Arlington Approves Tallest Crystal City Office Building

The Arlington County Board voted yesterday to approve 1900 Crystal Drive, Vornado's enormous office building that will be the tallest in Crystal City.  The county's approval allows the developer to demolish the super-block sized building now on the site and replace it with an even larger, more contemporary building.

The building, designed by New Haven-based Pickard Chilton, will feature a number of impressive vitals, including 720,000 s.f. of office space in 24 stories (297 feet), a 5-story underground parking garage, an expected LEED Gold rating, a raised interim park (until replaced by another building), 32 bicycle parking spaces on the street and in the park.  Pickard Chilton is noted for a number of large office building designs, including a senior role on Malaysia's Petronas Towers.  Cooper Carry is the architect of record. The design employs a "ski jump architectural treatment" as part of its glass facade, and will be a major contributor to the upgrading of Crystal City's outdated architecture and infrastructure.

The plan for the block is to eventually demolish another of the office buildings on the block to create a large "Center Park" - a centerpiece of the Crystal City Sector Plan developed in 2010 - to replace the mid-block, concrete-heavy park that now connects the 3 existing office building.  While the project will have a more appealing street view, especially on Crystal Drive where 11,000 s.f. of retail will face the street, the building will still make large concessions to the automobile along 18th and 20th Streets with wide curb cuts for garage access.

The County approval was expected, especially with Vornado's $3m contribution to the county's affordable housing program and $7m of promised community benefits that that county negotiated for a host of improvements to causes like parking meter improvements, utility improvements, and public art.

Arlington VA real estate development news

Your Next Place

 This fantastic Colonial is the sort of house you see in a family sitcom that makes everyone say, "come on, no family actually lives in a house like that!"  By which I mean you should buy this house, live in your car in the driveway, and rent it out to Hollywood producers as a set on which to film their family sitcoms.  Cha-ching!  I feel like that tip is worth at least a fifteen percent commission.

TThis house has it all; huge, open floor plan, hardwood floors burnished to a high shine, marble fireplace, recessed lighting.  The dining room is one of the most striking I've ever seen, with a duo of huge rectangular skylights and an entire long wall of windows.  There's a general feeling of openness and space, which is important for families, since you need room to grow, and also because you hate each other.  I grew up in a huge rambling Victorian house and one floor per family member was barely enough space; I routinely urinated off the roof rather than go downstairs and risk an encounter with my dad as he trimmed his handlebar mustache to "Steve Miller's Greatest Hits" or my mom as she did step aerobics while watching "Martin" starring Martin Lawrence.  (She still sprinkles his catchphrases into everyday conversation: "Hey mom, can you give me a ride to the airport tomorrow morning?  My flight leaves at 7AM."  "DAMN GINAAAAAAA!!!")  No worries about that in this place; with five bedrooms and 5.5 baths, you could conceivably never see the people you lived with, which is just how it should be.

The bedrooms are large and beautifully finished, with fine shutters and accent walls.  Out back is a stone patio and a sizeable yard, nicely fenced off from prying eyes.  It's big enough and secure enough that you could totally put your dog or your children back here anytime you needed some "grownup time" to yourself, in the bathroom, "rocking back and forth" with a "bottle of vodka" repeating "oh my god I've wasted my youth, is there still time to change my life?!"  (No.)  There's also a full garage, for the aftermath of the aforementioned "grownup time" crisis when you buy a convertible and/or motorcycle.

2707 34th Place NW
5 Bedrooms, 5.5 Baths
$2,345,000

Washington D.C. real estate news

Bringing Berlin to DC: Inspirations for Dupont Underground

What inspiration can D.C. draw from Berlin about what to do with an unused trolley tunnel under Dupont Circle?  That is the question at the center of a new exhibit and events series organized by Provisions Library and the Goethe-Institut of Washington D.C.  The exhibit, called "Parks and Passages," runs at the Goethe Institut September, 14 through November 2.

The exhibit is meant to bring a "poetic interlude," in the words of research co-curator Stephanie Sherman of Provisions Library, to the ongoing and emotional discussion about how to best re-enliven the Dupont Underground.  That 75,000 square feet of space in tunnels lies - closed off for now - under the District's most visible circle.

Dupont Underground, Image courtesy Provisions Library

Built in the 1940's for trolleys (they ran only briefly), the space has been cast as a potential bomb shelter, health club, food market, even a "columbarium" (for cremated remains.)  None of those ideas ever panned out, although the tunnel did house a maligned food court for about a year in the 1990s called "Dupont Down Under."

