Six Developers Invited to Present Plans for Parcel 42

Six developers are on the short-list to present their plans for Parcel 42, the vacant, city-owned lots at the corner of 7th and R Streets, NW in DC's Shaw neighborhood, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) has announced.

Several joint proposals, low-income housing development groups, private developers, and a religious organization all made the list. In an email to DCMud on Friday, Jose Sousa, deputy chief of staff for DMPED, listed those developers. They are: Warrenton Group and Four Points LLC, POUNDS and Jubilee Housing, United House of Prayer for All People, Neighborhood Development Corporation, Tensquare LLC and Chapman Development Group LLC, and Baywood Hotels and Dantes Partners.

Those developers will have a chance to present their plans, but the long-awaited selection of a developer for the lots will not happen until 2013, the city told DCMud Thursday. The parcel is a coveted piece of real estate for developers eager to build in Shaw, a fast-growing neighborhood.  It is also a lot with some history, surrounded by a neighborhood that remembers city promises to make some units affordable.

Parcel 42

That presentation will be held on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Watha T. Daniel / Shaw Library at 1630 7th Street, NW. The city has invited six developers, who met qualifications laid out in a request for proposals released in April, to present their plans to the community and give Shaw neighborhood residents the chance to ask questions.  The public is invited to attend, hear and see the presentation, and ask questions at the end of the program," Sousa wrote to DCMud in an email. The city-owned parcel has sat vacant for ten years and seen some drama in the last five.

An affordable housing development plan launched in 2007 fizzled, and in 2010 protesters occupied the lot with a tent city when the city eased up on affordability requirements for the faltering project.  That development was never built.  The announcement in April marked the second time the city has asked developers to present plans for the parcel. The city asked that developers present a building that reaches the full height that zoning allows: 65 feet. It also stated a preference for a "high quality" public space component, "high quality architecture" with a "signature design."  The city and local ANC also encouraged ground floor retail, 80% AMI designation (rather than the lowest subsidized housing designation) and affordable units. In March, ANC Commissioner for the area Alex Padro told DCMud he expected the building to meet high architectural standards like the Shaw Library just across 7th Street from the lot. Padro told DCMud then, "Its gotta be a building that works financially, that activates the street, we already have a significant pocket of affordable housing in the area."

"There is no projected timetable for a developer selection at this point in time, but we imagine it will happen in late first quarter/early second quarter of 2013," Sousa said.

Washington D.C. real estate development news

Morning Real Estate Fix

Office market recovery continues into 3rd quarter (Costar)  The national trend of office space absorption seems to keep a respectable pace in the third quarter despite a very slow start at the beginning of 2012.

FHA mortgage rates at new lows (Daily Mortgage Reports)  The cost for the low-downpayment loans has been dropping, though the cost of mortgage insurance premiums has been wiping out those savings.

Architects' billings at 2 year high thanks to multi-family (Costar) September numbers were the highest since August 2010 for billing by architects, suggesting a coming surge in multi-family buildings nationwide.

Washington D.C. takes 2nd place in commuting survey (Atlantic Cities) While NYC leads the pack, by far, the DC metro region takes a distant - if convincing - 2nd place in number of people that commute to work downtown.  But walkers are more scarce.

Edens announces opening of Mosaic (Wall Street Journal)  The formal announcement is of 11 stores, including Target, with several more opening in November.

CNN Headquarters sells for $106m (Washington Post) Norfolk-based Harbor Group International purchased the building 99% occupied.

The Teahouse of the Maryland Moon

Q and A with Amy Gardner of Gardner Mohr Architetcts LLC
By Beth Herman


Revealed during demolition, a newspaper stuffed into the wall of a Bethesda craftsman style bungalow was dated 1928. In an effort to transform the aging home into a serene and gracious residence, Amy Gardner of Gardner Mohr Architects LLCheeded the homeowner’s mandate for an Asian modern teahouse style motif where interconnected rooms led to a special garden space. DCMud spoke with Gardner about the process.

DCMud: Tell us about the original house.

Gardner: This project was one in which the client wanted to rebuild their 1,350 s.f. bungalow— in a state of advanced disrepair. It had a first floor plan that was fairly typical for bungalows, and it had an attic that had kind of been converted into small bedrooms which actually added about another 1,000 s.f. onto the home for a total of approximately 2,300 s.f. The owners wanted to recreate the sense of bungalow, but also to reconnect to its Asian roots.


