Wednesday, May 13, 2020

City Ridge - the Former Fannie Mae Site

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The City Ridge project will transform the former Fannie Mae headquarters just south of Tenleytown into a mixed-use development including the city's first Wegmans, scheduled to open in 2022.  Roadside, which developed City Market at O in Shaw nearly a decade ago, initiated construction in 2018 and employ an impressive 5 construction cranes to cover the entire 10-acre site.  More impressive still is the need to lift and support the entire Georgian revival building to allow the old foundation to be removed and excavate a further 8 feet, supporting the existing building on micropiles and creating a new base added that will house Wegmans.  The completed project will feature 690 residential units, 153,000 s.f. of retail, and 174,000 s.f. of office space, for a "mixed-use urban village."

On top of adding Wegmans to the roster, Roadside and partner NASH (North America Sekisui House) also signed International Baccalaureate, a global non-profit that designs educational curricula, now based in Bethesda, as the signature tenant for the historic building, vacated when Fannie Mae decamped for their new downtown campus.  The successful relocation of three 600,000 pound heritage oaks from the construction site to the front yard was yet another upbeat element for the project.

New construction Washington DC
click for photo gallery


Project:  City Ridge


Developer:  Roadside Development

Architect:  Shalom Baranes

Construction:  Whiting Turner

Landscape Architect:  Michael Vergason

Use: 690 residential units, 153,000 s.f. of retail, 167,000 s.f. of office

Expected Completion: Early 2022


Tenleytown Fannie Mae redevelopment

Washington DC commercial real estate

District of Columbia real estate development news








Friday, May 08, 2020

The Brooks at Walter Reed

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Construction has topped out on the Brooks, a wood-framed, 77,000 s.f., 89-unit condominium fronting Georgia Avenue as part of the Parks at Walter Reed, one of the first of numerous projects replacing the historic medical campus.  The Parks will ultimately deliver 2100 residential units, 175,000 s.f. of retail, 300,000 s.f. of office, and a hotel, for over 3m square feet of very mixed use development, spearheaded by Urban Atlantic and Hines. Whole Foods has already signed on as an anchor tenant within the master planned community, a section for the Children's National Research & Innovation Campus and the State Department's Foreign Mission Center is also underway.  Sales for the condominium began early last fall.

click for photo gallery



Project:  The Brooks

Developer: Urban Atlantic, Hines, and Triden


Construction:  Paradigm

Use: 89 condominium units

Expected Completion:  Winter 2020



new condos for sale

Brooks at Walter Reed, Washington DC


Walter Reed redevelopment

Georgia Avenue construction

Washington DC retail and real estate development news

Wednesday, May 06, 2020

Work Starts on Silver Spring's Tallest Building

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Washington Property Company began work this past week on Silver Spring's tallest building in the Ripley District, which will clock in at 26 stories.  The Solaire will be the 5th Solaire-branded apartment building by Bethesda-based WPC, with 6 levels of above-grade parking and 18,000 s.f. of retail, part of which was expected to be a 15,000 s.f. food hall designed by Eimer Design of Philadelphia.  WPC partnered with Cresset-Diversified QOZ Fund on the $163 million project to provide equity.  The site was formerly known as Progress Place and housed Shepherd's Table, which was moved to Georgia Avenue prior to demolition.



Project:  Solaire



Architect:  Design Collective

Construction:  Clark Construction

Use: 420 residential units, 17,000 s.f. of retail

Expected Completion:  Early 2022










Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Foulger Pratt's Press House

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The Press House in Noma's east side is being developed by Foulger Pratt, repurposing the old National Capital Press building and adding significant new construction for a 3-building mixed use project adjacent to Union Market.


Project:  Press House


Developer: Foulger Pratt

Architect:  Torti Gallas, AA Studio

Use: 356 residential units, 27,000 s.f. of retail, and 25,000 s.f. of office space

Expected Completion:  Spring 2021





Press House Noma by Foulger Pratt

Noma development, Washington DC retail for lease



Washington DC real estate development and retail news

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Diplomacy by Design

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Q and A with Chris Snowber

by Beth Herman

In an effort to reconcile the discerning but disparate tastes of a homeowner couple in Cleveland Park - she liked sleek and modern and he preferred traditional - Chris Snowber of Hamilton Snowber Architects diplomatically embarked on a renovation of a 1910 Foursquare. Also, because the historic district site projected deep into other residential lots, a previous owner had received what Snowber calls "a lot of push back" from the neighbors when seeking a rather large addition to the home. The house was eventually sold, sans addition, and the proposed three-story new addition for the current homeowners was smaller, receiving the community's imprimatur. The redesign involved a new 1,400 s.f. addition on three levels, as well as renovating the original 4,200 s.f. residence's two floors, basement and attic space. DCMud spoke with Snowber about the multifaceted project.