Even now, the tunnel remains a virtually unknown public amenity in a city of above-ground monuments, boulevards, and upward-looking gazes.  But diverse gazes are shifting underground, as the exhibit shows, as more District-dwellers find resonance in the story of the tunnel.

In 2010, the Deputy Mayor's Office For Planning and Economic Development issued a Request for Proposals for the space, and a group called The Arts Coalition for the Dupont Underground - brainchild of longtime tunnel fan and architect Julian Hunt - clinched the exclusive rights agreement for the space.

Dupont Underground, Image courtesy Provisions Library

According to coalition managing director Braulio Agnese, the coalition estimates that it would take at least $30 million to open up the entire space, but so far has fund-raised what amounts to a "drop in the bucket."  The group hopes the space could become an arts venue.  "We are eager to see what these artists have come up with," Agnese said of the exhibit at the Goethe Institut, adding that he hoped the research would be useful moving forward.

But the coalition's exclusive rights agreement expires soon, and the coalition continues to work with the city toward obtaining a lease.  The city had not responded for a request for comment by the time of publication of this article.  And the space - even now - remains closed to the public, or open for imagination, depending on how one looks at the situation.

"Parks and Passages" documents the adventures of four DC-based Provisions Library Fellows - an architect, two artists, and a cultural theorist - who spent 10 days in Berlin and then fleshed out their inspirations for DC using archival materials, architectural renderings, mixed-media installations with historic film footage, and even graffitti.

Exhibitors are artist Edgar Endress, a George Mason University professor of new media and public art, visual artist James Huckenpahler, architect Pam Jordan, and cultural scholar Paul Farber.

The goal, according to Sherman, was to think about how Berlin's creative sites emerged and how the city adapted spaces. Why Berlin?  Curators were convinced the city's creative, sustainable, adaptive use of historical spaces had some inspiration for DC.

"Parks & Passages" exhibitors Endress, Farber, Jordan, & Huckenpahler

The group visited spaces under both public and newly private management, such sites as a bunker art gallery, an East Berlin amusement park, and the vast Tempelhof Airport, the city's largest public park. The airport was built by the Nazi government, was site of the Berlin Airlift, and a Cold War hub.  At Tempelhof, the City of Berlin has turned 988 acres of a history-laden, inner-city airport, decommissioned in 2008, into a thriving space for recreation, gardening, biking, and creative re-uses - some temporary, some more permanent.

Berlin's development strategy, according to Martin Pallgen, a Berlin city staff member and project developer for Tempelhof, also uses a "bottom up" approach to planning that involves creative occupants of the space. Pallgen visited Washington, D.C. with a team from Berlin for the opening of the exhibit. That feedback, he says, is a component of Berlin's development strategy, which Pallgen sees as a a "process" rather than a one-step deal.

The Tempelhof development model for the future, Pallgen said, would take time to "think about what is right and what is wrong, and think about each step...was it the right decision or not?"

Much larger than the Dupont Underground space, Tempelhof also benefits from both public and private investment. The Dupont Underground coalition - as things stand now - must raise private funds from mixed-use leases or philanthropic donations. To make matters more complicated, the space sits under confusing layers of federal and local control. While the city controls the entrances to the tunnel beginning at the stairs, the National Park Service owns most of the spaces surrounding them.

As the exhibit shows - Dupont Underground has always been a vessel of dreams and imagined uses, and sometimes a target of derision.  It was once called the "Blunderpass". "It was controversial even before it was built," said cultural scholar Paul Farber, who delved into Washington Post archives to research the trolley tunnel.  At the same time, he says, it has always been a symbol of the future.  The archives reveal familiar patterns, Farber writes, that may affect that future: including "the dysfunctional relationship between D.C.'s local and federal governing structures" and the "inherent complications of overlapping public and private ownership."

The city released homing pigeons when the streetcar line opened to traffic around 1950, but the trolley line would see just a few short golden years. District streetcar operator Capital Transit Company lost its charter in 1955, and the last trolley ran in 1961. A trolley funeral was held in Mt. Pleasant.   The number 42 bus line now runs along that old trolley route. 

In the early 1960s, the space was stocked with food and beds as a bomb shelter but never used as one.  In the early 1980s, the Marion Barry administration considered three proposals: for a health club, a health market, and a columbarium, but those didn't pan out. In the early 1990s, the city signed a deal with a questionable businessman named Geary Simon to develop a food court called "Dupont Down Under", but it closed just a year later, beset by legal troubles.

Dupont Down Under had a Sbarro's and a Schlotzsky's. Their signs - old and dusty and cast in darkness - were still there in 2009 when chair of the Dupont Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission ANC2B, Will Stephens, visited the tunnel in December, 2009.  That was when Adrian Fenty's administration put out the most recent RFP.  Recent tours of the tunnels have entered at a little triangle formed where P Street, Massachusetts, and Dupont Circle all meet at a point.  That's where the ANC2B office is too. "The Z was dangling," Stephens said of the Schlotzsky's sign.

