Fire Storms Property News

When it comes to development along the new Dulles Corridor Metrorail Silver Line, connecting downtown Washington DC to Tysons Corner and Dulles Airport, developers think big. Reston Station, a transit-oriented, mixed-usedevelopment soon to be brought into the orbit of Washington DC as the terminus of Phase 1 of the Silver Line, is no exception. Zoned for 1.3 million s.f. of development and incorporating three office buildings, two residences, one hotel, retail space and a 2300-car underground garage, developers expect to break ground on the garage next March and start the residences in late 2012. Davis Construction, now at work on Reston Station’s county-sponsored underground garage, intends to complete work by 2013 to sync with the Silver Line’s debut.

Comstock Partners, the Reston-based developer behind the vision, is just now beginning to market to prospective office users and hotel operators to fill up the 60,000 s.f. of retail, 650,000 s.f. of office space, and 220-key hotel that have been planned 3/4 of a mile east of Reston town center. Comstock has just begun design process for the 500,000 s.f. of residential space with the search for an architect, but already plan pair of residential buildings, 205 and 140 feet high, with a total 370 units, 19.5% of it designated for workforce housing.

Turning what looks, at least aerially (mislabeled picture above courtesy of MWAA), like a land of parking lots dotted occasionally by office buildings, into a community that is “edgy, contemporary, with easy living and walking to the Metro” as Comstock’s Maggie Parker puts it, will require a bold metamorphosis. Anchored by the indispensable Metro station, various groups are working to design a more urban Reston. Reston 2020, a committee of the Reston Citizen’s Association, which represents residents of Reston in the Reston Master Plan Review process, has outlined its own optics for the area, A Strawman Proposal for The Wiehle Area Metro Station, that envisions a thriving mixed-use, beyond 9-5, transit-oriented community. The group calls for increased residential uses, pedestrian and bike interconnectivity along the Silver Line corridor, embracing the urban center paradigm and integration of growth along the corridor. According to Penniman, Strawman Proposal author and board member of the Reston Community Center,

“Reston is a wonderful, planned community of urban and village centers, but running in the middle of it is the toll road, which has historically been lined with office buildings. With the arrival of the Metro and three stations running through Reston, there is an opportunity to add some urban flavor that would allow more people to live, work, walk and play…If we can create more pedestrian connections and manage traffic, that should do a lot to energize the corridor and would fit in well with the image of Reston as a community of open spaces and quality architecture.”

Not everyone would agree that Reston calls to mind architectural splendor or exudes urbanity, but Comstock hopes their site next to the Metro will afford the opportunity to change that. Comstock plans on entering Reston Station in the running for LEED-ND (LEED for Neighborhood Development) certification, a relatively new category in the LEED rating system, which the US Green Building Council, the Congress for New Urbanism and the Natural Resources Defense Council developed collaboratively to certify neighborhoods that are planned according to smart growth principles with attention to urban planning and environmental design characteristics at the community scale.

Debate on the project has focused on traffic mitigation from the beginning. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority began increasing tolls on the Dulles Toll Road last January by 33% to help finance the Silver Line, with further toll increases expected in 2012. With increasing gas prices and suffocating traffic, the commute along the toll road has become less sustainable.

Comstock’s Parker says the developer has focused on traffic management from the start, making the most of the pedestrian bridge that will link its project to the Metro station. Planners have designed Reston Station Blvd. as a new cross street, “an east-west spine road parallel to both Sunset Hills Road and the Dulles Toll Road provides a key cornerstone to the ultimate goal of a well-planned grid of streets.” “We have proffered to significant traffic modifications to accommodate the suggested increase in traffic with the arrival of Metro. We are also committed to conducting other traffic studies as the development progresses through an aggressive Transportation Demand Management plan designed to reduce automobile trips generated by the office and residential uses” explained Parker.

