Well, here it is. All news pertaining to economic development within the Washington, DC CSA should be posted under this thread.

Tall order. I know. After all, the capital of the Free World has yet to see its own development thread while cities containing half its importance are up to their second and third thread. I don't want to sit here and be philosophical, but I think this might have something to do with the fact that very few residents of DC and its surrounding area are passionate about this city. Those that are, it seems, are not the kind of people to post messages on a development forum.

But Washington and its burgeoning have much to offer. Truth be told, Washington should probably be combined with Baltimore and given its own section alongside Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Florida and Miami.

Here is a guide to the Washington Region

The city proper is the seat of the most powerful government the world has ever known. Beyond the Mall, though, lies more than federal buildings and world-class museums. Downtown DC is the third largest in the country, trailing only Midtown New York and the Loop in Chicago. In the market to buy space in one of these low-rise buildings? Be prepared to pay prices rivaling and in most cases (Midtown, New York, being the foremost exception) surpassing those of the top markets in the country.

For a long time that was all there was to Washington. Sure, there was always bucolic, west-of-Rock Creek Park Northwest Washington, with its Mansions and McMansions and eclectic neighborhoods. But the area lying immediately east of the park and on to the eastern boundaries of the city plunked down into a seemingly interminable funk. Some bright spots, like chic and diverse Adams Morgan, managed to beat the depression, but overall the area experienced vicious and long-lived decline. There are conflicting sources of blame for this meltdown. Most, however, track it back to the '68 riots, which rampaged formerly picturesque and thriving neighborhoods with violence. Left in utter chaos, little was done to replace what was destroyed by this epic urban disaster. Most whites living in these tracts of newly formed urban blight shut down their businesses and left the city altogether. What was left was brown, black, and broke. Drugs predominated, especially in the crack-cocaine laden '80s. And Mayor Marion Barry was often focused on his own misdeeds, leaving the city without a true leader to shepherd it through the thicket of mismanagement, decay and decline.

The turnaround, like so many other turnarounds, came with the booming economy of the '90s and, perhaps most importantly, a new mayor. The economy picked up pace around '94 and took off in '95, and Anthony Williams, CFO officer at the time, became mayor in 1999. Drafted by upper-middle class Hillcrest residents (a southeast Washington community now intent on transforming a typically urban-ghetto shopping center into a shopping destination with national retailers, such as Target) and other reformers, Williams took the reins of the city out of the hands of Congress and into his own.

Since then, communities all around Washington have boomed. In particular, those areas just east of Rock Creek Park, and situated slightly north of Downtown have reinvented and redeveloped rapidly. The 14th street corridor, once the token urban wasteland, has transformed into a condominium strip, with new, gleaming-glass condos going up quicker than paint can dry on ones just finished. U St, has also seen an explosion of residential development, as well as chic small businesses, a definite relief from all-too-common national chains. Further down the development list are the communities of Columbia Heights, Mount Pleasant, LeDetroit Park, Shaw, and Petworth- located all in the city's Northwest quadrant.

Downtown is expanding. As rental rates and space squeeze out tenants in the traditional and established Downtown DC, newer sections are added on. NoMA, or North of Massachusetts Avenue, behind Union Station and in most estimations bordered to the north by New York Avenue, is seeing plan after plan for residential and commercial properties come into fruition. Located here will be the new ATF and SEC headquarters. Mount Vernon Square, the area currently only comprising of the massive Convention Center and some residential units, is being rediscovered. Plans for several commercial properties have been submitted and the area just a few blocks west has at least 5 condos under construction. The building boom has even stretched across the national Mall into formerly staid Southwest and Southeast (WEST of the Anacostia River) Washington. The planned stadium for the Nationals (Washington's baseball team) will be located in that vicinity. Generally, areas to the west (Georgetown, West End, Foggy Bottom) and the Northwest (Adams Morgan, Kalorama, Dupont Circle) are already built-out and therefore generally unavailable to developers (though there are still many condo projects under construction in these neighborhoods).

The Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest quadrants of Washington lag behind pricey Northwest, but are still seeing a massive wave of frenetic economic development.

Included in this thread is the region surrounding Washington. The inner counties of Arlington and Alexandria in Virginia used to be counties Washington proper, but both were given autonomy in the 19th century. Currently home to well-established neighborhoods and commercial corridors, each has appreciated so much in value that, to live here, one should expect to pay well in excess of 400,000 for housing. A new single family home would fetch, in most cases, at least a million dollars.

There are two mega-counties that stretch from close-to-DC to nearly exurban, by virtue of size. Fairfax county, in Northern Virginia, has over 1 million residents and houses the bursting-at-the-seams Tysons Corner and Reston. While the county depends on the federal government a great deal (and its principle Congressman, Rep. Tom Davis, is highly influential) for its prosperity, an even larger contributor is the private sector, including high-tech companies Oracle, AOL-Time Warner, and Sprint-Nextel. Housing here is ideal- with excellent schools, an extensive roadway system (traffic is still extremely poor), fantastic retail anchored by Tysons Corner, and a growing public transportation system. The cost fits the amenities, with an average house selling in the mid-400s. A new or newer single family home is usually in excess of 800,000. Sitting to its north is Montgomery County, Maryland. Comprised of about 950,000 residents (predicted to top 1,000,000 in a scant 5 years or less) Montgomery County is one of the premier biotech centers in the nation. The National Institutes of Health drives this statistic, as many of its employees leave to form for-profit companies nearby. Third only to Washington, DC, and Tysons Corner, VA in regional importance is Bethesda, MD. Home to the hotelier Marriott and Lockheed Martin, among others, Bethesda is perhaps the crown jewel of the Washington area for fine dining and shopping. Its main corridor, located along Wisconsin Avenue (which stretches from Georgetown in lower-Washington to Rockville, MD) has attracted Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Neiman Marcus, Ralph Lauren, Brooks Brothers, Saks Fifth Avenue, Burberry, Cheesecake Factory, Maggiano's, and many more. A new project has signed on more pricey names and is scheduled for completion within the next two years. As a whole, Montgomery County real estate booms along, erecting tall condominium projects, townhouses-with-elevators, and single family homes indistinguishable from each other and large enough for two or three families. Mansions rise in Bethesda, Potomac, and Darnestown. McMansions rise in Olney, Burtonsville, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, and many other communites. The council in Montgomery County has done a good job of planning growth. Large, well-planned communities are popular here. There's Kentlands, Lakelands, Arora Hills and Clarksburg. Housing prices vary a bit in the county, but expect to spend, on average, 400,000 for a new home. New and newer homes fetch far more, on average 650,000. In a predicted 5 years, average pricing on new single family units is expected to hit the million-dollar benchmark.

Prince Georges County, Maryland, east of Washington, suffered the same problems as east-of-the-river Washington. A majority-black county with the highest average household income in any majority-black county in the country, it nevertheless had image problems that tended to keep national developers out. Recently, however, development has picked up. Housing units are going up fast, especially in Laurel, Bowie, Upper Marlboro, and other eastern county communites. Toll Brothers began its McMansion expansion into the county with Cheltenham Estates in Upper Marlboro, and has more communities in planning. Large, planned communities are popping up. Oak Creek and Beech Tree in Upper Marlboro, are only two examples. To anchor all this residential growth, there is the new National Harbor development on the banks of the Potomac River in south county, a 2 billion dollar project. And, in north county, Konterra- a planned oasis of residential neighborhoods, a town center resembling Reston Town Center in Fairfax, and an upscale mall.
Houses here are among the most affordable in the region, though inner-beltway communities depress the average score- about 250,000. Outside the beltway, houses usually run about 300,000 for an older home, 400,000+ for a new or newer home.

Further to the north, between Washington and Baltimore, is Howard County. With the highest household income in the country (though this changes from survey to survey- another stated Prince William County as having the highest household income) Howard is centered primarily around the planned city of Columbia, MD. Howard County is principally a residential region interspersed with national security firms. Houses range from affordable to exorbitant, with an average at 375,000. The western end of the county includes exurban communities of Washington.

Prince William and Loudoun Counties in NoVA benefit from both Washington and the job centers in other parts of northern Virginia. Both are exurban communities. A key aspect of exurban communities is affordability. And neither meets this goal. With houses ranging from 400,000 for a townhouse to 1,000,000+ for single family homes, prices here are among the steepest in the region, esp. in Loudon. Picture-perfect planned communities are most popular. Strip malls stretch for miles with virtually every national retailer (especially big-boxes) well represented. Both are criticized for unending McMansionvilles but that doesn't stop people from moving in. Loudon County topped the list of high-growth counties in the latest census, and Prince William was close behind.

Other counties included but not covered are Anne Arundel, Charles and Frederick in Maryland. Stafford, King George, and Fauqier in Virginia. Clarke in West Virginia.

AND.......WE'RE OFF!!!!!!!!!!!11 :runaway:

Soaring View Of Tysons Centers on A Downtown
New Coalition Wants Even More Growth
Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post
Friday, April 22, 2005

Tysons Corner, in many ways already the second city of the Washington metropolis, is poised to become much bigger.

The volume of building in Northern Virginia's jumbled suburban hub of offices and malls could grow by half under existing county rules if a proposed Metrorail line is built. Assuming recent growth rates hold, that seems likely to continue the area's rapid ascendance as a commercial hub second only to downtown Washington.

Now a powerful coalition of developers and civic leaders has formed to make the case for allowing Tysons Corner to expand beyond existing limits and become more like a traditional downtown, possibly doubling again its development potential.

If proponents of expansion are successful, the area would be altered not only in size but in character, with its largest developer, West Group, proposing to carve its sprawling holdings up into city blocks modeled after downtown Chicago.

Height limits around Metro stops could allow buildings up to 250 feet, which is lower than in Chicago but higher than in much of downtown Washington, where 160 feet is a typical maximum.

By virtue of Tysons Corner's size and prominence, the incipient debate over the expansion represents what may be the region's most significant test of the "smart growth" movement, which calls for focusing development into urban clusters around transit stops.

"Right now, Tysons Corner is the world's most successful office park," said William D. Lecos, president of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce. "What we want is a downtown."

The effort is already being challenged by some neighborhood groups, who fear that more building will exacerbate congestion on Northern Virginia's roads.

"What's going to happen to the surrounding communities when 10,000 new condominiums are built there?" asked Susan Turner, president of the McLean Citizens Association, who emphasized that the group's board had not taken a position. "Our roads are already absolutely jampacked."

She is skeptical that building near Metro stops would lessen traffic troubles, arguing that Metro's Orange Line in Northern Virginia, one of its most crowded, may not be able to accommodate more riders.

"Smart growth assumes that you have a high-functioning, high-capacity Metro system," she said. "We have an overloaded line that will only be overtaxed by the new development."

But the push to expand Tysons Corner has political momentum, with developers and civic leaders considering new roads and a grid pattern of streets intended to ease bottlenecks.

On Tuesday night, three members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and a new Tysons committee, a citizens group, met to coordinate a study to determine how much more development can fit once the proposed Metro line reaches the crossroads that 50 years ago was largely pasture. The effort was initiated after a rush of 21 developer applications in the area.

And today, the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce is convening a meeting of business and civic leaders at George Mason University to discuss what Tysons might become.

"We support more density in Tysons Corner and more homes in Tysons Corner, because that is the only way we can create a walkable, transit-friendly community," said Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, a consortium of environmental groups.

Many developers, businesses and civic leaders consider Tysons Corner the cornerstone of the Northern Virginia economy and that, as such, its fate should be carefully considered. "It is the goose that lays the golden eggs," Kenneth A. Lawrence, a Fairfax planning board member, said at Tuesday's meeting.