DCMud: First, what was the program for this renovation?

Snowber: The rooms were segregated with small openings between them. As with a lot of these older homes, the kitchen was broken off and small. Our mission was to expand it and have it connect to some living spaces, specifically a family room and playroom space. We then wanted to connect those spaces to a screened back porch and deck which opened to the yard. We wanted to extend the house but not overtake the substantial backyard.

DCMud: And how did you address the clients' divergent tastes under one roof?

Snowber: The real difference between them was about the style of the finishes and the image of the house. For instance the idea of an open kitchen that would connect to the rest of the house was a common denominator, but the character of the spaces - use of traditional moldings, elaborations of fireplaces, choice of cabinetry - was different.

DCMud: So there was agreement soon after take-off?

Snowber: Even though we started off with a more transitional design - paneled cabinet doors, etc. -  when the wife discovered some very modern oak and stainless steel Bulthaup kitchen cabinets, this really set the tone for the rest of the work.

DCMud: If you jettisoned the idea of transitional, or middle ground, can you elaborate on how the design was executed?

Snowber: Quite often the resolution for that is a design with a mixture of more modern furnishings and cabinetry and trim that is less heavy and more abstract than the existing house might have had. But in this case went to two extremes: The kitchen and family room (new addition in the back of the house) are very modern, both in the cabinetry and window detailing and also the fireplace surround. In the rest of the house, like the living room, dining room and front hall, we went even more traditional. We removed all of the existing trim - all of the crown, base, all of the window treatments, replacing them with heavier and more elaborate trims than were there in the first place. The house had a Craftsman look, and we actually made it much more formal.

DCMud: So rather than compromising, you played these two styles against each other.

Snowber: That's right. Then when we started furnishing it, both in the new and existing parts of the house, the furniture is very modern. So while the dining room has a brand new fireplace and traditional but new coffered ceiling, the table and light fixture are quite modern. In short these rooms have very modern furniture in this very traditional context.

DCMud: Did you retain the original flooring, which appears to be rough-hewn?

Snowber: We did - and it's a narrow oak. In the kitchen, though, the floor is granite pavers.

DCMud: What about the second and third floors, and the basement.

Snowber: The home had six bedrooms and ended up that way, but they're configured differently. On the second floor, the whole back of the house is the master suite. The wife has an office on that floor also. The third floor has a guestroom for the client's parents who visit, plus an office and a playroom with loft and balcony for the kids. The basement contains a large playroom with desk area, a side entrance mudroom and an au pair suite.

DCMud: From the exterior, the back of the house appears to be more open.

Snowber: Whenever you're dealing with historic houses in D.C., there are different standards for what goes in the front and back of the house. We got to use two-over-two windows in the back, where preserving the historic fabric was less important, whereas in the front the openings had to be of a more traditional scale. Interestingly the two-over-two windows are also from an historic area - more Victorian in nature. And they gave the windows some scale, so as not to be wide-open pieces of glass.

DCMud: Speaking of modern, traditional and historical, is there a particular structure in the area that informs your work - and your spirit?

Snowber: There's a building I like that many do not know about. It's the River Road Unitarian Church in Bethesda. Built in 1964 by Keyes, Lethbridge, Condon, it won a number of architecture awards. It's both modern and traditional in a lot of ways and has a certain Alvar Alto-esque (Finnish architect) quality. Whenever he designed buildings, he'd design them along with the furnishings. Here it's the use of natural materials - wood, brick and steel. It's asymmetrical but still feels like church with a masterful manipulation of light - a real spiritual space. This makes it pleasant to be in at all different times of the day and in all seasons.

Photos courtesy of David Reeve Photography.  Washington DC real estate news





Wednesday, May 01, 2013

Award-Winning Condos Coming to U Street

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Just around the corner from old school U Street locales such as Ben’s Chili Bowl and the Lincoln Theatre, work is currently underway on the tentatively-titled 11th Street Condos - a pair of matching four-story condominiums / townhomes with a distinctly upper crust pedigree and back story to match. And given the history of the project’s site at 11th and T Streets NW, it’s also a pretty good indication of just how far the neighborhood’s come in under a decade. 
New condos in Shaw by Christian Zapatka, Washington DC real estate update

 “Originally, there’d been a gas station there,” says the architect behind the 11th Street project, Christian Zapatka. “About five years ago, there was a competition sponsored by the American Institute of Architects to design what was called the “Rowhouse of the Future” for that site. We were one of five winners of the competition and we had our work displayed at the Building Museum. The property owner saw the projects, then came to us and said that he liked our design and wanted to build a two-condo building there.”