Ultimately, construction timelines will be determined by economic realities, with even citizens groups acknowledging that “development will not proceed as fast as might have been thought a couple of years ago.” With three years to go until the Metro station opens, time will tell what awaits sojourners venturing out to the end of the new metro line.

Reston, Virginia, real estate development news

The supermarket wars rage on, now with a new competitor. The poor man’s Trader Joe’s is coming to Ward Five next week, as discount grocer chain ALDI will break ground on what is set to become their first store in the District of Columbia. Work will officially begin on September 7th at 901 17th Street, NE; ALDI executives will be joined by Ward 5 Councilmen Harry Thomas Jr. to celebrate the good news. ALDI summarizes their unique business model as this: “A select assortment discount grocer featuring its own ALDI select brands, ALDI applies smart and efficient operational and business practices to save more than 20 million monthly customers up to 50 percent on their grocery bill.” With limited shelving, and most products displayed on the same wooden pallets they’re shipped on, it seems as if the end product will be the less complicated, groceries-only version of Costco.

As it is now

Looking more like Soviet Safeway here

Although it may be tempting to poke fun at the grocer as the District becomes overpopulated with gourmet supermarkets, it will likely be a vast improvement upon the “UnSafeway” just next door. With a neglected Safeway on Rhode Island Avenue shut down earlier this year, it is clear that northeast has not received anything like the attention from grocers lavished on northwest. In Germany, where ALDI originated, the chain was once sneered at and dismissed as a low-quality, thrifty-alternative for impoverished shoppers, but has now gained momentum as hip and simplified shopping for the parsimonious. Future customers be warned however, you must come armed with a quarter (redeemed upon return of the grocery cart), and cash or a debit card (credit cards not accepted). Customers are also required to pay for the grocery bags they use, so bring your own reusable cloth sacks to save time, money, and the environment.

The new store should look something like this

Since their business philosophy is a no-frills shopping experience that focuses on cutting costs and passing the savings onto the customer, it’s hard to imagine the architecture being inspirational. And like the majority of ALDI’s business relationships, they’ve contracted with a single entity, ADP Engineering and Architecture, to bring their new stores across the country to life. No official construction timeline has been published, but it is expected the turn around will be fairly short. The need for better shopping options in the area certainly remains strong.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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Awarded the rights to design the Museum of African American History and Culture by the Smithsonian back in April of 2009, a Smithsonian presenter and team architects from Freelon. Adjaye Associates, and Davis Brody Bond unveiled the newest plans for the National Mall‘s next museum yesterday. Responding to initial concerns about the large size of the building and it’s impact on the views of the Washington Monument and surrounding Mall, the team presented their augmented designs – lowered, and shifted back – to the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC). This is the first of many give and take meetings that will play out before the building is finally built and opened in November of 2015. Next stop: the Commission of Fine Arts will review the newest concept design, final approval on the design will not come until 2012.

The three tiers (the “Corona”) of bronze, porous, pumice-stone-like material still form the bulk of the structure. What was originally a large base of the building, the “Porch,” has been mostly pushed below grade so only the top pierces ground level, a concession to the prominence of Washington’s Monument. The raised platform will retain its mezzanine functionality as a place to install skylights to illuminate below grade programming. Planners are proposing to mound the earth around the structure to replicate the sloping dimensions of the neighboring Monument grounds.

Overall, the building’s footprint and profile have been reduced, and adjusted slightly to the south, to diminish the perceived brutish visual intrusion of the building as initially rendered. Although the designers admit that this new position shifts the building a bit offline from the center alignment of existing museums, the changes were made to create a less obtrusive structure, and allow more open sight lines to and pleasantly framed views of the Washington Monument from Constitution Avenue.