Once touted as a prototypical suburban office market with cheap rents, empty roads and easy parking, Tysons has become more costly and its roads more congested.

It faces competition from Arlington, which offers a more urban setting with convenient Metrorail access, and Loudoun County, which offers suburban advantages.

Tysons Corner could be "out-citied" by Arlington and "out-countried" by Loudoun, warned Robert E. Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

West Group executive Tom Fleury agreed. "If we don't plan Tysons Corner as a city, the epicenter [of development] will move westward."

Lang advocates building more densely despite the opposing political forces.

Even if the slate of developer-proposed expansions wins approval, however, Tysons Corner seems unlikely to be changed into a traditional American downtown.

Although the proposals would together permit millions of square feet of additional construction, that is largely because Tysons Corner, at about 1,700 acres, is larger than many traditional downtowns.

Moreover, even the most aggressive of the building proposals calls for a density far below that permitted in downtown Washington or even the Ballston area of Arlington. The "floor-area ratio" -- basically a measure of how much building can be erected on a given piece of land -- is roughly 10 in Washington and 6 in Ballston; the proposals at Tysons Corner range from 3 to 5.

For those who believe in creating what they call Northern Virginia's "downtown" at Tysons Corner, the timing is critical.

"Once there are more residents -- voters -- in Tysons Corner, you will never again raise the ceiling," Lecos said. "There are no do overs after this point."

Staff writer Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report.

Boston Props to develop final piece of Reston Town Center
Eleni Kretikos
Washington Business Journal
April 8, 2005

Boston Properties plans to build 500,000 square feet of office space and 60,000 square feet of retail at Reston Town Center on the last undeveloped block in the complex.

"We've not made any decisions as to when to go forward with the project," says Pete Otteni, senior project manager at Boston Properties. "It really is market-driven."

The office space likely would go up in three separate buildings. The area is now a surface parking lot bounded by Market, Library and Explorer streets, and Bluemont Way.

Homes also are a possibility for the project. Boston Properties has filed a development-plan amendment with Fairfax County. The company expects approval later this year.

Reston Town Center is the region's best example of integrating housing, offices, retail shops, restaurants, public spaces and parking in a vibrant environment.

"If you look around America, we're suffering 'generica' -- everyone has the same tenants," says broker John Asadoorian, who is leasing the retail space. "In Reston, the opportunity exists to respond to the demand for more unique retail."

Though Boston Properties is not in active talks with anyone for the retail or office space, that should change before long. Meetings about marketing the retail space are expected soon. The most likely mix of tenants for a new building will be in fashion and home furnishings, Asadoorian says.

In addition, KSI (www.ketsco.com) has two high-rise condominium buildings with hundreds of units coming to Reston Town Center. The first is already under construction. Between the two, 50,000 square feet of retail will be added, offering another opportunity for those who thus far have been shut out of the hugely successful development.

Part of the center is owned by Boston Properties, which bought it from Terrabrook in 2003, and part is owned by Equity Office.

Welcome to Fairfax -- if You Vote Red
Marc Fisher
Washington Post Columnist
Sunday, April 24, 2005

Just when you thought the political polarization of this country had gone as far as it could, here comes Rep. Tom Davis with a whole new frontier for the Red-Blue wars: The Republican congressman from Fairfax seems to believe that the only way he can guarantee himself reelection till the end of time is to prevent Democrats from moving into his district.

Davis last week announced his intent to use Congress's authority over the Metro system to force a downsizing of a huge, 2,250-unit condo, townhouse and commercial development planned for 56 acres next to the Vienna Metro station.


The congressman says he's deeply concerned that at the Vienna station, "smart growth" -- the slogan of those who favor building more densely around transit stations to funnel population growth there rather than letting it seep deeper into the countryside -- is really dumb growth, overly congesting both roads and rails.

But while he buddies up to residents of Vienna who are aghast at the thought of thousands of new neighbors, Davis -- who supported transit-oriented development when he was chairman of the Fairfax Board of Supervisors -- really has a different concern.

Three Fairfax elected officials told me that Davis explained his opposition to the MetroWest development to them as a matter of party politics: The congressman believes that the people most likely to move into condos and townhouses near a Metro station are -- oh, the horror! -- Democrats.

One politician who spoke to Davis says the congressman told him straight-out that he opposes Pulte Homes' MetroWest project because "all it does is produce Democrats."

Davis won reelection last year with a solid 60 percent of the vote against a largely unknown opponent, but he saw frightening cracks in his electoral foundation. "He lost Merrifield, the area around the Dunn Loring Metro station, and he's convinced that it turned blue because of development around the station," says Democrat Gerry Connolly, the Fairfax board chairman.

Davis scoffs at the idea that he is motivated by politics. He says Vienna is simply unsuited to a project of this magnitude. The Orange Line is already full in the morning rush, and Interstate 66 is way over capacity.

The congressman says he still supports denser development at Tysons, "but if you extend smart growth out past Tysons, you're turning the county into a city, which is not what most people want."

Davis's alternative to density at such suburban Metro stations as Vienna is not more sprawl, but rather a push to repopulate the District. "Culturally, the people who would move into this project in Vienna are urban kind of people. A lot of them are single, and they would be happy living closer in."

Which would put those people where they belong, either in Democratic Washington or in suburbs in Rep. Jim Moran's Democratic district.

"Could this be a new form of redlining?" wonders T. Dana Kauffman, a Fairfax supervisor who also is chairman of Metro's board. "Should I be concerned because I have all these starter castles coming in on Route 1 and the people who buy them are likely to be Republican?"

Davis says party politics has nothing to do with his power play. "I don't know who's going to move in there," he says, one minute after describing exactly who he expects will live at MetroWest. (Davis himself provided insight into his motives: After John Kerry won Fairfax in November, Davis fretted to The Post's Lisa Rein that "the city is moving out to the suburbs.")

Fairfax politicians are livid that Davis is interfering in local land-use decisions. "Tom knows better -- he's exercising raw power because he can," Connolly says.

Nonsense, says the congressman. "Everybody who gets elected has a say in this stuff. This is my community, which elects me."

By blocking Metro from selling its three acres of land near the station to Pulte Homes, Davis says he can press the builder to cut the project's size. Pulte Vice President Stan Settle says he can charge ahead no matter what Davis does. Kauffman says: "We could end up with a Metro-dependent development with no direct connection to Metro."

"I'm in shock," Settle says. "We listened to the community for a solid year and never heard from Tom Davis. When we greet people, we don't ask if they're Republican or Democrat."

Developers may need a new line on homebuyer applications: job, income, party affiliation.

Planners try to build Main Street appeal in Cheverly
Joe Coombs
Washington Business Journal
April 22, 2005

The auto shops and vacant lots in Cheverly could soon be replaced by a much-desired mixed-use project.

Prince George's County has approved a plan to rezone land surrounding Cheverly's Metro station and Arbor Street. Office, retail and residential uses will get top priority.

The Tuxedo Road/Arbor Street corridor -- home mostly to old industrial buildings and car repair businesses -- and the neighboring Metro station hold plenty of potential for development.

"It's a very accessible location, very close to D.C.," says Chidy Umeozulu, a project planner with Prince George's County Planning Department (www.mncppc.org/pgco). "Arbor Street has to be looked at as a potential Main Street attraction, because Cheverly residents really don't have any place to go. The planning department isn't in the business of developing land, but we can make policies that would make it possible."

With the new zoning in place, the hard part for Cheverly (www.cheverly.com), a community of 6,000, is to find a developer willing to take the first step, says Dave DiNardo, a senior vice president with Grubb & Ellis (www.grubb-ellis.com).

Republic Properties is backing a condominium project not far from the Cheverly station. The plans call for a 200-unit complex at the juncture of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and Route 450.

D.C.-based Republic (www.republicpropertiescorp.com) will team with developer Joel Youngblood to build the condos. Construction could start in early 2006 if the project gets approval.

"We like the site's access to the parkway and downtown," says David Peter, senior vice president and president of land development at Republic. "There are a lot of revitalization efforts in Cheverly right now. We want to be a part of bringing that to fruition."

Metro, hired consultants call for streetcar
Metro, hired consultants call for streetcar
CHRISTY GOODMAN
Washington Examiner
April 26, 2005

Arlington residents have been presented with a plan to help them zip into the future.

Metro, along with hired consultants, recommended a high-capacity, environmentally friendly modified streetcar to run from Bailey's Crossroads to Pentagon City on Columbia Pike at a public meeting Monday night at the Arlington Career Center.

The meeting was held to update residents on the "Columbia Pike Initiative," a study on ways to improve transit on Columbia Pike to meet future transportation demands.


By 2015 the new transit, a mix between streetcars and clean fuel-burning buses, would run swiftly along the right lane with vehicular traffic in the left lane.

"I'm excited because it will happen within my lifetime," said Judith Richter, a 17-year resident of the western end of Columbia Pike, who said she thinks with the new transit proposal there will be less traffic on the road.



The proposed plan would cost some $120 million to build, a cost to be shared between Fairfax and Arlington counties.

Creativity in funding

Arlington Board Member Chris Zimmerman said both boards would have to approve the project individually then look at creative funding options.



Zimmerman, who called the investment "modest" compared to the cost of a new school, said, "It is big enough that it is not easy, but it is small enough that it is plausible."

Most residents were concerned that current traffic woes would be exacerbated with streetcars or buses dominating the right lane.

The Columbia Pike Street Space Plan, adopted by the Arlington Board in 2003, would create dedicated left-turn lanes, add greenery, smooth manhole covers and make transportation improvements along Arlington's main street.

James R. Hamre of Arlington's Department of Environmental Services' Transportation division said, "All of that is assumed to be in place before this scenario."

Metro's Robin McElhenny explained that the modified streetcar would make stops between a third of a mile and a half-mile apart, with closer stops in high-density areas.

Jill Lewis, a Columbia Pike resident since 1986, said the plan would encourage pedestrian traffic.

Martin Chadzynski of Arlington Heights, an officer formerly stationed at the Pentagon, expressed concern over the additional transit adding to the Pentagon's "mob scene" of traffic.

renderings
http://www.piketransit.com/downloads/04-2005-Public-Open-Presentation.pdf

Harris Teeter is moving aggressively into the Washington area market, especially NOVA. Has anyone heard anything about potential store sites, specifically in DC & MD? I'm already aware of the Adams Morgan and Capitol Hill sites.


What about Wegman's? There's that one out in Sterling they're starting on and one up in Hunt Valley.

ALSO: Can someone let me know HOW to post pictures on these threads? I have literally hundreds of pictures of Washington proper and its suburbs that I'd love to post, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to do it. It took a long time to take those pictures, LOL. SOMEONE is going to see them! :weirdo:

Welcome to Fairfax -- if You Vote Red
Marc Fisher
Washington Post Columnist
Sunday, April 24, 2005

Ususally I don't find Washinton Post Columnists to be the most objective or fair commentators. :-P

Generally I find Tom Davis to be a fair and helpful Congressman. But in this instance he revealed his partisan, NIMBY stripes. He took a good development and derailed it simply because he did not like the design and density. Truth be told, he probably would have suffered, politically, by this project. But only marginally, as the proposed development could not overturn a 60% majority by any means.

Davis also has to face the fact that Fairfaix is becoming more moderate and Democratic-leaning. Gone are the days when good ole Fairfax voted reliably Republican. Increased immigration, the high-tech industry, and the decline in living standards is driving the county now. And its driving the county closer to the Dems, not the GOP. Trying to stop that now would do no good. Davis is an institution in Fairfax county so he really has no need to worry. But, once his seat becomes open (likely within the next 4-10 years) it will probably go to a Democrat.

