to transfer density from one of their sites to another. "We have designed our plans in accordance with the adjustment, working closely with the city, which seems to really like our final designs."

Jad Donohoe
, Development Director for the company, told DCMud, "[The transfer is] a new idea and the thought was that because there is such fragmented ownership in that section of Bethesda, this would be a way to bring the density needed to make more of a Bethesda Row-type of experience."

Woodmont Central is much further along than another huge Donohoe project, the hotel, jazz club and retail outlets the company is planning to build called the Arts at 5th and I in Mt. Vernon Triangle. Because the project has yet to be financed, ground breaking isn't yet on the horizon.

Bethesda, MD real estate development news

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

14th Street Verizon Building Bought by PN Hoffman for Condo Conversion

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Last week, PN Hoffman purchased 1700 14th Street, sealing the rumor that the Verizon building would likely become a condominium project with ground floor retail. In a development environment that's only recently become feasible to build after the recession dried up financial resources, that the building is slated for condos as opposed to apartments speaks to the desirability of the 14th street corridor.

Eric Colbert & Associates has been selected for the design. "We haven't gotten very far yet," Trevor Costa, associate for the firm said. "We submitted something preliminary a while ago, but we're currently reworking aspects of the design now." Eric Colbert & Associates is the firm behind The Lofts at Adams Morgan, The Floridian, and The Regent, among others.

"It's a small but very unique building," said Shawn Seaman, Vice President of PN Hoffman. "Given its size, we are projecting it will have 30 to 40 units by the time we finish." Seaman said the company is hoping to push the permits through as quickly as possible for a 2012 delivery.

As far as the ground floor retail, Seaman said the 1,000 s.f. space will house a single tenant. "We are talking to our historical consultants about restoring the ground floor in particular by opening up the bays to R Street and 14th Streets. Right now, it's very heavy."

The PN Hoffman condos will become one of several within blocks of each other, the others of which include the seven-story, 30,000 s.f. building at 14th and R, a project by developer Habte Sequar that has long been planned but has yet to get off the ground. Also on the 14th Street corridor in the former Whitman-Walker site is JBG and Grosvenor's 125-unit District Condos that is scheduled for completion in 2012. The project also has yet to start construction, but is expected to do so soon. The original picture in this story was from Borderstan's coverage of this project.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

In a Family Way

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By Beth Herman

For the son of award-winning industrial and commercial designer and handicap accessibility activist William L. Wilkoff, the decision to live and work in a single 2,200 s.f. structure, built largely with his own hands, was not as big a leap as it might be for some. Winning an AIA chapter award for design excellence in 1984, the inspired Cabin John, Md. home and office of architect Robert Wilkoff, Principal of Archaeon Architects, underwent a major renovation in 1990 where the third floor office became a master suite, and the practice migrated to a brand new 1,000 s.f. addition at the front.

"One of the main reasons I kept the office in the house was I really wanted to be involved in my kids’ lives when they were younger,” Wilkoff said, acknowledg- ing the idea was not as popular two or three decades ago as it might be now. In true family form, Wilkoff’s wife Martha, formerly a college librarian, joined the practice to oversee administrative affairs when Hannah, now 22 and a mental health counselor, and Kate, 20, a fashion design student at N.Y.’s Pratt Institute (a third generation Wilkoff to attend), were young, with the home office advantage making a close-knit family even closer.

With green building principles nearly tantamount, for the Wilkoff’s, to the intimate family environment they sought to achieve, from the beginning the architect used a heavily insulated Styrofoam sheathing system, uncommon at the time, and ferreted out 5,000 s.f. of reclaimed redwood for the new home and office - something he conceded was done as much for economy as nascent sustainability issues.

“Wood was expensive, so I hunted it down,” Wilkoff said of his early days. Revealing he’d (courageously) rented a tractor trailer he wasn’t sure how to drive in order to meet an incoming load of Western red cedar at the docks in Baltimore, notions of the wood’s passive solar qualities fortified him for the trip. As for the actual construction process, teaching himself carpentry as he went along, Wilkoff said he and Martha, along with the senior Wilkoff and some friends, did all the interior partitions, finishes, set the cabinets, the fixtures, etc., with a general contractor putting up the exterior structural shell. A plumber and electrician were also hired for expertise and code purposes.