DCMud: Interesting. How many people would know the genesis of the bungalow style?

Gardner: It actually has several lineages, and some go back—even indirectly— to Asian influences. This client wanted a bungalow that most people would recognize as such on their street, but as you move from street to garden, make a transition toward something more modern and Asian-inspired.

DCMud: How did you strategize the renovation?

 Gardner: We completely rebuilt the second floor, and moreover, created an 18 X 30-foot addition on the back. The second floor of the house is the size of the original footprint plus the size of the addition. We did that because of the way we designed the roof—the roof ridge was raised only seven feet—which extends out onto the addition. Height restrictions in Montgomery County are a big deal. Traditional farmhouses in Japan are called Minkas, and the roof form of this project is kind of like the roof form of a Minka.

The only elements we kept were the first floor exterior walls, and the rooms just behind those walls, but completely rebuilt the rest. There’s more new construction here than there is renovation. But when you’re inside, it’s very hard to tell what’s new or old until you get to that back portion, though there is a very smooth transition from street to garden so you’re almost not aware of what happened until you get there. The client’s priorities included interconnected spaces and a room that allowed them to feel like they are part of the garden. The home was finished at 4,000 s.f.  

DCMud: Besides the master suite, what do you find upstairs?

Gardner: There’s a second floor room that has a set of doors that exit onto a balcony, and there’s a spiral stair, so you can come into the house from the garden side and it could become a mother-in-law suite. The only thing missing up there is a kitchenette which can be added. The angle upstairs comes from tucking the rooms up into the roof form, as the roof form goes from its ridge just about down to the level of the first floor. Consequently you get spaces that get the actual roof for a ceiling rather than a flat ceiling. This is not only common for bungalows, but also for some vernacular traditional Asian homes.

DCMud:The exposed collar ties up there almost look like part of the Asian design.

Gardner:The collar ties keep the roof members from pushing out on the walls of the house. In most houses, the roof is entirely above the second floor and you don’t see it, but in this house…the structure of the roof is actually part of the room. We wanted the effect that exposing the collar ties would provide. Above them, the space goes all the way up to the ridge with a window at the top which brings east light into the room. Skylights above the collar ties also make for very interesting light. 

DCMud: Any sustainable elements?

Gardner: Much of the wood in the house is reclaimed barn wood, including the floor. The beams are engineered lumber wrapped in the reclaimed barn wood. The wall of west-facing glass is high-performing double-glazed with a high solar heat gain coefficient. Right outside is the veranda which provides shade for this exposure. We couldn’t change the angle of the house but we could manage the way light came in. The roof is a simulated shingle by EcoStar made from recycled tires.

DCMud: Speaking of sustainable, what sustains you, living and working in the District?

Gardner: I really like Rock Creek Park, and one reason is because of the way it carves its way through the city. You can be in the middle of Rock Creek Park and not know you’re almost in downtown D.C. I love its impact on the city and I love being in it. From a design and engineering standpoint, some of the bridges in the park are spectacular. Whenever I drive somewhere and can go through Rock Creek, I do: It’s a magical thing to be in the park and then pop up in the city.

White Flint Mall Plan Goes Before County

The Montgomery County Planning Board will vote today on a preliminary plan put forward by the owners of the White Flint Mall to transform the 1970's-era shopping mall into a high-density development with over 5 million s.f. of residential and commercial development.

As indoor malls fade across America, mall owners Lerner Enterprises and the Tower Companies plan to replace the mall, and an adjacent office building, which sits on 45 acres on the east side of Rockville Pike, half a mile from the White Flint Metro Station. An attorney representing the developers said the owners have declined to comment before the hearing.

The genesis for redevelopment plans came after the County's approval of the White Flint Sector Plan in 2010.  That plan allowed additional development on properties in the 430 acres covered by the plan, many along Rockville Pike and near the metro, from single-use commercial to vertical mixed-use.

White Flint Mall property, Image: Montgomery Planning Dept.

Construction won't come quickly; today's sketch plan approval vote will be solely conceptual and preliminary; owners will still have to submit a Preliminary Plan followed by a Site Plan process, all of which could take years to finalize.

The mall redevelopment is part of the White Flint Mall District within the larger Sector Plan.   Plans call for replacing acres of surface parking and the 874,000 s.f. mall with a 5.2 million s.f. development that will include commercial, residential, and hotel space.  To date, the Pike and Rose has been the only project to commence since passage of the Sector Plan.