Initial renderings showed the Porch rising high above ground

Revisions on technical matters – security, landscaping, loading and docks – will continue, but the Commission had approved previous conceptual designs, and no comments from the NCPC panel appeared likely to derail the overall concept. But persisting complaints highlighted the difficulties that lay ahead for this design team. A long road to appease a plethora of the different guard dog and policy making entities awaits: DDOT, National Park Service, NCPC, the U.S. Commission on Fine Arts, Office of Planning, and more. One panelist commended the design team for both their efforts at middle ground and their endeavor to blend a modern design into the setting of the Mall. “I sympathize greatly with the design team…With all of their demands, it seems a lot of my colleagues seem to want to you build a building that is invisible.” With that being unlikely, the design may well retain the form presented at yesterday’s unveiling. Another interesting reaction was that of Commission member Herbert F. Ames, who after applauding the design team, slammed down his fist and implored Congress (who I’m pretty sure wasn’t in the room) to put a stop to any new projects set for the National Mall. “We’re going to ruin a national treasure,” he said, “the Mall was full years ago, and the Mall is full now.”

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

Significant press coverage has been granted to The Yards’ Foundry Lofts over the last several days, and in the past as well, a project that will move forward thanks to the DC Housing Finance Agency (DCHFA) multi-deal bond release under President Obama’s New Issue Bond Program (NIBP). This is all big news, as there are a few firsts here: the first HFA in the country to issue an escrow release under the new program, and the Agency’s first mixed-income transaction, as 34 of the Foundry Lofts’ 170 new rental units (20 percent) will be marketed to families making only 50% of the Area Medium Income (AMI). But the same funding mechanism also enabled yet more public housing; So Others Might Eat’s (SOME) “The Scattered Site Project” will also move forward with the assistance of the released funds.

The Scattered Site Project has been in the works since early 2007 according to SOME’s Housing Development Director Troy Swanda, and has been on the starting line and ready to go for sometime now. But with the market downtown, the start gun was without powder, and the project has idled. Now, the recently released bonds combined with tax credits, grants, and SOME’s private fund raising will make this multiple-site development a reality. Totaling more than $36 million, the specific funding numbers go as follows: $8.1 million from DCHFA’s Tax Exempt Bonds, $11.5 million DHCD Housing Production Trust Fund, $6.7 million from Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Proceeds, $2.9 million from DC Housing Authority LRSP Capital Grant, and $7.3 million from SOME’s own financing. SOME and their team of contractors were so poised for action in fact, that they began construction the very day the bond release was finalized. The aptly named development consists of five different properties strewn across Wards 7 and 8 in the Southeast. Three of the properties (350 50th St, 3828 South Capitol St, and 2810 Texas Avenue) will be intended for single adults, while one property (730 Chesapeake St) will be geared for families, and the last (1667 Good Hope Road) for seniors.

The five buildings will offer a total of 245 apartments, all classified as affordable housing, meant to shelter residents making 0-30% AMI. Keeping carbon footprints to a minimum, the properties will feature very limited parking amenities, as residents of affordable housing projects are typically some of public transportation’s most devoted users. Two buildings will feature green vegetation roofs and one will be topped with a passive solar water heating system. “Building to green standards is in mind with construction and design of every building,” says Swanda. Local firm Nelson Architects is responsible for the design of each building. Developers expect to deliver their first building in early 2011, and will complete the roll out of all five by the end of that year.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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Approved by the HPRB way back in August of 2007, and then by Zoning in May of 2008, Roadside Development’s mixed-use CityMarket at O project apparently has a long shelf life. Developers have regularly attempted to quell the usual doubters with news of restructured financing, and updated timelines, but will finally lay uncertainty to rest, as a groundbreaking shindig is dated for Wednesday afternoon of this week. Festivities could include some palpable political tension, as mayoral candidate rivals political-polling master Vincent Gray and the Smart-car-piloting Mayor Fenty will likely both be in attendance. After the two year stall in action, a strategy becoming evermore popular in development world, Roadside’s shovel plunge at CityMarket is an important step in the revitalization of the Shaw district.