ANC door sign under Dupont, Photo: Will Stephens

Then, Stephens recalls that, as the group of ANC2B members walked with flashlights along the dark tunnel, they saw a dusty sign on a door on which were printed the words "ANC2B." "All of us there from the ANC, including the (public policy) intern were all freaked out," Stephens remembers. "We were joking with him that that was going to be his office."

In February and November of 2010, the ANC2B passed two resolutions.  Both praised the city for involving community stakeholders in the RFP process and requested that the space's long-term future use be kept open for potential transit use.

"Our chief concern from the perspective of the ANC is that whatever goes into this space be feasible and sustainable, so that we don't repeat the failure of the Dupont Down Under food court project," Stephens told DCMud.

The most inspiring lessons from Berlin for DC? The main inspiration, Sherman said, could be seizing the present moment by asking “what can we do within those (given) parameters and let it be an evolutionary process?” That flexibility, Sherman is convinced, will be important.  "We are not presenting solutions or answers," said exhibit research co-curator Don Russell, who also sits on the board of the coalition for the Dupont Underground. "We are layering and opening it up to the public."

The exhibit also features a series of "interactive" public events centered around the goal of thinking about creative approaches to urban problems and challenges:

Thursday, 13 September, 6 pm
Discussion and Exhibition Opening
Natural Adaptation, Urban Re-Use: Berlin and Washington, DC

Friday, 14 September, 1 pm
Discussion
Creative Research: Modes and Methods

Tuesday, 18 September, 6:30 pm
Reading
James Huckenpahler: Metamonument

Thursday, 20 September, 6:30 pm
Presentation
Urban Interventions

Saturday, 22 September, 12 pm
Gardening Workshop
Gardening Workshop

Adams Morgan Church Hotel Project Makes Its Case

In a spirited zoning board hearing last night, the Friedman Capital Advisors and Beztak Companies' - developers for the Adams Morgan church hotel - presented a strong case in support of the project, while critics found themselves on the ropes - at one point, with deliberations becoming so heated that a screaming woman in the audience had to be escorted out by security.

It was a striking contrast with last week's hearing, in which developers were roundly and repeatedly rebuked by the board for a late and insufficient submission.

This hearing kicked off with Councilman Jim Graham reading a statement in support of the project.  Treated with worshipful deference by the board, Graham said the hotel was "overwhelmingly supported and endorsed by residents.  I live about two blocks away from the location myself."  He also defended the controversial $46 million tax abatement given to the developers, stating "this project will create jobs, and they can't build this project without the abatement."  (Can't or won't, though let's give the honorable councilman the benefit of the doubt here.)

Graham also presented the hotel project as something of a last chance for the historic 100 year old First Church of Christ, Scientist facade, as the owners have vowed to sell it to other developers if the hotel project falls through, and "if that happens, the church will be lost.  Which no one wants."  Graham went on to acknowledge that there were still people who had legitimate objections to the project, but that it should move forward.

Board member Peter May, the lone skeptic, asked Graham to elaborate on these legitimate objections.  Showing why he's survived in politics all these years Graham adlibbed a meandering non-response that included the phrase, "projects like this deal with challenges all over the city.  All over the world!"

Vice Chairman Marcie Cohen shared neighborhood concerns about traffic, saying she walks her dog on Champlain all the time, and "always notices lots of traffic, and parking on both sides."  (Anyone who frequents the Adams Morgan area has surely noticed the same.)

But a traffic consultant swore that after reviewing the traffic impact analysis, the hotel would not create more traffic.  Cohen, clearly skeptical, asked, "So even though it'll be heavily traveled and there'll be increased movement with taxis, et cetera, there's no significant impact?"

"No," said the consultant, "No significant impact."  There followed a long silence in which everyone debated internally whether to trust the science.  There followed a long presentation by the developers, which contained a few interesting tidbits.

- Chopping off the top floor increased per-room costs to $530,000, from $486,000; $500,000 per room is the industry threshold for profitability in a project like this, so the loss of that extra height could be a significant blow.

- The building will seek LEED Silver certification, at least.

- Assuming the zoning board gives approval, developers are looking at a hearing with the HPRB around Thanksgiving.

- Under questioning about a vague section of the plans, it emerged that the toilet exhaust fans blow out into the courtyard.  "This seems to be problematic," said one board member.