“We’d have staining parties. We’d have insulating parties. We’d have bagels and cream cheese or crabs–whatever would entice a bunch of people to come over for a day on the weekend, and we’d put them to work. It took four years,” the architect said, adding at the time he was working 20 hours a week as a consultant and 40 hours on the house.

A Greenhouse Runs Through It

Currently a three-bedroom, 3.5-bath home, the 400 s.f. third floor master suite, nee office, includes an adjacent library/greenhouse that serves in a passive solar capacity to facilitate the home’s HVAC system. According to Wilkoff, the greenhouse’s dark tile floor, which is actually hard-fired ceramic pavers from Italy, sits on a thick masonry mat. At a due South exposure, the floor heats up, radiating the heat back up through the room, which gets to a high point in the greenhouse where openings in the upper wall help draw it into the HVAC mechanical return. In summer, when it’s really hot, a fully-leafed 70-foot sycamore tree provides a huge canopy effect, shading the greenhouse, and shading mats applied to the glazing on the inside of the room reduce sun infiltration by about 60 percent.

In the master suite bath, charcoal grey polished porcelain tiles, resembling granite, line the walls which are ribbed with Corian. Milled to an inch in width, Wilkoff glued the Corian strips to the wall (prior to the tile installation), with a 6-inch deep invisible support Corian window shelf for displaying bottles or other objects. Sited on the other side of the greenhouse wall, corresponding upper wall openings can be seen above the bathroom’s sink and counter area, where any warm, moist air is drawn into and utilized by the home’s HVAC system.

In the first floor living room, a wood stove used for many years as the home’s main heating source stands idle most of the time, with Wilkoff claiming that “…dragging wood in at 3 in the morning on a cold winter day is not quite as appealing as it used to be.” Used on occasion for exceptional cold snaps, the architect explained that based on a concept dating back hundreds of years and seen in pot-bellied stove farmhouses, the wall behind the wood stove is a dense, concrete material with black slate. A duct return on the ceiling opens into the bedrooms above, and fans in each bedroom pull rising heat from the stove into the rooms. Motif-wise, a 1950s Folke Ohlsson-designed Dux chair, Mies van der Rohe glass and metal table, Barcelona chairs and table, a Nakashima desk chair and Le Corbusier LC6 dining room table punctuate the living and dining rooms, with much of the furniture traced back to a store once owned by the entrepreneurial senior Wilkoff who passed away in 2004.

Moving Out But Staying In

Ascended to by a two-story spiral staircase and comprised of four separate rooms including a work studio with four CAD stations, Wilkoff’s decision to create the 1,000 s.f. office addition was precipitated both by a growing family and burgeoning practice that supported up to six team members. With the only entrance to the previous third floor office space directly through the house, privacy had become an issue, though Wilkoff said despite the new space, and to this day, staff traditionally eats lunch together at the old breakfast table.

With client access on the outside and its own HVAC and plumbing systems, Wilkoff said the office addition is almost like a separate building except for a communicating door between it and the house. In the conference room, flourishes like beveled, pocketed wood trim (milled on a table saw in the office) that protrudes deep enough into the space to support presentation drawings and material sample boards preclude tack and nail holes in walls, and banks of awning windows open to the trees for natural cooling whenever possible.

“Being here has its benefits and drawbacks,” Wilkoff concluded. “It’s energy-conscious: I’m not commuting - sitting in traffic and burning gas, but in the middle of the night if I think of something I need to take care of, I’ll come in at 3 a.m. and draw,” he said. Mostly, though, the opportunity to wholly participate in his daughters’ lives from the beginning is what has driven him, and continues to. “This is exactly what I was looking for,” Wilkoff said of his own life.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

Georgia Avenue Projects Finish Out, Fill Up

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The Georgia Avenue corridor at Petworth comes into its own as one more residential development marks its completion this month: 3 Tree Flats, the 130 unit rental building from AHD Inc., Jair Lynch Development Partners and Stratford Capital Group, part of the Georgia Avenue revitalization. An opening celebration is scheduled for April 13th.

The mixed income building two blocks from the Petworth metro offers views of the city from its perch on a hill, a green roof and parking. According to Tara Russell, building manager from Equity Management, units have been available since February. Forty-nine units have been leased, with applications having been filed on the remaining 81 units. "We have had a great response from the community," said Russell. "We could not be more pleased."