This is a great thread. I'm glad someone created it. :)
I'd love to hear about some SilverSpring, Bethesda, Rockville development news. :D
Wasn't there a big downtown development plan for Rockville? What has happened with it? :? Anyone know??

Downtown project getting closer to approval by council
Noelle Barton
Rockville Gazette
Apr. 13, 2005

The developer of the land in front of the Regal Cinemas in downtown Rockville is getting closer to what Mayor Larry Giammo and the City Council want to see built on that site.

This week, Akridge returned to a council worksession with revised plans for the mixed-use project that will include a total of 500 residential units, first-floor retail and parking garages. City leaders had expressed concern about the heights of the project and a cavernous feeling that may have resulted along a north-south street connecting East Montgomery Avenue and Middle Lane in front of the movie theaters.

Akridge redesigned the site to have the buildings at a height of 85 feet at the street front, with additional height set back 30 feet, to form a wedding cake style of building masses.

The west parcel, being proposed for development with 235 residential units, would have a maximum height of 154 feet and the east parcel would have a maximum height of 185 feet.

Councilwoman Susan R. Hoffmann and Councilman Robert E. Dorsey indicated they would support the revised proposal, and Councilman John F. Hall Jr. was leaning toward a "yes" vote as well.

Giammo remained on the fence about the density and heights in the project. Councilwoman Anne M. Robbins was against it, saying she was concerned the massing could overwhelm Town Center.

The council agreed it would like the project to adhere to design guidelines set forth for the rest of Town Center, and raised concerns about the timing of the project regarding available parking. Akridge agreed to provide a parking coordinator to help patrons of the downtown businesses find parking once construction begins.

Nancy Regelin, attorney for Akridge, said as of April 1 the parking garage on Monroe Street at the intersection of East Montgomery Avenue is free after 5 p.m. and on weekends. That move is to help encourage people to use that garage, which tends to be underused.

City staff will bring the item back to the council in the near future for action. Construction is slated to begin next spring.

I agree with that assessment about Davis, he doesn't have much to worry about at all and he is a relatively moderate republican on social issues. I think that this is just a painful way to prolong something that has been hurting the area for a while. That corridor will become more urban, and I wish that a better compromise would have been made, like limiting development on the side of I-66 where he lives, opposite of the planned development.

Thanks for posting that article. :)

D.C. Shifts Light-Rail Plan From Waterfront to Streets in SE
Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post
Thursday, April 28, 2005

District transportation officials said yesterday that they want to run a planned light-rail line through neighborhood streets rather than along the Anacostia waterfront because they are unhappy with a deal to purchase land for the project.

District officials had agreed to pay CSX Transportation Inc. $16 million for 2.7 miles of right of way between the foot of the John Philip Sousa Bridge, which carries Pennsylvania Avenue SE, and Bolling Air Force Base.

But city officials said yesterday that a thorough inspection of the property revealed that CSX does not own all of the right of way -- in fact, the District is among the property owners -- raising concerns about what the city was paying for and what it was getting.

Dan Tangherlini, the District's director of transportation, said a detailed analysis "showed us that we weren't really getting what we thought we were getting. We're not getting enough to actually build the line on."

Tangherlini said that the city is willing to fight CSX over the deal and that he believes the line can still be built along its original route, although it probably would not open in fall 2006 as projected. But he said he prefers to shift the line onto city streets, many of which are scheduled to be rebuilt, to bring it closer to the residents and businesses that would use it and to get it running by next year.

"Why not save the $16 million and really do it where we eventually want to do it anyway?" Tangherlini said, adding, "We've got to sell the community on this option or maybe put the thing on hold while we fight with CSX."

District officials said that they have set aside $36 million for the project and that they are unsure how much the new proposal would cost.

CSX spokesman Robert Sullivan maintained that his company has "the ability to sell the property to the District for its intended use."

The light-rail line has been hailed as an economic boon for one of the city's struggling sectors by serving existing businesses and spurring development of new ones.

The line also has been touted as a showcase project for a light-rail system that D.C. officials hope to eventually build in corridors across the city. It would be the first new transit system in the District in a generation and would represent a return to street-level rail that disappeared with the trolleys in the early 1960s.

The neighborhood route would run 2.2 miles from Pennsylvania and Minnesota avenues SE along Minnesota to Good Hope Road to Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue to Howard Road to Firth Sterling Avenue, where it would end at Bolling. Officials said they haven't worked out all the details of the line, including whether it should go in the median or alongside streets.

Tangherlini said that planners have always wanted the line on neighborhood streets but that they chose the CSX route because it appeared to be a quicker, easier way to get the project done.

"Our preference would actually be in the road," he said. "We just didn't want to take on the questions of parking and traffic. Now, we might as well, because we have to deal with these questions anyway."

Another question the city has to address is how residents feel about the change. City officials are holding a preliminary meeting with community leaders Saturday to discuss the new plans.

"That seems crazy to take up the streets," said Lendia Johnson, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Anacostia. "We have bus service that serves those streets quite well. I just don't see disrupting what we currently have that is working to replace it with something we're not sure about."

Resident Hannah Hawkins said that a light-rail line would take away space from crowded streets. "We are trying to get away from congestion, and I think it would add more to it."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Developer Infuses Historic Properties With Commerce
TERRY PRISTIN
New York Times
April 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - Over the last seven years, Anthony M. Lanier has transformed a group of industrial buildings along a rat-infested alley on the western edge of Georgetown into an elegant cluster of small shops that specialize in high-end furniture and design.

But although his widely praised project, Cady's Alley, was able to attract national tenants like Baker Furniture and Waterworks, which sells designer bathroom fixtures, Mr. Lanier could not find a restaurateur willing to move into space that was tucked away behind M Street and thus not visible from Georgetown's main retail street.

Convinced that a restaurant was critical to Cady's Alley's success, Mr. Lanier recently took a bold step that people who have watched him become a leading retail developer in Georgetown say was very much in character: he decided to open his own cafe and patisserie. "A number of people in the restaurant business thought he should have his head examined," said Richard H. Levy, the president of the Levy Group, another large property owner in Georgetown.

Last month, however, Mr. Lanier's restaurant, Leopold's Kafe Konditorei, began serving sauerbraten and Sacher torte in a 3,800-square-foot space that opens onto a brick courtyard.

In an industry in which the word "visionary" is tossed around so casually that it has lost its meaning, Mr. Lanier, 53, who was raised in Vienna and moved to Georgetown in the early 1980's, is often described as an authentic pioneer, someone who anticipated not only the resurgence of this city's real estate market but also the growing popularity of pedestrian-friendly shopping.

In 1996, Mr. Lanier, backed by German capital, began buying and renovating small commercial buildings in his own village-like neighborhood, where the streets are narrow and walkable. Using local architects, he enlarged and updated dark and dingy storefronts that once housed fast-food restaurants and struggling independent retailers, turning them into airy spaces in which century-old brick walls coexist with modern staircases and skylights, and often adding upstairs rental units.

John A. Asadoorian, a local retail real estate broker, said that Mr. Lanier's European background might have given him the perspective to see the possibilities in a long-neglected retail district. "Sometimes people are too far into the forest to see the trees, and they react to opportunities rather than being proactive," Mr. Asadoorian said. "He had the confidence, the bravado, the vision and the tenacity."

Mr. Lanier said he and his partners had invested almost $1 billion in Georgetown and the West End, the neighborhood that borders on the central business district. His projects include two Ritz-Carlton hotel and condominium developments (built with Millennium Partners) - one on 31st and South Streets and the other on 23rd and M Streets - and a third condominium building at 3303 Water Street. He said his company, EastBanc, now owned 300,000 square feet of retail space in Georgetown, about 10 percent of the total and an amount equivalent to the rentable space at Georgetown Park, the neighborhood's vertical mall.

Though he is sometimes criticized for replacing independently owned stores with chain retailers, Mr. Lanier is also known for being very picky about his tenants. He turned down a lucrative offer from Chipotle Mexican Grill, a fast-food chain restaurant, which opened on M Street anyway. "I've never talked to the broker again who put them there," he said.

Mr. Lanier does not always get his way with the various preservationists who are authorized to review his plans. Recently, they rejected a proposal to create a two-level glass entryway for a 19th-century building on M Street. And he was once fined after an administrative hearing for destroying part of a structure's original building material. (He blames the contractor.) But he said the painstaking process required in Georgetown has been good for the neighborhood. "Many times," he said, "I think our buildings have become better."

Situated to the west of Rock Creek Park and to the north of the Potomac River, Georgetown was an independent port city until 1871. Although many powerful figures have made their homes and held their storied dinner parties in Georgetown's Federal-style houses, they, like other Washingtonians, did most of their shopping in the suburbs. In the 1970's, the retail district along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue began declining as T-shirt shops replaced antique shops, and landlords stopped putting money into their properties.

The sloping waterfront district south of M Street, where warehouses and factories had flourished until the rise of rail transport, also fell into disrepair. In the 1940's, this neighborhood was cut off from the channel by the elevated Whitehurst Freeway, causing further deterioration.

Just behind M Street, between 33rd and 34th Streets, was Cady's Alley, named for a late 19th-century family, which was lined with 16 separately owned buildings. In 1998, Mr. Lanier bought his first building on the M Street side of the alley, but he could not find a retailer willing to venture to that part of Georgetown. Then he met Rachel D. Kohler, the president of Kohler Interiors, who was seeking to open the first retail store for Baker, an upscale furniture line.

"We had come upon one sanitized cement box in a mall after another," Ms. Kohler recalled. She found herself drawn to Mr. Lanier's idea of a European-style shopping street, even though the space he showed her was next to a tattoo parlor. Meeting Ms. Kohler inspired Mr. Lanier to try to create a design district that would serve as an alternative to the Washington Design Center in Southwest Washington, which caters to developers rather than the general public, he said.

Ms. Kohler signed a deal with Mr. Lanier, giving him a prestigious tenant and enabling him to lure other compatible retailers. "We said, 'we're willing to support your vision, but we need to mutually share the risk,' " Ms. Kohler said. "He was very willing to put his money where his mouth was."

Mr. Lanier agreed to buy the other buildings along the alley, whose tenants included several ethnic restaurants, a bridal shop and a Jennifer Convertibles store. The last owner he approached was Zed Wondemu, whose Ethiopian restaurant was situated precisely in the spot where Mr. Lanier intended to put a passageway from M Street to the alley. He let her name her price, which she asked not be published. "She knew she had me, and I knew she had me," he said.

He also made a deal with city preservationists, who allowed him to treat the eight buildings facing M Street as one structure so that he could use the space more efficiently without having to meet all the code requirements that apply to separate structures. In exchange, he agreed to preserve 70 percent of the original exterior walls, said Barbara Zartman, who chairs the historic preservation committee of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, a civic group.

In developing Cady's Alley, Mr. Lanier worked with five local architects to avoid the uniformity of a shopping center. "He wanted creativity," said one of the architects, Suman Sorg. "He didn't want to give us too much direction." The result is a blending of different styles and materials. One building, designed by Mark McInturff, where Gore Dean, an antique store, opened last month, has a facade made partly of corrugated metal.

Cady's Alley has 125,000 square feet of rentable space and occupies three levels because the alley is actually one full grade below M Street. An exterior staircase and the passageway encourage meandering. In a March 2004 review, Benjamin Forgey, the architecture critic for The Washington Post, praised Cady's Alley as a model for new construction in an historic urban neighborhood. "The architecture is fresh, varied and up-to-date," he wrote. "The individual pieces are connected in ways that are welcoming and make sense."

Even Ms. Zartman, who has frequently objected to Mr. Lanier's plans, is impressed by Cady's Alley and some of his other projects. "You can't but be pleased with the restoration quality of the properties," she said.