And then there were the fireworks.  After it emerged that a man who claimed to represent a group of Champlain Street residents under the name "Champlain Street Neighbors," only represented one actual Champlain Street resident, and seemed to have padded his resident list with inaccurate and/or questionable names, the board went on the offensive.  Chairman Hood noted it was a "federal offense to falsify a federal form," and moved to revoke the organization's party status.  Under questioning, the man's case seemed to fall apart, and his sub-Jim-Graham-level adlibbing skills ("How many people on this list live on Champlain Street?"  "Yes.") only further annoyed the board.  Hood accused him of submitting "misleading documents" and was "very taken back" and intended to "talk to legal counsel."  When a woman in the audience loudly protested this, Hood had her removed from the hearing, and called for a recess.

The recess seemed to calm everyone's nerves, though it was getting late and Hood moved to end the hearing.  The next meeting was set for October 10, and judging by the tone of this latest hearing, the hotel project is well on its way.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

PG Plaza Apartment Community Breaking Ground

On September 14th developers will herald the groundbreaking of a new 283-unit, mid-rise apartment community in Hyattsville.  Silver Spring-based Grady Management is working on the project - called 3350 at Alterra, near the Prince George's Plaza Metro station.

A ceremony will be held at 10am on this Friday, celebrating the inaugural launch, though developers have already demolished the low-rise buildings on site and begun work on the project.  The apartments are, in theory, the first phase of a mixed-use, planned redevelopment of the rental complex called Belcrest Plaza with Contee Company (which owns all the land) that would have included massive office and retail components, as well as up to 2750 apartments.  Land developers put together plans for the $600m development in 2008 for the 25-acre site, but a spokesman at Grady says there are no firm plans yet for the rest of the project.     

The design will feature a group "earth-tone" brick and Hardiboard exteriors in a 4-story building that snakes across the site, and the developers are promoting the transit-oriented nature of the project with a gridded street plan for the new community. "Pedestrian and bicycle pathways/linkages to the Metro and between all of the buildings within the development are being designed to promote non-vehicular travel and encourage walkability," notes a press release.  Developers hope to achieve a LEED rating with the project.  Lessard Design is the chief architect of the project, completion is expected in mid 2014.

Hyattsville, MD real estate development news

D.C. Zoning Commission Votes on Hine Redevelopment, Final Decision Still to Come

Anyone who thought last night’s Zoning Commission hearing would be the final word on the Hine School redevelopment project’s longstanding PUD and map amendment efforts was surely disappointed.

Representatives from Stanton-EastBanc, the development team for the Capitol Hill mixed-use project, as well as from the architecture firm behind the project, Esocoff & Associates, gathered in front of the Zoning Commission, joining a range of neighbors largely opposed to the project in its current form. But the commission failed to vote on the project, opting instead to gather more information from the developers and reconvene on October 15th for a final decision.

The meeting, which was closed to comments, came on the heels of some fifteen hours of Zoning Commission hearings that occurred in June and July. During those meetings, civic groups and concerned citizens presented their concerns about the future of the Eastern Market flea market and worries that the project included too little open space for the community. Questions about the project’s north building, which is slated to include only subsidized housing, also arose.

In mid-August, the development team submitted an 81-page final PUD order that responded to many of those complaints. New elements include better design of the north building; description of a compromise that has been reached with Eastern Market’s flea market managers, allowing vendors to use an additional street for the weekend market; and details about a 46-point memorandum of agreement between the developers and the area’s ANC commissioners which, among other things, would limit the project’s retail elements to specifically commercial streets.

During last night’s hearing, the commissioners leafed through the document. “There are a lot of improvements,” said Commissioner Turnbull. “I think the pluses outweigh the negatives.” Still, he had concerns about waste removal and the project’s loading docks, while Chairman Hood questioned whether the project might eventually cause debilitating traffic problems in the area.

In the end, the commissioners voted unanimously to ask the development team for more information on a handful of points, including details on how 55-foot-long trucks will serve the project’s south building, how garbage pickup will occur in the alley north of C Street, and a revised floor area ratio calculation that doesn’t include C Street. The developers have until September 24th to respond.

While the development team was largely satisfied with the hearing, many neighbors left unhappy. “I thought [the commissioners] would do more,” said Ivan Frishberg, the 6B02 ANC commissioner. “I thought they’d ask for more in terms of the structure and design of the building.”

Washington, D.C., real estate development news

Buchanan Gardens Celebrates Grand (Re)Opening

The newly renovated Buchanan Gardens in Arlington celebrated a grand opening yesterday, after an 18-month, $32 million renovation by low income housing provider Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing.