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (ODMPED) selected the development team – which also included EDG Architects and Frank Schlesinger Associates - in 2007 following a competitive solicitation process, the project had been started under the name Georgia Commons before rebranding last year.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

Reston Station Gets Underway Today

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Comstock Partners will break ground this morning on Reston Station, a 1.3 million s.f. development that will soon be connected to Washington D.C. via Metro's Silver Line, running from the Stadium Armory station to Dulles Airport. Reston Station will be the final stop of Phase 1 of the Silver Line, now at the mid point of construction having broken ground exactly two years ago and scheduled for completion in late 2013. Comstock will eventually build three office buildings, two residences, one hotel and retail space, but today will begin work on the 2300-car underground garage and bus depot, replacing the sprawling surface parking lots, hopefully in time for the opening of the Wiehle Ave station.

Davis Construction will do the digging and building of the "urban employment center" site 3/4 of a mile east of Reston town center, for the Dantesque 7 levels of underground parking. Design of the live-work center that will sit on top of it is still in the early planning stages.

Reston, Virginia real estate development news

Monday, April 04, 2011

Douglas' 450 K Street in Final Design Phase for January Groundbreaking

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On March 24, the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) gave the go-ahead (with a few reservations) to Douglas Development's plans to build out 450 K Street N.W., a 13 story, 250 unit development in Mount Vernon Triangle. The finished project will be managed by Kettler.

R2L Architects Principal Tom Lenar said designs for the facade are being finalized to address HPRB concerns over a west end wall that is not as deep as the modestly sized adjoining buildings.

The HPRB report advised that "while this is not problematic in itself, it does suggest that that west wall need not be 'sculpted' and complicated by the division of the three window bays into separate columns at different planes...a more straightforward approach, as on the east end, would be better."

The organization also requested recessed, more traditional balconies as opposed to steel suspended ones which HPRB deemed "out of character with a historic district," though Mt. Vernon Triangle has far more numerous parking lots and newer towers than historic properties. Lenar said he expected the design changes will be reviewed by HPRB by the end of the month.

Other design features embraced by HPRB are the 5,000 s.f. of ground floor retail and the "modified C plan" which allows for outdoor space and more sunlight into the building. Amenities include a cyber cafe, fitness center, roof deck, and pool. Lenar said the developers are hoping for a January 2012 groundbreaking for a project that's projected to span 18 to 20 months.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

Mark Center Milestones

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Construction of the Mark Center in Alexandria reached an interesting if meaningless milestone last Thursday as developers paused to note the millionth man hour spent on the massive federal project. The auxiliary to the Pentagon will be one of Northern Virginia's largest buildings when the Department of Defense (DoD) and developer Duke Realty complete the project in September of 2011. The Mark Center will serve as an overflow to the swelling number of Defense employees that cannot fit into the Pentagon.

The 1.7 million s.f. building will sit on 16 acres of land, with two office towers (15 and 17 stories) two parking garages - one below, one adjacent - and a public transportation center (far from Metro, as it is) for employees and the surrounding community. Duke, along with a little help from project architects HKS Architects and WBA, the Army Corps of Engineers and Clark Construction, is expected to earn an enviable LEED Gold ranking on the ginormous project.

Following a 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) recommendation, the military is under an agreement with Duke to purchase the land once the project is built out. The Mark Center location provides enough land to allow for a substantial security perimeter, not to mention proximity to I-395 and the Pentagon. Transportation concerns have been a weighty issue for the project, located far from from the nearest Metro station, both for planners to prepare for alternate transport plans and for the community, which fears an unbearable addition to the already congested roads.

The two towers will connect on their first 10 floors, and have exteriors of precast concrete and blast-resistant glass, materials that meet security standards including preventative measures against "progressive collapse." Over 24 different users will occupy the space. The interior of the building will likely use a modular SmartWall system like that of the Pentagon, which allows for flexibility in arranging personnel.

More concerns have arisen over the required Remote Inspection Facility (RIF) - for screening packages and traffic coming onto the site - for its potentially traffic-blocking ability. The city initially requested that the facility be located off site, citing design concerns, traffic issues and worries over the safety of the community, but the Army opted to place it on site.


Alexandria Virginia real estate development news
 

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