Beltway To Get Va. Toll Lanes
Two Private Firms Will Fund Widening To Ease Congestion

By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005; Page A01

Construction of the first major expansion of the Capital Beltway in a generation could start as soon as next year, Virginia transportation officials said yesterday after signing a deal with two private firms to build toll lanes for a speedier ride on 14 miles of the chronically clogged highway.

The deal calls for adding two lanes in each direction of the Beltway, separated from other traffic, between Springfield and Georgetown Pike near the Maryland border. The high-occupancy toll -- or HOT -- lanes would be free for vehicles containing three or more people; other drivers would pay to use them. To keep the lanes from clogging, tolls would increase with the amount of traffic.

The state would not have to pay anything for the new lanes. The private companies would invest the entire $900 million cost of the project in exchange for all or part of the toll revenue.

"For drivers in Northern Virginia, it'll mean new capacity, which is something that has not been offered in a long time," said Transportation Commissioner Philip A. Shucet. "It means a new opportunity for HOV and transit, and it means a choice for drivers who want to pay for a faster commute."

The lanes represent the first step in what regional leaders hope is an extensive network of toll lanes across the region. Virginia officials are considering additional HOT lanes on parts of Interstates 95 and 395, and Maryland officials are exploring express toll lanes on the Beltway, I-270, the Baltimore Beltway and I-95 north of Baltimore.

Maryland officials said yesterday that they are in the early stage of studying Beltway toll lanes. "We're a few steps behind Virginia," said Valerie Burnette Edgar, spokeswoman for the Maryland State Highway Administration.

Critics once derided such lanes as "Lexus lanes" -- arguing that they favor the wealthy and were a double tax on roads that motorists already pay for -- but have changed their minds because studies have shown that they are used by people of all incomes and, in this case, because no state money is being used.

The concept is in use in California and Texas and is being considered in several other states as governments look for ways to finance roads when most budgets are shrinking. HOT lanes are scheduled to open in Minneapolis and Denver this year.

Local officials said they envision a limited number of people paying what could be several dollars a day to use the lanes but a greater number of people using them when they urgently need to get to work, a child's ballgame or elsewhere.

State officials said that Fluor Enterprises Inc. and Transurban Group will pay to build the lanes, which could open in 2010. They will also operate and maintain them. State and company officials said they haven't worked out how the firms will recoup their investment, but a likely scenario is that they will receive revenue through 2065. State officials added that there would be a cap to prevent "obscene" profits.

Tolls would rise during the morning and evening rush hours when traffic balloons. State officials said they're not sure how much the tolls will be. In other states, tolls start at 25 cents and can hit $8 for a one-way trip.

The lanes will be in the middle of the Beltway and will have several access points, including one at Tysons Corner. Through drivers would merge back into the regular lanes at either end.

State officials said that a minimal amount of property is needed and that six homes would have to be purchased to widen the Beltway.

Transportation experts said there are concerns that come with this type of deal, especially because so much money is involved. For the firms to make a profit, they have an incentive to reduce the number of free users. The easiest way to do that is to raise the number of people required for free access, which the state can do.

"If you're expecting to get HOV-3 and ride for free, it's not clear that's going to be possible at this stage," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Herb Morgan, vice president of operations for Fluor, said his company is basing its calculations on vehicles containing three people.

Another concern is enforcement, which is a chronic problem in carpool lanes. Ken Daley of Transurban, which will manage the toll system, said that motorists will be monitored by video or police.

The deal marks a new standard in Virginia for private road investment. For the past several years, Virginia has partnered with private firms to build a handful of roads at substantial cost to the state. Other projects have stalled because the state doesn't have funds to make deals work.

In the case of the Beltway project, Virginia announced its intention to work with Fluor last summer but lacked roughly $200 million that was needed. So Fluor found another investor to share the cost.

Proposals expected for downtown redevelopment
Kali Schumitz
Herndon Times
04/27/2005

The Town of Herndon may receive one or more proposals for a public-private partnership to redevelop its downtown area sooner than it is fully prepared to analyze it.


An unsolicited proposal may be submitted to the town within three months, Mayor Michael O'Reilly said. He has been talking with several different development companies that have been involved in other public-private partnerships in Northern Virginia, he said.


Councilman Steven Mitchell said that, from his discussions with people in the development community, he is expecting three to five proposals to come forward from different entities.

"The momentum that I see, I would expect that, by the end of the year, we'll have something that we can sink our teeth into," Mitchell said. "I have a better feeling about the town moving forward on this than I have in the past 20 years."

A public-private partnership in southern Fairfax County, on the former Lorton Prison site, helped expedite construction of a needed school there, South County High School, which will open this year. Developers Clark and KSI partnered for that project, which also included housing and a golf course.

Under the rules of the Virginia Public-Private Education Facilities and Infrastructure Act, if a proposal is submitted, the town would have time to negotiate conditions of the development before the Town Council would hold hearings or take a vote on the proposal.

Before anything is approved, the town is required to notify other developers that it is considering the proposal, allowing time for someone else to propose a competing proposal.

The town is in the process of hiring a consultant to help with the review process.

O'Reilly said he has told everyone he has met with that the town would like to see proposals that feature the Cultural Arts Center as "an integral part" of redevelopment. Redevelopment, he added, should incorporate the car dealership property on the corner of Elden and Center streets, a parking garage with ground-floor retail, some housing and possibly office space.

"This mix of development is not unusual for the companies that we have talked to," O'Reilly said. "It gets them excited as well as getting us excited about it."

Mitchell said it is not a question of if the town will get proposals that include all the elements it wants, but how much it will cost the town and how much density the town would have to allow to make redevelopment financially viable. Though he has no idea what that would be, his general sense is that "it's doable to a scale that will enhance the downtown."

The Town of Herndon owns much of the downtown land that would likely be incorporated in a large-scale redevelopment project and has had conversations with neighboring property owners about potential redevelopment.

©Times Community Newspapers 2005

MetroWest Builders Undeterred By Davis
Vienna Plan Poised To Face Loss of Land
Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post
Monday, May 2, 2005

The developers seeking to build a cluster of mid-rises at the Vienna Metro station say they can push ahead with the controversial project even if Rep. Thomas M. Davis III carries through on an attempt to block it.

The Pulte Homes developers have been planning to erect 13 residential and office buildings on a 56-acre parcel near the station. They say most of their proposal can withstand the pledge by Davis (R-Va.) to persuade Metro to withhold a small but critical parcel of land.

Davis's intervention "dented the car and made it ugly -- but didn't total it," Stan Settle, a Pulte Homes vice president, said last week. "Some people think this thing is going to get killed. [But] we're moving forward."

The long-running MetroWest project battle, which took another turn two weeks ago when Davis announced he would try to hold it up, has become one of the region's most heated debates over what is known as "smart growth," which calls for concentrating homes and offices near transit stops.

Davis's role has lent the debate a high-profile partisan angle, with the congressman squaring off against the Democrat-controlled Fairfax Board of Supervisors, which approved the project.

The MetroWest plan, one of the largest of its kind in the region, won accolades from a coalition of business and environmental groups. And in December, after months of debate, the concept received the unanimous approval of the county board.

Advocates of "smart growth" argue that it makes sense to concentrate development near transit stops because that encourages train ridership and accommodates the demand for housing without consuming as much land as conventional suburban development.

Some residents, however, disagree. And at a community meeting April 19, Davis told a group of opponents that he would amend a Metro funding bill to block the sale or lease of the 3.2-acre parcel that the agency owns next to the station. Metro had been negotiating to sell the property to Pulte Homes in exchange for about $6 million and $9 million worth of improvements to the station.

Davis is chairman of the House committee that handles Metro funding. As a result, the Metro agency appears likely to yield to any request he might make to withhold the property.

"I don't see us picking a fight with a man who can help us down the road," said T. Dana Kauffman, chairman of the Metro board and a Fairfax supervisor.

The land in question is a small part of the 56-acre Pulte plan, but because it sits closest to the station, it is considered crucial to connecting potential workers and residents at MetroWest to the transit system.

Davis has said that by blocking the land sale, he hopes to bring the developers back to the negotiating table to alter their plan.

"This is the only leverage that we have," Davis said last week. "Hopefully, we can sit down and work something out.

"I'm not a no-growther, but I have a strong opinion on this case."

Like the neighborhood opponents, Davis says he considers the project too dense. He also says that in approving the project, the county board focused too much on developing housing -- which the county says is necessary to accommodate new workers -- and too little on mitigating the traffic impact that would be created by new residents.

"They have just missed the whole transportation aspect," Davis said. "I think that's a mistake."

Davis has dismissed the charges from some county leaders that it is improper for a member of Congress to intervene to undermine a local government decision. He similarly rejects the idea that he did so because he fears that more Democrats than Republicans will fill the new housing at MetroWest.

"We represent the same people they represent -- sometimes better I think," he said of the county board members. "That issue has no credibility. We can't get involved in who moves in. It's a free country."

His wife, state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax), had inquired about ways to slow the project, according to Michael L. Toalson, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Virginia.

Toalson says Devolites Davis approached him in late December and said she wanted to scale back or eliminate the project -- but she wanted to know whether this could be done by the General Assembly without violating property rights.

"I said, 'Jeannemarie, for the life of me, I can't think of a way your involvement or the state legislature's involvement could be enacted that wouldn't affect one's property rights," Toalson recalls. "I never heard another word from her."

Devolites Davis has said she tried to get involved after hearing constituents' fears about development.

"I represent the Town of Vienna, and they are very concerned about the growth they are seeing at Tysons Corner and at Vienna Metro -- they're being squeezed."

The project's outcome hinges on the legal and political leverage the two sides bring to negotiations.

The leverage for the project's opponents lies with Davis and his control over the Metro-owned parcel of land. The parcel is about 150 feet wide, but because it is mostly occupied by a massive berm, it could stand as a significant barrier between the proposed development and the train station.

Settle says that although building the project without the Metro parcel would be a "travesty," the development is not dependent on it. Under his reading of county approvals, the developers simply could shift the planned buildings off the Metro parcel and onto the remainder of the property, losing less than 5 percent of its volume.

County officials are studying the legal effects of losing the Metro property, but say they haven't come to any conclusions.

"I'm not ruling anything in and I'm not ruling anything out," Fairfax Board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) said. "I haven't seen a proposal."

Although some neighborhood groups approve of the project, some opponents say they are glad Davis has come to the rescue.

"I don't think it necessarily means the death knell for the project," said Will Elliott, one of the neighbors who has organized the opposition. "But we're certainly pleased that someone has said: 'Hey guys -- time out. This project might not be the greatest thing since sliced bread.' "

Staff writer Lisa Rein contributed to this report.

Planners approve 13-story hotel for downtown Bethesda
Building opening set for 2007
Charlotte Tucker
Bethesda Gazette
May 4, 2005

More than 20 years have passed since downtown Bethesda had a new hotel, but a decision Thursday by the Montgomery County Planning Board to allow the construction of a 13-story building will end the dry spell in 2007.

The 216-room Hilton Garden Inn will be built at the intersection of Montgomery Avenue and Waverly Street, just north of Chevy Chase. Chris Bruch, vice president at Donohoe Development Companies, Inc., the site's developer, said the company worked closely with residents of the Town of Chevy Chase to make sure they were happy with the proposed hotel.

"We spent a lot of time with the neighborhood," he said. "Over several months we held several workshops. At the end of the day, our building has changed [because of feedback from Chevy Chase residents]."

Bruch said the plan is for construction to begin early next year and for the hotel to open in the second half of 2007. He would not discuss the cost of the hotel.