The project’s owner/developer, Sahr Bockai, has since followed through on those intentions by contracting Zapatka to design the duel, 1,800 square foot, red brick homes. Once completed in June, each will features ground level media rooms and a second-story kitchen, beneath two upper levels of bedrooms, including a master suite. But the centerpiece of the development at 1900 T Street, NW is a private interior courtyard for use by the occupants – and though that may be an atypical amenity for a condominium project, it is keeping with the owner’s vision and the aesthetic of the surrounding community.

“We designed them as condos, we got them permitted and approved as condos because we had toReal estate for sale in Washington DC take them through the Historic Preservation Board,” says the architect. “We wanted it to be new and modern, but still blend in with the brickwork of the old neighborhood.”

Zapatka has carried over that same sense of what he calls a “synthesis of the modern and the old” to another condominium project one neighborhood over. The Fourth Union Condos, which are also currently under construction, aims to cull six condominiums out of owner Quing Sun’s neighboring properties at 1553 and 1555 9th Street, NW in Shaw. 1553 will contain four of the units, 1555 will contain remaining two. That project too is expected to hit the market by this coming autumn.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

JBG's 13th and U Street Project Moving Forward--But Sans Hotel

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JBG has launched big plans for a U Street hotel sometime around 2007 that have been percolating ever since.  But now that the hotel idea has been scrapped, plans to build an apartment building on the site have picked up speed and construction may begin as early as next summer.

The hotel idea was tossed around in early 2012. In its place at the corner of 13th and U streets will be a large residential building designed by David M. Schwarz Architects that will hold around 138 units and include ground floor retail. After many months of community meetings, JBG finally submitted a PUD to the Zoning Commission in September; earlier this week, the commission held an initial hearing action and deemed the project ready for a public meeting. That will probably occur in early March 2013.

It’s been a very long road that’s nowhere near done. A first round of meetings earlier in the year with the U Street Neighborhood Association, ANC 1B’s design committee, and the full ANC led to the developers making some substantial adjustments to the eight-story building: its height was lowered to 86 feet, the seventh and eighth floors were set back by 5-6 feet, and plans for a rooftop pool were eliminated in response to neighbors’ concerns about noise.

That was the plan delineated in the PUD. Once the basics of the building’s shape and contents were worked out, JBG representatives met with neighborhood groups again to discuss the project’s design elements. Those have also been fully approved by the community, and an initial hearing with the Historic Preservation Review Board is scheduled for next Thursday.

As for design, the project won’t need to incorporate any historic facades; the site is currently home to a bland, low-slung strip that holds a Rite-Aid and a Pizza Hut. “But we do need to design a building that’s in context with the historic neighborhood,” said Leary. The resulting design is a classical-style building that led one zoning commission member to remark on the building’s unusually ‘historicist’ look. That was intentional, explained JBG reps, who said that Schwarz has gone to great lengths to look at precedents in the neighborhood and incorporate them so that the building looks as though it's been there for years.


All of the units—a mix of one- and two-bedrooms—will most likely be rentals and will include 12 affordable units that fulfill the District’s inclusionary zoning requirement. At an average of 970 square feet, the units will be a bit bigger than those typically found in new high-rise buildings. “We’re serving a different market—more of a mature renter-by-choice who wants to stay in place,” said James Nozar, a development manager for JBG.

As far as retail goes, the company hasn’t decided on the exact balance yet. So the only element fully in place is the Rite-Aid, which will return to its corner spot after construction is finished.

Some of the meetings that occurred this year between JBG and the neighborhood were an effort to determine the project’s community benefits package. In the end, the PUD submission contained a general clause that JBG would contribute $600,000 for amenities like streetscape improvements, alternative transportation options such as Capital Bikeshare or Zipcars, establishment of a business improvement district, and school or recreation programs. Exactly how the funding will break down will become clearer once the zoning commission's public hearing occurs.

JBG reps say a mid-2013 groundbreaking is possible, but construction is more likely to begin in the third quarter of next year.

Washington D.C. real estate development news
 

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