"Buchanan Gardens was built as a state-of-the-art garden apartment community for the post-war boom in 1949," said Nina Janopaul, APAH President/CEO.  “It housed generations of families in its original condition.  With APAH’s extensive renovation we have modernized this 111-unit, 100% affordable property to 21st century standards and created committed affordable homes for the next sixty years.”

The rejuvenated development now boasts three-bedroom family units, a dozen barrier-free units, a community room, and a new playground.  Designed by Wiencek + Associates and constructed by Hamel Builders, the new Buchanan Gardens follows EarthCraft Virginia guidelines and features energy efficient roofs, windows, insulation, low flow toilets, and Energy Star appliances.  There's also a new stormwater management system and rain gardens, as well as new tree plantings.

Units will be made available to families making 60% or less of AMI, which works out to about $64,000 for a family of four.  The renovations, which broke ground in April 2011, were funded jointly by the Virginia Housing Development Authority, the Arlington Housing Investment Fund, Low Income Housing Tax Credits, and grants from the Capital One Foundation and the Freddie Mac Foundation.

APAH, a leading developer of affordable housing along Columbia Pike, acquired Buchanan Gardens in 2009.

Arlington, VA real estate development news

Your Next Place

 

This place packs a ton of punch into a very small package.  If it was a person, it would be my 59 year old asian mother, who still begins eating an apple by tearing it in half with her bare hands.  The last time my sister and I visited home, we tried to get a video of her doing it (can you imagine the Youtube hits?), but she got shy, and then, when I persisted, she smacked me in the back of the head so hard that my glasses flew into a potted plant.

This unit is in the Crescent Cooperative, a beautiful Georgian Revival-style building that dates to 1926.  While the inside is somewhat small, it's immaculately finished, with enough thoughtfully designed built-ins to hold all your commemorative plates and digital picture frames your parents get you every Christmas instead of just giving you a check, because just giving you a check apparently makes too much sense.  The apartment is south-facing, so you get plenty of sunlight streaming in and revealing all your flaws to your significant other.  It also looks out onto a very nice garden, which you can pretend is all yours, but isn't.  (It's shared with the rest of the building.)  The kitchen is confoundingly big; I've been in places four times bigger that had less counter and cupboard space. I could've stretched out full length on the counter, and I would have, but the seat of my yoga pants ripped as I was climbing up.

The bedroom is huge, with an incredible walk-in closet, and the bathroom is high-ceilinged and endearingly vintage-looking.  This place is also right next to Meridian Hill Park, probably the best park in the city.  Rock Creek might be bigger, but it's too rough and untamed; you can hike around, but you can't really go there and lie on a blanket and people watch.  Meridian Hill is big enough that you can always find a spot to lounge in the grass, but small enough that it's only a five-minute walk to go make fun of people practicing that dance-style kung fu over by the drum circle.  ALSO - a famous and extremely powerful person lives right in the building!  I'm not at liberty to tell you who it is, but I promise that if you name drop them at parties and mention that you live in the same building, people will be totally impressed for a few minutes, before they realize it means nothing.

1661 Crescent Place NW
1 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom
$379,900

West End Hotel Construction Begins

OTO Development has begun work on the Hilton Garden Inn at 22nd and M Streets, in DC's West End neighborhood.  The project had been on hold for years as a previous team sought to put a fashionable "1 Hotel" on the site, but failed to get the project off the ground.  Turner Construction, the general contractor on the project, began site work last week.

OTO, based in Spartanburg, SC, is one of the three developers partnering to build the West End Hilton, along with newly-formed partnership including Starwood Capital Group and Perseus Realty, LLC, a partnership that brought the financing needed to start construction.  Shalom Baranes of Georgetown is architectural firm designing the terracotta and brick, 10-story, 237-room hotel, which will feature a second-floor, landscaped courtyard, meeting rooms, a rooftop garden and pool and a green roof.

West End Hilton Garden Inn, Washington, DC

The 15,600 s.f. lot at the corner of 22nd and M has been dormant since 2008 when the site's original developer demolished the Nigerian Embassy to make way for a boutique hotel.  Starwood then planned a luxury hotel but failed to secure financing for the concept.



In 2011, developers sought permission to modify the site plans and instead of a boutique eco-luxury creation, they announced plans for a Hilton Garden Inn (a brand categorized as upscale mid-priced) with 237 rooms, along with Shalom Baranes and OTO Development as a third development partner.  Although neighbors complained about the "fanny pack crowd that would frequent the hotel, the choice proved easier to finance.

The hotel will also feature a ground-floor restaurant and bar with indoor-outdoor seating opening onto the street on the corner of 22nd and M, and is the beginning of Hilton's play into more urban areas.

Washington D.C. real estate development news