One of the biggest changes made at the request of Chevy Chase residents was in the design of the building. Though at its tallest point the building is 116 feet, or 13 stories, it drops to 90 feet, or about 10 stories, closer to the neighborhoods.

"We stepped it down to the south, which gave us the opportunity to differentiate it from some of the surrounding buildings," Bruch said. Other buildings in the area include the Air Rights office building, a Chinese grocery and carry-out restaurant and a parking garage.

The 116-foot height was the question before the Planning Board at Thursday's hearing. The building is located in a zone that limits building heights to 90 feet. But several buildings in the area, including a Marriott Residence Inn to the west of the site, exceed the 90-foot limit. The Residence Inn, built in 1986 and the newest hotel in the area, is 13 stories and 124 feet tall. Donohoe representatives asked the board to make an exception to the 90-foot limit. Bruch said that in order for the hotel to make money, it has to have at least 200 rooms or "keys."

"The quick answer is at 90 feet, or 10 floors, we have 166 keys and the project is not economically viable," Bruch said.

Despite the increased height of the building, Chevy Chase residents support the project. If forced to build only to 90 feet, the hotel would have to be wider and would be too close to the homes on the periphery of town. That wider version of the project is similar to a plan under consideration in 1999 to build a 182-unit residential building on the site. That plan was scrapped when it became clear that the buildings would come very close to homes in Chevy Chase.

"What we're asking you to do is employ your common sense over this sort of a proposal," said Chevy Chase Vice Mayor Mier Wolf testifying before the board.

Wolf said he generally opposes attempts to exceed the height limit, but given the height of the surrounding buildings, the need for hotel rooms and the town's desire that the hotel project not come too close to its homes, he supports the plans. He added that this is the first project in his 21 years as a town leader that the town has come forward to support.

"The horse is out of the barn," he said. "This is not going to open any terrible new scenario in that area."

Planning Board Commissioner Allison Bryant said one role of the board is to protect residents from intrusive construction projects, but Wolf's testimony assured him that wasn't necessary.

"I'm always in support of a project that makes sense, especially when the protectee comes and says, 'I don't need the kind of protection that you afford me,'" he said.

Giammo votes against Akridge, but majority endorses proposal
Noelle Barton
Rockville Gazette
May 4, 2005

For the second time in recent weeks, Mayor Larry Giammo voted against a major development and lost against a City Council willing to welcome developers who have conceded some height and density in a plan that might otherwise be unfavorable.

This week it was the proposal to build a mix of condominiums and retail space on what is now the parking lot in front of the Regal Cinemas in downtown Rockville.

With a 3-2 vote -- Councilwoman Anne M. Robbins joined the mayor in the negative -- the council approved changes to an already approved plan that would allow the change from office space to residential on the site.

The project, planned by developer Akridge, will include ground-floor retail, a new north-south street cutting the block in half, and a total of 485 residential units on the two halves of the project.

Building heights will range from 85 to 144 feet on Maryland Avenue and 173 feet on Monroe Street. The height will be stepped back 30 feet at the 85-foot level so people at the street level will not see much of the upper floors of the buildings.

The project was originally approved in the mid-1990s for office development at heights of 212 to 235 feet.

Hall said that if city leaders did not approve the shorter, less dense plan on Monday, the owner of the property could build much taller buildings under its previous approval.

He said he wanted to stand by his earlier statements that with reductions in height and density he would vote for the project.

Giammo said he was not going to vote for a project unless he thought it was "great," adding he did not want to spend the rest of his life in Rockville regretting voting for a project.

He recently voted against the Twinbrook Commons development with many of the same concerns -- heights, density and sidewalk widths.

Endorsing an "urban village" concept, he said, the city should be aiming for "something different and better."

Councilwoman Susan R. Hoffmann called Giammo's urban village ideals "imprecise" and took issue with his concern that the City Council might not be shooting for the highest standards.

"None of us are compromising on our standards if we don't necessarily agree with your concept," she said.

Hoffmann said it was unfair for Giammo to suggest the rest of the council was simply throwing up its hands and voting for the project.

"I think you are seeking the ideal. There is no such thing," she said.

Robbins called the development way too massive, said it creates a cavernous feel for pedestrians and suggested it lacked small-town ambience.

State shares plans for new District Court in Rockville
Noelle Barton
Rockville Gazette
May 4, 2005

State officials last week shared plans for a six-story, nine-courtroom district courthouse to be built from 2006 to 2008 on the site of the current Rockville Library.

Judiciary proceedings now handled in the old gray District Court building at Courthouse Square in downtown Rockville will be moved to the new building, making space for the juvenile and family court to be located in the gray courthouse.

The new $50 million courthouse will handle civil complaints up to $25,000, traffic tickets and some felony arrests -- the same cases it handles today. The court currently processes about 10,000 cases per month, said Barry Miller, capital projects team leader for the Maryland Department of General Services.

The idea to move District Court to the library site came about after the facilities administrator for the District Court of Maryland requested a new court about seven years ago. Three years ago the state bought the library site from Montgomery County for $5 million.

The move will fit with the county's plans to build a new library in the Town Square redevelopment project. That library is expected to be completed by next summer, when the old library, located at the corner of Maryland Avenue and East Jefferson Street, will be torn down.

City leaders do not have approval power over the project because it is state-owned property. For that reason, the building's 95- to 100-foot height can violate the city zoning maximum of 75 feet, city officials said at the April 26 information session at City Hall.

For comparison, the Foulger-Pratt office building at the corner of Middle Lane and Hungerford Drive is about 100 feet tall.

A handful of residents attended the meeting to voice concerns about the building, from the safety of the West End neighborhood to questions about how the prisoners will be transported. The city mailed notices of the meeting to some 3,000 residents.

The new courthouse will be a few steps closer to the neighborhood than the current building. The current courthouse is located at the corner of East Jefferson Street and North Washington Street; the new courthouse will be across Jefferson Street and abut properties along South Washington Street.

Wini E. Herrmann remembered an incident from years back when a prisoner escaped from a transport van and ran through her neighborhood.

"I'll never forget that," she said.

Miller explained that the prisoner vans would park completely inside the building before any prisoners are taken into the basement and put in holding cells. Separate elevators to be used for prisoner transport will keep prisoners from any contact with the public.

The building would have one point of entry -- at the corner of Maryland Avenue and East Jefferson Street. Its face would curve along East Jefferson, where a grand hall would allow visitors to enter the building and go through security.

Miller said some 2,000 people a day would enter the building.

Clerks would be located on the second floor, with the public defender's offices on the third floor. The courtrooms would be located on floors four, five and six.

The parole, probation and monitoring section would no longer be in District Court, Miller said.

Parking for judges and access for prisoner loading and other deliveries would be located off of Vinson Street, directly across from City Hall. As is the custom today, jurors and the public will have to find parking downtown and walk to the court, Miller said.

The driveway would slant down to the building entrance at the basement level and a retaining wall would buffer the rear of the facility from four homes, used as lawyers' offices, that face South Washington Street.

State officials refused to provide a picture of the new courthouse for publication in The Gazette, although they displayed images of the proposed building at the session last week.

Councilwoman Susan R. Hoffmann suggested the use of landscaping as another buffer between the building and the historic district along South Washington Street.

Councilmen Robert E. Dorsey and John F. Hall Jr. also attended last week's meeting, as did Planning Commissioner Kate Ostell.

Sally Stinner, another resident at the meeting, wanted to know what the traffic flow would be in and out of the building. Traffic will move in and out of the facility at Vinson Street to and from Maryland Avenue primarily, and stay away from the use of South Washington Street, Miller said.

Gaithersburg resident Terry Lachin, who works in Rockville, asked whether more space would be added onto the new court in the future if need for space increases.

Miller said plans for expansion of any District Court in Montgomery County would happen at the courthouse in Silver Spring before would happen in Rockville. It is unlikely that any expansion would happen for the next four to five decades, he said.

Laura Berthiaume, a South Adams Street resident, worried about the impact of the imposing building on the nearby neighborhood.

"The height of the building is enormous compared to the neighboring structures," she said.

Susan Arthur, the daughter of the late Stanley H. Arthur, architect who designed the library, voiced frustration over the plans to demolish her father's building. Walking out of City Hall after the meeting, she looked across the street to the library parking lot.

"I'm trying to imagine that big building sitting right there," Arthur said. "It's huge."

Miller and his team of planners will present the project proposal to the City Council on May 9.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the recent developments with the Whitehurst Elevated Freeway in G'town, I'm personally happy that it may come down, as long as there is some sort of alternative trafic route that would make for a good transition despite the large number of cars traveling on it. I think the waterfront development would be great, and really creative, I think it would be fantastic. And the streetcar for G'town would be great too.

Area has US's 3rd-worst traffic; would be 1 if not for Metro
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Area Has Nation's Third-Worst Traffic, Study Says
Washingtonians Spend an Average of 69 Hours in Traffic Jams Yearly
Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post
Monday, May 9, 2005

Washingtonians spend an average of 69 hours a year in traffic jams, according to a national study released today that once again found that the region has the third-worst traffic in the nation.

The study, done by the Texas Transportation Institute and based on 2003 statistics, also found that congestion is worsening in cities across the country both small and large mainly because too few new roads and rail lines are being built.

The report concludes that "the current pace of transportation improvement . . . is not sufficient to keep pace with even a slow growth in travel demands in most major urban areas."

The study also said poor highway management and land-use planning contribute to the deteriorating state of travel.

Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said that "vehicle miles of travel are growing faster than capacity in almost every metro area in the country. Nationally, we're not adding road capacity at the rate we used to."

Kirby added that the rankings are as much a reflection of population growth as traffic-solving measures. "When you rank areas, those that have been growing the fastest, like ourselves, are going to be higher on the list -- and getting worse."

Only the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas have worse traffic than Washington. This year's big mover was Atlanta, which debuted in the "very large" city category at number four, just a notch below Washington.

There is hope for those inclined to see things in a perverse sort of way: Washington cut in half the lead San Francisco holds on the claim to second worst.

Overall, the report offered little solace for congestion-beleaguered Washingtonians. It found that in 2003, the average commuter spent three hours more per year in congestion; collectively, Washingtonians sat in traffic for 145.5 million hours; tie-ups cost area drivers an estimated $2.46 billion, or $577 per commuter, and "rush hour" lasts for fully a third of the day.

The report showed that the Washington area would have the worst congestion in the nation if not for its public transportation systems. Without Metro and other services, the average Washingtonian would have spent 28 more hours per year stuck in traffic, down slightly from the previous year, and the region would have spent nearly $1 billion more in congestion costs.

The study is sponsored by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and the American Public Transportation Association and is based on data compiled by state and federal traffic agencies for 85 cities. Its results are based on comparing traffic counts and miles of road lanes to estimate congestion levels.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Maritime museum could anchor Anacostia effort
Group pitches $50M project as 'other focus' besides new Nationals stadium in SE
Tim Lemke
Washington Business Journal
April 29, 2005

The National Maritime Heritage Foundation wants to bring a new museum to the Anacostia waterfront.

The foundation is floating a plan that calls for a 120,000-square-foot maritime museum surrounded by a retail and office development and possibly even a hotel. It would secure funds for the museum and hope that developers then put in money for the chance to be close the tourist attraction.

Foundation officials say they are talking with retail and hotel developers but won't name them.

The museum would cost $50.7 million to develop, not including the land price -- which could be significant. An additional $6.5 million would be needed to build a replica of a 19th century tall ship, the Spirit of Enterprize, which would be docked on the Anacostia River.

Foundation officials see the ship and museum as integral to the city's Anacostia River redevelopment plans, which include projects near a new baseball stadium on South Capitol Street.