Now residents are set to receive their long-awaited attention with a one million s.f. urban infill project that will solidify, restore, and protect the historic facade of the enduring O Street Market, constructed in 1881 and now only a shell, as well as populate four lonely acres of mostly abandoned land between 9th, 7th, P and O Streets, NW with residential (over 600 units) and commercial buildings (87,000 s.f. of retail). Shalom Baranes Architects has been trusted to oversee the design process. A heavy snowstorm destroyed the roof the Market building in 2001, but architects and developers are confident the building will be restored to its original grandeur. Project architect Andrew Taylor says that they intend on avoiding a monolithic design theme, and that each building will have its own personality. “There is an effort…to create a composition of buildings surrounding and drawing attention to the Market, using modern elements that pick up on the more playful elements of the Market’s Victorian architecture.”

The project also includes the demolition of the current Giant grocery store, with plans for a much grander replacement. Roadside says of the planned Giant: “The new store will combine the charm of the 19th Century with 21st Century efficiency to create one of Washington’s largest food stores and the East Coast’s most unique and interesting shopping experiences.” Stabilization of the O Street Market building for the purpose of preservation, and protection from subsequent ground excavation, is the first order of business, beginning this week. Demolition of the current Giant is next on the agenda, scheduled for later this winter, with the 24-month shot-clock commencing on January 15th, counting down the time developers have to deliver the new grocery store. The redevelopment won’t be fully realized until sometime in 2013. Clark Construction is handling general contracting duties.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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Developers of North Bethesda, having just completed the county’s tallest residential building and the Pike’s largest recent project, are hoping for an encore. Now nearing completion of the North Bethesda Market, developer JBG has begun courting the community for a second phase, seeking an increase in density for new office and residences that will produce demand for the 200,000 s.f. of retail built in the first phase.

Developers of Rockville Pike in North Bethesda have long hoped that if development continues, and smart urban planning matches pace, the congested corridor might make the triple-jump to a walkable urban district. JBG unveiled initial plans to the community last week, still just conceptual, that would add 745,000 s.f. of development with a 40% increase in density to the block just north of its current project. JBG isn’t the only player in the game, as the White Flint Sector Plan highlights several other major developments in the area, including Federal Realty’s “Mid-Pike Plaza,” and LCOR’s White Flint development. JBG submitted initial plans to the Montgomery National Capital Park and Planning Commission early on Friday the 27th, depicting additional retail fronting Rockville Pike and a series of residences on the block behind it. Approval could take anywhere from 18 to 24 months, so construction on the newest phase is not expected to start until late 2012 or early 2013.

After announcing earlier this summer that Florida-based restaurants Season 52 and Dolcé Amoré Café, along with furniture juggernauts Arhaus, will join Whole Foods and L.A. Fitness at the round table of tenants in the nearly completed North Bethesda Market, JBG hopes to broaden the scope of NoBe (or NoBeMa, take your pick) with an array of new residencies, office space, and expanded retail options. NoBe sales representatives said they are hoping Whole Foods will open for shoppers by spring of next year.

The new site extends the Market north to Nicholson Lane, replacing three low density 40-year-old office and retail buildings, and one new office and retail building. Torti Gallas will stay on as the planning architect. One of the goals in maintaining some sort of unifying theme within the development is the extension of Paseo north into Phase II.

Paseo is the “concept of an intimate, pedestrian-oriented, retail lined street” that is meant to tie together the residential and commercial aspects of the project.

Senior VP of Marketing Matthew Blocher depicts the community feedback so far as positive, as developers expect the enthusiasm surrounding the opening of the first phase to carry over as they continue to unveil second stage plans. But one of the obstacles to moving forward with redevelopment is getting the community and county officials on-board with the increased density. Developers say a minimum base density of 3.5 FAR is necessary to buoy the requisite investment, and appropriate given the proximity to the White Flint Metro, but authors of the White Flint Sector Plan currently recommend 2.5 FAR. County officials have been keen on spurring the kind of redevelopment that JBG is pursuing across the region, but have also been conscious of just how fast that growth is developed.

Washington D.C. Real Estate Development News

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