White Flint Mall Redevelopment Plan. Image: County

Unlike the existing mall, the new plan calls for primarily underground parking and includes 1 million s.f. of office space, 280,350 s.f. of hotel space, 2,426 residential units (2.8 million s.f.), and 1 million s.f. of retail.  Plans also set aside a site for a possible future elementary school, lay out a grid of public and private streets, and sketch out a new a public park area north of the existing White Flint Neighborhood Park.

Planned building heights range from 40 feet to 250 feet, with the tallest fronting Rockville Pike and the shortest buildings facing the public park.  The plan, which would be built in three phases, details other public-use spaces - a central plaza, a gateway plaza, north and south gateway plazas, and a neighborhood plaza - which county planners say must be built to completion.

County planners are also requiring developers to include wayfinding signs, vegetated areas and walls, small business opportunities, moderately-priced dwelling units (MPDU's), and bicycle parking, among other obvious things like transportation and storm water management plans.

White Flint Mall Redevelopment Phases. Image: Montgomery County Planning Dept.

Morning Real Estate Fix

Mortgage rate approaching Fed funds rate (Daily Mortgage Reports)  With mortgage rates at all time lows, the FOMC is not likely to change interest rates in general, and mortgage rates are historically close to the Fed's interest rate benchmark.

Is DC's market headed up or down?  (Daily Beast)  A set of reasons and explanations - though not necessarily conclusions - about what has been happening in the DC real estate market, and what may be in store.

64 unit condo planned for Dupont Circle (Urban Turf)  The row of buildings on N Street, owned by Mort Bender and vacant for decades, may actually be turned into something useful.

28% of home sales all-cash transactions (National Association of Realtors)  Though similar to last year's number, economists say the high rate of cash purchases shows that mortgage standards have tightened appreciably.

Today in Pictures - Boilermaker Shops

With exterior construction of the boilermaker building complete, southeast DC will soon have its own retail pavilion in one of the city's more exciting venues.  Forest City started construction on the project in late 2011, turning the century old boilermaker building of the Navy Yard into a waterfront locale for destination restaurants.  With exterior work complete, tenants are now beginning to build out their restaurants, which should put opening day next spring.  On track so far are Buzz Bakery and Blue Jacket brew pub, both operated by Neighborhood Restaurant Group.  Blue Jacket, named after the common apparel for navy personnel, will take the end space (on 4th) with walls of glass reaching 3 stories to the steel raftered ceiling.  On tap at the opposite end (on 3rd) is Willie's Brew & Crew (a sports bar & barbecue) from restaurant mogul Xavier Cervera, as well as a drycleaner.  BRB, which had originally signed on, is no longer on the list, but officials say a burger joint is likely.  Across the street construction is underway on a new apartment building, Harris Teeter, and now a Vida Fitness.

Your Next Place

This beautiful corner home has been extensively remodeled after being vacant for decades.  I live just two blocks away and I can attest that for the past five or six years, it was the scariest, filthiest, most haunted-looking house in the neighborhood; I wouldn't even let my dog crap in the trash-strewn yard for fear it would step on a syringe and contract hepatitis B.  Now that this place has been turned into a crown jewel of the neighborhood, the crappiest scariest-looking crown has been passed down to ... crap, it's now my house!  (True story:  the sinkhole that's formed on my stoop as a result of a botched water main repair is so wide and deep that the mailman just tosses our mail onto the stairs from the sidewalk, lest he plummet to his death.)

A duplex condo, this unit has huge, oversized windows wherever you turn, flooding the living spaces with natural light.  Maybe too much natural light - I went to this open house with my girlfriend, and when we were in the light-flooded living room I caught her looking at me up and down, as if seeing me for the first time, and muttering, "wait a second, does my boyfriend look like a Depression-era Mexican standup comedian?!"  (Answer: yes.)  There are gleaming hardwood floors and recessed lighting throughout, and the kitchen sports granite countertops and beautiful custom cabinetry.

Upstairs is a similarly light-filled master bedroom (check out those closets!) and a fantastic master bath featuring side by side twin basins for those late night handwashin' competitions (what, you thought no one knew about that?), and a huge glass cube shower that's equal parts Vegas and Star Trek.  And on the roof is a fantastic 800-square-foot roof deck from which you can juuuuuust see the Washington Monument, which you will never ever look at, but which you can casually mention to people at cocktail parties as a subtle way to convey that despite all appearances to the contrary, you're actually quite annoying.

1600 8th St. NW #1
3 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$895,000