Baseball "can't be the one thing and the only focus of the redevelopment," says Kevin Traver, executive director of the foundation. "We'd like to offer ourselves as that other focus."

The Spirit of Enterprize would bring in $96.7 million to the city over a 10-year period, according to the Howard University Center for Urban Progress, which the foundation hired to do an economic impact study. A study to determine the combined impact of the tall ship and the museum is due out by the end of May.

Economic development officials, while excited about the role the museum and ship could play as an amenity, are less convinced they will be a catalyst for redevelopment.

"We're not sure what the development program is, so we can't comment on whether it's going to be a driver," says Uwe Brandes, a project manager with the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. "It's a base of uses like this that collectively are going to make the Anacostia a major destination in the city. It's just such a morale-booster. We're definitely in favor of it."

The foundation says it could build the ship and museum through fund raising and some possible government money. The group has asked federal lawmakers for $5 million a year over three years to cover operating costs for the projects.

Federal money has been set aside for maritime museums elsewhere, though in smaller amounts. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., for instance, obtained $175,000 for the Cape Cod Maritime Museum in 2003.

The foundation says it believes it can begin construction on the Spirit of Enterprize at a temporary site by October 2006. Completion of the museum would not be expected until 2012.

The National Capital Planning Commission says the foundation's plans appear to mesh with its own recommendations for redevelopment of the South Capitol Street corridor.

"This is becoming more of a reality as developers start to go down there and they want someone to partner with," Traver says. "I think we're in the running."

Nova, as you can clearly see, no one cares.
Go post on the southeast forum for Richmond or something.

someone should post the proposal for the tysons corner, it looks amazing!

i think nova for being technically a suburb is one of the best in the usa

ALSO: Can someone let me know HOW to post pictures on these threads? I have literally hundreds of pictures of Washington proper and its suburbs that I'd love to post, but I can't figure out for the life of me how to do it. It took a long time to take those pictures, LOL. SOMEONE is going to see them! :weirdo:

Gerald- you need it hosted and then you insert the images into your thread. Try http://www.imageshack.us/. Then you can do this:

http://img287.echo.cx/img287/7564/aptwindw5gr.jpg

is the purple line still being considered or has that idea been scrapped? I know the U of M didnt like the idea of Cole Field House being a proposed Purple LIne stop.

I don't really agree with making CFH a station either. It holds sentimental value for many people, being the place the 2001-02 Maryland team played in, the same season they won the NCAA basketball tournament. My dad, who graduated from Maryland in '68 also remembers CFH as the place one would take final exams. It would just seem really strange having it be a station. I'm curious about the purple line, nonetheless.

Excellent thread !! Good job Nova Wolverine !! Now that I am done with finals I will try to post some information as well.

Ok, I will start with this:

Anacostia Waterfront Development

"NCRC and RLARC have reached a deal, in principle, to transfer its holdings at the Southwest Waterfront to the City. The Boards of both NCRC and RLARC authorized the negotiation of a Memorandum of Understanding with the District of Columbia."

View entire news release here: http://www.ncrcdc.com/docs/pressreleases/SWW.transfer.release.pdf

Also, the NCRC can be an overview of the project:

http://www.ncrcdc.com/main/news/PressRelease.php?id=107

http://www.anacostiawaterfront.net/

Please forgive my ignorance, but where is this?
http://img287.echo.cx/img287/7564/aptwindw5gr.jpg

Thanks... :D

^That's Buffalo.

Nova, as you can clearly see, no one cares.
Go post on the southeast forum for Richmond or something.

Actually, Molo, I care. I think that Nova is doing a hell of a thing, considering that he set up a space where we could do some DC posting. My schedule is a little less hectic, so I'll post some stuff too...

Fair enough!

^That's Buffalo.
Thanks. :)
Nice, BTW. ;)

Does anybody know how this idea is faring ?


By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 26, 2005; Page PG09

"Lofts for Artists Open
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts opened last week. The residences are part of the Gateway Arts District, where county officials and other groups are trying to attract artists, hoping they will act as a catalyst for economic growth.

The development cost $11.7 million to build and has 44 units that will be used as living and studio space.

The arts district is centered on Route 1 and extends through Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Brentwood and North Brentwood. The lofts are one of several projects intended to attract artists, who have been offered subsidized rents.

The project partners include Prince George's County, the Prince George's County Redevelopment Authority, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, Artspace Projects Inc., Gateway CDC, the City of Mount Rainier and Apollo Housing Capital LLC."

"Private Financing For Ballpark Stalls

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 28, 2005; Page B05

A plan to provide private financing for a new baseball stadium has stalled because the D.C. Council does not support any of the proposals for the $535 million project.

A $246 million offer from Deutsche Bank has failed to garner majority support on the 13-member council, members said. That has prompted Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the council's Committee on Finance and Revenue, to cancel a markup of private financing legislation that had been scheduled for next week.


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"Nothing's completely dead yet," Evans said yesterday of the search for private financing. "But right now, there's nothing to mark up."

The meeting's cancellation was first reported in this week's Washington City Paper.

Evans said he intends to confer next week with council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D), who pushed for private financing during the stadium financing debate last fall.

Cropp was out of the city yesterday and could not be reached for comment. Her spokesman, Mark F. Johnson, said that "it looks like the game might be over for private financing."

Johnson added: "The chairman, when she sought the idea of private financing, listened to the constituents, the will of what people in city thought was best. If that ends up not being the best deal, she does not want to see baseball die, so she probably won't be committed to private financing. But she put up a good fight."

Council sources said Cropp may give up the push for private financing because she fears that with no single plan gaining majority support, a council vote could open the door for legislation to move the stadium site from the Anacostia waterfront in Southeast. Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and others want the stadium built next to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which would be cheaper because the city would not have to obtain land.

If no private plan is approved, the Anacostia waterfront would be funded through a combination of gross receipts tax on large businesses, a utility tax on businesses and federal buildings, an annual rent payment by the Washington Nationals and a ballpark concessions tax.

In December, after months of debate, the council narrowly approved the financing package with the condition that Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) find at least $140 million in private money.

Eight companies submitted offers, but only two were certified by Natwar M. Gandhi, the city's chief financial officer. After further analysis, Gandhi recommended the Deutsche Bank proposal.

Under that proposal, the stadium would be financed with $313 million in publicly financed bonds and the $246 million from the bank. In exchange, Deutsche would control the revenue stream from taxes on ballpark concessions.

But some mayoral advisers and council members fear the bank's plan would make the ultimate cost of the stadium project more expensive, up to $607 million. Also, the city would have to make up the difference if the concessions taxes failed to reach $18 million a year.

Gandhi endorsed the deal largely because it reduced the city's borrowing debt, but Evans said yesterday that two Wall Street bond rating agencies told him recently that the stadium bonds would not diminish the city's credit rating.

Council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5) said that the public financing plan approved in December has always been the cheapest way to build the stadium.

"We had the best plan in place," Orange said. "We've lost a lot of time, but sometimes you have to go through the process and let the best plan emerge."

Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) said he hoped the council would continue to examine some of the private offers that Gandhi did not certify."

"Washington Business Journal - 1:52 PM EDT Thursday
Preservation group names endangered D.C. sites
Tim Mazzucca
Staff Reporter

Some of Washington's most desirable sites for redevelopment are also some of the most historic, according to the D.C. Preservation League. The group has released its ninth annual list of the city's most endangered places -- 13 sites where development may destroy historic landmarks of architecture and culture.




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This year's list includes St. Elizabeths Hospital, Mount Vernon Triangle, Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library and the South Capitol Street corridor. Today, St. Elizabeths is being surveyed as the home for the U.S. Coast Guard; Mount Vernon Triangle has seven projects slated to break ground this year; and the Anacostia Waterfront Corp. held another public meeting May 25 to show residents what will be developing along the main street while a new baseball stadium is built.

The Preservation League says there's no immediate threat to the 33-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. Library at 901 F St. NW, but the league is afraid the D.C. government might sell the building before it could get a landmark designation.

Also making the list was the National Capital Revitalization Corp.'s McMillan Reservoir Sand Filtration site near North Capitol and M streets NW. It also made the list in 2000 when the D.C. Office of Planning last tried to sell the land.

Other endangered places included on the list this year are:

Anacostia Historic District, near the Frederick Douglass Home in Southeast;
Battleground National Cemetery, at 6625 Georgia Ave. NW;
The interior of the Franklin School, at 13th and K streets NW;
Holt House, near the National Zoo off Adams Mill Road;
A causeway at 3100 Macomb St. NW;
Open space within the National Mall;
Uline Arena, at 1140 Third St. NW; and
Western Union Telegraph Co. Building, at 4623 41st St. NW. "

Older Story, but it's still a good topic IMO

Metro Studies Ft. Belvoir Extension
Rail Could Follow Pentagon Transfers

By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 20, 2005; Page B01

Metro officials said yesterday that they are preparing for what will happen to the region's transit system if the Pentagon carries out its plan to move 18,400 jobs to Fort Belvoir in southeastern Fairfax County.

"Intuition tells us there will be an impact, and it could be significant," Chief Executive Richard A. White told the Metro board. "We're trying to get a sense of what that could be."



Metro's Richard White called the Pentagon plan "significant." (Bill O'leary - Twp)

washingtonpost.com talk
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Fort Belvoir, already Fairfax's largest employer, is not served by Metro, and legislators have said they will push for a federally funded rail extension in the event of such a massive relocation.

Officials estimate the cost of extending light rail from the Blue line to the Main Post at Fort Belvoir at $700 million to $800 million. Metro studied such an extension in 1999 at the behest of Fairfax County Supervisor T. Dana Kauffman (D-Lee), chairman of the Metro board.

"At the time, I figured Belvoir would be boom or bust, and I wanted to be prepared for the boom," Kauffman said after yesterday's meeting. "Little did I know it was going to be the big bang."

Kauffman said Metro is pulling together senior staff to examine previous studies -- which include an analysis of extending both Blue and Yellow lines to Belvoir-- as well as calculating cost estimates to help Fairfax officials as they consult with congressional leaders.

What remains unclear, officials said, is where most of these 18,400 employees live. That more than anything, they said, will determine what the proposed relocation would do to the transit system.

"Right now, no one is able to tell us," Kauffman said.

Also yesterday, the Metro board voted to impose tighter controls on public access to information, including data generated by SmarTrip cards, the electronic fare cards carried by an increasing number of Metro riders.

The privacy policy will allow Metro to release SmarTrip data only when presented with a court order or written permission from the cardholder, or for law enforcement purposes. The changes bring its Public Access to Records Policy in closer alignment with the Federal Freedom of Information Act. The policy will take effect Oct. 1.

Board member Chris Zimmerman, who represents Arlington County, said the policy will go a long way toward "making public information public while keeping private information private."

Yesterday's agenda addressed several proposals for improving service. Metro officials said they are doing a better job of keeping escalators and elevators in service but said they don't seem to be conveying that progress to riders. So the staff is developing brochures and signs to alert riders to scheduled maintenance work and advice on alternative station exits.

Some of the proposed signs met with heavy criticism from Montgomery County representative Robert J. Smith, who denounced it as too wordy for commuters to digest as they speed in and out of stations.

"People don't have time to read 'War and Peace' " Smith chided. "Who's going to read all this? . . . We have to find a better way."

Officials said a town hall meeting last month in Fairfax has prompted significant changes. Among them:

· The cheerful sayings that adorn Metro buses -- "Have a nice day," for example -- soon will be replaced with information such as route numbers and destinations.

· Ninety-eight machines that accept SmarTrip transactions will be added in the next year to handle increased demand for vending machines that can consolidate or refund fare cards.

· A policy is being drafted that would allow Segways, the motorized devices used on sidewalks, aboard the Metrorail system. The policy was described as similar to the one that governs bicycles on the subway, which allows them to be walked, not ridden. But they would be forbidden on escalators and in the Metro system during peak hours. Disabled riders would be exempt from the policy if they are registered by the agency to use the device.

Unlike bicycles, Segways will not be allowed on Metro buses. The policy is expected to go into effect in August.

Another Older Topic

No Scarcity Of Suitors For Walter Reed Site
Complex Is Coveted For Its Location, Size
Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post
Monday, May 23, 2005

The Pentagon's proposal to close Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Northwest Washington could touch off intense competition for a rare prize: more than 100 acres in a city where real estate values are soaring and space for new development is scarce.

Barely a week after the Pentagon said it planned to close the 96-year-old hospital between Rock Creek Park and Georgia Avenue, real estate brokers, D.C. planners, developers and politicians were laying claim to the property, a sign of the complicated discussions that ensue when the federal government pulls up stakes.

The 113-acre complex is in the middle of an increasingly affluent neighborhood convenient to downtown and also is near the burgeoning commercial area of Silver Spring -- factors that argue for dense residential, retail or office development. But it is also a historic place, where war heroes and presidents have recuperated, and its redevelopment could trigger a preservation fight. And as a federal property, its decommissioning as a military hospital would be governed by tight restrictions, such as that the campus must first be offered to other government agencies.

D.C. officials and neighborhood residents also would want a say.

"What's attractive about Walter Reed is its size," said Thomas R. Maskey, a senior vice president at Peterson Cos., a Northern Virginia developer of mixed-use projects. "There's not 113 acres anywhere around here that's going to be available. The size allows you to do a lot of different things that can really have an impact."

With congressional review of the Pentagon's base-closing plan ahead, it could be years before Walter Reed closes, and it may not happen at all if local officials succeed in blocking the proposed transfer of hospital staff to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda and Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County. And it could take years more before a plan for the property took shape.

"There's a lot of legwork that has to be done before you can break ground and start redeveloping a site," said Tim Ford, executive director of the Association of Defense Communities, a nonprofit group that tracks base closings and redevelopments across the country. "Just getting the land from the federal government is tough."

The Washington region is no stranger to the federal government rearranging its land use, but the aftermath isn't always consistent.

The Cameron Station military base in Alexandria was quickly redeveloped into a mostly residential neighborhood after it was closed in the late 1990s. The District, in contrast, has been in a protracted debate over the fate of the federally operated and largely defunct St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Southeast. The 40-acre Southeast Federal Center was turned over to the District -- sort of. It is being redeveloped as a new headquarters for the Transportation Department, with some of the property slated for a private housing, retail and office development.

Walter Reed, based on its size, history and location, would probably pose an even more complicated development problem. Ford said that when the military vacated its prime piece of real estate in San Francisco's Presidio, for example, there was a "constant battle" among residents, developers and D.C. officials before a compromise was reached to keep part of the 1,480-acre site as parkland and use other parts for commercial space.

Developers said there would be no shortage of interest or ideas for the Walter Reed campus, which brokers said is worth $80 million to $100 million.

Developer John Shooshan of Arlington, who has done office buildings and housing projects, said that because Walter Reed sits in a mostly residential area, bordering Rock Creek Park, it could be developed into a combination of single-family homes, condominiums and apartments.

"It won't become a dormant piece of property," he said. "It will get redeveloped."

District officials have made it clear that they want a say in Walter Reed's future.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has said she would first try to stop Walter Reed from closing. But if she can't, she said, she wants the District to control the land and help decide how it is developed.

"In a strange way, the closing of Walter Reed could be the start of bringing some real economic development to this part of the city," said D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), who represents the area. "Usually a base closing is a loss of revenue, but in this case you could put some revenue-generating uses there."

The Georgia Avenue area has successfully attracted condos and apartments in recent years but has struggled to attract retail, including sit-down restaurants.

"I don't think the city should own it for a city use," Fenty said. "I think the city should have the rights to develop it so the community can decide what should be there."

Sharon Gang, a spokeswoman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), said: "We'd want to make sure that whatever was put there is in the best interest of the neighborhood. We would like for Walter Reed to stay, but we would want to see [the property] become something useful. It's valuable land." Gang declined to elaborate on what the District might like to see there.

The neighbors around the military hospital have had a love-hate relationship with the facility over the years, according to Stephen Whatley, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for the area. Neighbors fought hard when Walter Reed proposed constructing a 550-space parking garage and a seven-story office building near 16th Street and Alaska Avenue, saying it wouldn't fit into the neighborhood. Walter Reed dropped the plans.

Whatley said he was polling neighbors about what they want the campus to become. Of the about 40 comments he has received so far, preferences include turning it into a gated, private housing community or developing townhouses, shops and restaurants.

"The feelings are mixed," Whatley said. "Some of the veterans want it to stay open, while some of the community wants to see it closed and become something else."

Walter Reed was founded in 1909 as a military hospital and expanded rapidly from 80 beds to 2,500 when World War I began. Through the 20th century, it welcomed several presidents and hundreds of thousands of troops. But Pentagon officials say they are targeting it for closing because it is outdated and they are consolidating health facilities across military branches.

The property is part of the military's list of about 180 military installations nationwide that could be closed or realigned. The closings must be approved by a base-closing commission, and then the list must be accepted in all-or-nothing decisions by the president and Congress later this year.

If the Pentagon vacates Walter Reed, it would be offered first to other federal agencies. If they don't need it, federal law requires that the property be offered to homeless-assistance groups. After that, the land would be offered to the District or possibly for direct sale at market value, depending on the terms of a deal between the District and the Pentagon.

Walter Reed would have to be zoned for commercial development as military bases aren't zoned. And some of its historic buildings probably would need to be preserved, D.C. planners said. The main hospital probably would be torn down, D.C. planners and developers said.

Old Post Office Possibilities

The General Services Administration, the real estate arm of the federal government, is looking for developers interested in the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The 12-story building houses three small federal agencies with about 200 employees in its upper floors, but the lower floors have been mostly empty because a food court never took off.

Local developers say that the roughly 200,000-square-foot building with its glass, 100,000-square-foot annex is one of the few properties that could be redeveloped along Pennsylvania Avenue NW between Capitol Hill and the White House. The federal government and real estate brokers said the property could become a complex similar to the Hotel Monaco at Seventh and F streets NW. The San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group bought the former Tariff Building and spent $50 million to turn it into a 188-room luxury hotel.

But the Old Post Office property presents challenges.

The building needs substantial renovations to its heating and air conditioning systems and its roof. There is limited parking, so attracting high-end retailers would be difficult, real estate brokers said.

"The question is whether a hotel is best for the site, or is it better for residential?" said Whayne Quin, a real estate lawyer at Holland & Knight. "There are a lot of people who are going to be nosing around on it."

One group that has long been interested in redeveloping part of the complex is the National Women's History Museum. The group has offices in Annandale but has been trying since 2003 to get legislation passed in Congress that would compel the GSA to negotiate a long-term lease with the museum.

Joan Wages, a senior vice president of the museum, said the group had not decided whether to put in an offer to redevelop the site. "Maybe we will, and then an act of Congress won't be needed," she said.

Offers to the government are due in July.

Site by Stadium in Limbo

The site in Southeast is only about three acres and has a chiller plant, a bus repair garage and parking lots. But because it's barely a half-block from the baseball stadium planned for South Capitol Street SE, some developers groaned last week when the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority pulled its request for offers on the site.

The WMATA said the District asked it to postpone action on the site, which is next to the Navy Yard Metro station. Proposals were due May 13, but the WMATA withdrew the solicitation two days before. D.C. officials are working on a master plan for about 50 acres around the stadium and expects to finish it in June.

"WMATA wanting to coordinate their efforts with the District makes perfect sense," said F. Russell Hines, executive vice president of Monument Realty, which had planned to submit an offer to turn the WMATA property into an office, housing and retail complex.

Monument recently completed a $10 million deal that includes land just across from the stadium site at N and Half streets SE. Monument said it was negotiating at least six other deals on the same block.

I wonder if the food court at the Ronald Reagan building killed the one at the Old Post Office. I would think that real estate would be way too valuable to sit empty for long.

It was a landmark of preservation in DC when it was turned into offices and a food court in the 80's. It also has some of the best views of the city from the tower.

From washingtonpost.com
Court Ruling on Land Pleases D.C. Officials
SE Properties Sought for Stadium and Mall

By David Nakamura and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 24, 2005; A13

District leaders said a Supreme Court ruling yesterday that gives municipalities broad powers to seize private property will provide the city leverage in its goal to acquire land for two controversial projects, including a new baseball stadium.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) had been closely watching an eminent domain case in which homeowners in New London, Conn., sued the city when it attempted to take their land to develop a shopping mall. The court upheld the right of city governments to force property owners to sell to make way for private development.

D.C. officials want to acquire 14 acres near the Anacostia waterfront by the end of the year to build a stadium for the Nationals. They also have been trying to buy the 1950s-era Skyland strip mall in Southeast to build a larger, upscale retail complex. In both cases, city officials say they will invoke eminent domain if necessary.

"I am pleased that the Supreme Court upheld 50 years of precedent today, allowing local officials the continued use of eminent domain to bolster economically depressed neighborhoods," Williams said in a statement.

D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) said that the ruling should give the city apowerful hand during negotiations with the 33 property owners at the ballpark site.

"It puts to rest the issue of whether the city has legal rights to take the properties," Evans said. "This strengthens our hand to get control of the property. Hopefully, it will encourage owners to settle with the District and accept a fair price and move on."

The city is completing assessments of property on the ballpark site and expects to begin making offers in late July, said Carol Mitten, director of the Office of Property Management. Property owners will have 30 to 45 days to negotiate with the city, Mitten said. If a deal is not reached, the city will seize the land, and a court will decide the sale price.

Reaction was mixed among attorneys for property owners.

"Any avenue the landowners in Southeast may have had to interpose a constitutional challenge is now moot," said John Barron, who represents several landowners.

But Dale Cooter, who also represents more than one owner, said the court left open some room for challenges in the ballpark case. He said it ruled that land can be taken only for comprehensive redevelopment, and he argued that a baseball stadium does not fit that description.

Kenneth Wyban, who owns a five-bedroom house on the stadium site, said he hoped a court would not support the city's plan to take land for a ballpark .

"It's totally different," Wyban said. "You'd want the city to get the maximum usage out of a property. But you will not realize it with this stadium. It will sit vacant 260 days of the year."

Whayne Quin, a land-use lawyer who has represented the District in the past, said the court decision "strengthens and confirms government authority to condemn land for revitalization."

In the Skyland case, some property owners had been threatening to block the city in court. Yesterday, the National Capital Revitalization Corp., the publicly chartered firm handling the Skyland project for the city, received calls from owners inquiring about how much the city would be willing to pay, said Therman A. Baker Jr., general counsel and chief operating officer.

"All eyes were on this decision," Baker said. "This hopefully removes any uncertainty as to our legal authority and helps to bring people to the table in a very expedited manner."

Elaine Mittelman, an attorney for several Skyland merchants and landlords who sued last year to stop any seizures, said the development in the New London case was better thought out than the new Skyland complex. And the town of New London is more economically depressed than the District as a whole, she said.

"Skyland is significantly different," Mittelman said.

But Williams said in his statement that Skyland "is an area where eminent domain could be used for the good of the entire community."

Does anybody know how this idea is faring ?


By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 26, 2005; Page PG09

"Lofts for Artists Open
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts opened last week. The residences are part of the Gateway Arts District, where county officials and other groups are trying to attract artists, hoping they will act as a catalyst for economic growth.

The development cost $11.7 million to build and has 44 units that will be used as living and studio space.

The arts district is centered on Route 1 and extends through Hyattsville, Mount Rainier, Brentwood and North Brentwood. The lofts are one of several projects intended to attract artists, who have been offered subsidized rents.

The project partners include Prince George's County, the Prince George's County Redevelopment Authority, the state Department of Housing and Community Development, Artspace Projects Inc., Gateway CDC, the City of Mount Rainier and Apollo Housing Capital LLC."

I go this way all the time. Mt. Rainier has a lot of potential. The new Artist Loft building adds a lot to the roundabout area. The Route One corridor from Mt. Ranier, through Hyattsville, to College Park has tremendous potential and I think it is being discovered. So I think the Gateway Arts District thing has been helpful. I don't have the details, but it seems like there has been a lot of new development planned and in the works around the subway stations in these neighborhoods. They are building a big development of condos and fancy townhouses on what used to be used car lots in downtown Hyattsville.

What are the chances of the Metro's Red Line extending past Glenmont now that the ICC is going to be built?

Hello? Anybody home? LOL!!!!!

First let me say, I live in Laurel which is very near the ICC project location, and I have to say the ICC is one of the worst decisions the State of Maryland has ever made, and its only happening because Republicans are in power, Suburban D.C. Maryland has so many needs and oppurtunities for smart growth, building a multi-billion dollar HIGHWAY in an alsmost rural area is downright stupid, it will drain the coffers of the State for a whole generation to come....

ANYWAY check out this link on the (re)development of the Anacostia River, (Its Streaming Video.)

http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/special/mayor/mayor_awi.asx

http://www.planning.dc.gov/planning/LIB/planning/img2/FULL_project_map_model.jpg

wild.

First let me say, I live in Laurel which is very near the ICC project location, and I have to say the ICC is one of the worst decisions the State of Maryland has ever made, and its only happening because Republicans are in power, Suburban D.C. Maryland has so many needs and oppurtunities for smart growth, building a multi-billion dollar HIGHWAY in an alsmost rural area is downright stupid, it will drain the coffers of the State for a whole generation to come....

ANYWAY check out this link on the (re)development of the Anacostia River, (Its Streaming Video.)

http://octt.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/special/mayor/mayor_awi.asx

http://www.planning.dc.gov/planning/LIB/planning/img2/FULL_project_map_model.jpg

well, i just seen the video & if i must say, from a financial standpoint, it doesn't sounds like a bad idea at all. it sounds like an idea that's simply utilizing the areas of Dc that's been neglected for so long. i have family in SE near rfk stadium, and for that area, it can't get any worse. Uprooting that area along with the others circling the anacostia will benefit the city in the long run. give it time to sink in, titeness. you'll see.

well, i just seen the video & if i must say, from a financial standpoint, it doesn't sounds like a bad idea at all. it sounds like an idea that's simply utilizing the areas of Dc that's been neglected for so long. i have family in SE near rfk stadium, and for that area, it can't get any worse. Uprooting that area along with the others circling the anacostia will benefit the city in the long run. give it time to sink in, titeness. you'll see.

The ICC is something completely different from the Anacostia Riverfront projects.

This waterfront development is exciting. My office took a boat ride and it went up the Anacostia a little bit. When you see it from the water, it has a lot of potential.

I wonder if the food court at the Ronald Reagan building killed the one at the Old Post Office. I would think that real estate would be way too valuable to sit empty for long.

It was a landmark of preservation in DC when it was turned into offices and a food court in the 80's. It also has some of the best views of the city from the tower.

First of all, let me say, "Welcome to the Forum, pepperjack." :)
Also notice the "Baltimore Development News" Thread.

As for your question, I'm not sure. :D

Does anyone have any info on the Ripley Street Housing building it's supposed to be 33 floors and well over 300 ft in silver spring

I'd like to know, too. ;)

Try this link first, jab. :) http://www.emporis.com/en/bu/nc/ne/?id=101165

Hey, I contacted KSI for some more info, I'll post it once it comes in

cool, thanks. :)
I'm interested in hearing what they have to say.

Great, can't wait to see renderings. That will be a great location near the metro station.

If that tower is built, won't it be the tallest tower in the Maryland side of DC? :?
I'm sure Virginia's side of DC has taller one now, doesn't it? Cause, if this tower is built, it could reach over 330 ft. tall or more if there is a crown of some sort maybe even a little higher. :)
I'm excited too and can't wait to see some renderings. :)

Well If this one gets built and that 484 ft one in rosslyn doesn't it would be the tallest in the D.C. Area, and yes definitely the tallest on the maryland :badnews: side

484 ft. ? :? :? :?

anybody home????....lol. :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea

it sure seems like it.................................................................................

www.arlingtonvirginia.com/index.cfm/5231
they still have 1815 N. Moore Street is still supposed to be 491 ft.

This is a decent site with the developments going all over arlington.

Cool. Why don't they just go ahead and make it an even 500 ft.? :?
So close....................

I know I don't have a clue, I'm not sure what the FAA regs. are nut that may have something to do with it.

First of all, let me say, "Welcome to the Forum, pepperjack." :)
Also notice the "Baltimore Development News" Thread.

As for your question, I'm not sure. :D


Thanks. I check in on the Baltimore thread every once in a while. Not regularly enough to have had the urge to post. Plus I still know DC a little bit better at this point, having only moved away this past March, and still working down here in VA.

I know I don't have a clue, I'm not sure what the FAA regs. are nut that may have something to do with it.

I know, but it's just 9 more feet!. :bash: :bash:

anybody home????....lol. :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea :deadthrea

I predicted this would happen many moons ago!

JBG pushes forward in Silver Spring
http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2005/11/14/story4.html
Joe Coombs
Washington Business Journal
November 11, 2005


The JBG Cos. appears ready to own a larger piece of Silver Spring's downtown skyline.

The developer has earned final approval for a residential high-rise on East-West Highway that will offer 457 apartment units and about 14,000 square feet of ground-floor retail.

Work could get started on the 15-story Silver Spring Gateway project by the end of the year and deliver in late 2007, says Gene Smith, a JBG project manager. Smith would not disclose construction costs associated with the project and says JBG is still accepting bids for the work.

Chevy Chase-based JBG (www.jbg.com) also is close to finishing the Silverton condominium complex, a 210-unit development next to the planned Gateway project.

A grocery store that was in JBG's initial plans for the Gateway development is now out of consideration.

Negotiations with Harris Teeter (www.harristeeter.com) representatives to bring in a 47,000-square-foot supermarket fell through, and JBG subsequently altered the site plan.

"It just didn't work out," Smith says.

Even though the Gateway development is only a block away from a Giant Food-anchored shopping plaza, the plethora of residential projects coming to the neighborhood will create a need for more supermarkets and other stores, says Robert Kronenberg, a planner with Montgomery County's Planning Department (www.mc-mncppc.org).

Within a quarter-mile radius of the Gateway site, hundreds of condominium units are in the pipeline in downtown Silver Spring, including Centex Homes' 151-unit Portico complex on Fidler Lane and a 96-unit complex on East-West Highway proposed by District-based Perseus Realty (www.perseusrealty.com).

"It would have been nice to have the grocery store," Kronenberg says, "but that's something we can't control. There's definitely going to be a demand for it over there in the near future."

JBG is reserving 58 of the 457 units at Gateway for affordable housing, according to the site plan application filed with Montgomery County.

The complex also will include 655 underground parking spaces.

Retail tenants are still being determined, but Smith says a restaurant may be included.

N. Virginians crowd public transportation
By Heather Greenfield
ASSOCIATED PRESS
November 8, 2005


More Northern Virginia residents are taking a stand, literally, for public transportation.
Morning commutes aboard the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) often are standing room only as that system reaches capacity. Many bus routes are that crowded, too.
Overall public-transportation ridership grew last year to 128 million trips for Northern Virginia residents, up 3.3 million from a year earlier. The figure from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) includes the VRE, Metro and eight local bus systems.
Although public-transit usage increased nationwide, the jump in Northern Virginia was nearly double the national average.
"It's a stunning statistic," said Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. "With enough resources, we could significantly expand that."
He said gridlock is the reason people are turning to mass transit.
In neighboring Loudoun County, Cheyenne Cashin of Sterling is careful to be at her bus station 10 minutes early to make sure she gets one of the 55 reclining seats for her 45-minute trip to the D.C. law firm where she works.
Ridership on the Loudoun County bus system increased 31 percent last year and has nearly doubled since 2003.
"I just don't want to fight the traffic. It's just too much stress. I like having my time to read or take a nap," said Miss Cashin, a bus rider since the late 1980s, before Loudoun County took over the program.
Arlington County's ART bus service saw ridership grow with 116,000 more trips. The Fairfax Connector buses had a half-million more passenger trips.
The only service that did not grow dramatically was the VRE, which officials warn is at capacity.
"You can't get more rail cars until you get more money," said NVTC Executive Director Rick Taube. "The Virginia General Assembly says it would like to pay 95 percent of the public transportation costs not covered by the federal government or fares.


"To meet its own target, the state of Virginia should be providing twice as much for transit as they do," Mr. Taube said.
Instead of paying 95 percent of the uncovered costs, Mr. Taube said, the state typically pays closer to 40 percent.
He said state funding jumped to 63 percent for fiscal 2006, but would fall to 25 percent by 2007 if the legislature does not act.
"It puts us on a little bit of a roller coaster and makes it impossible for transportation systems to plan," Mr. Taube said.
Because of the high stakes in the next legislative session, NVTC board members will have a careful eye out today, as all 100 seats in the House of Delegates are up for election.
"If we can elect some more transit-friendly delegates, that will be a help," Mr. Connolly said. "Now, 14 percent of transportation funding in the state goes to transit. That needs to be expanded."
NVTC Chairman Paul Ferguson said he hopes to see half the money go to transit, but he realizes that is unlikely.
"There is talk of expansion for VRE," Mr. Ferguson said. "It would make sense to put money into that."

Smart Growth in Montgomery: Fitting More Groceries in the Same Bag

By Roger K. Lewis

Saturday, November 12, 2005; Page F05

How can 15 pounds of groceries be packed into a 10-pound grocery bag? Get rid of some of the groceries? Get a bigger bag? Do a better job of packing?

A favorite rhetorical query often voiced by planners and architects, this metaphoric dilemma aptly summarizes smart-growth challenges facing Montgomery County. The groceries are the projected increase of population and employment in the county. The bag is the capacity of the county's existing real estate resources to absorb future growth.


Montgomery County, which is Maryland's most populous political jurisdiction and most potent economic engine, will add 170,000 jobs and need almost 100,000 new housing units by 2030, according to forecasts reported by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.

Demographic trends also point to an increasingly aging population, with less than a quarter of new and existing households expected to include schoolchildren. Consequently, county planners anticipate that as much as 60 percent of future housing growth in Montgomery County will be condominium and rental dwellings rather than single-family homes on individual subdivision lots.

Likewise, the county foresees millions of square feet of additional non-residential development -- places of employment, shopping, schools, recreational and cultural facilities -- being built in the next 25 years.

Meanwhile, the county's boundaries are fixed. But county leaders have essentially made the "bag" smaller by imposing additional capacity constraints. Most important of these is the 1980 creation of the unique Agricultural Reserve.

Encompassing 93,000 acres in the county's northern and western sectors, the Agricultural Reserve includes a third of the county's land area. With density in the sacrosanct reserve limited to one dwelling per 25 acres, new residential and commercial development has stayed within "down-county" and I-270 corridor areas -- Bethesda, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, Wheaton.

Thus, the amount of groceries is growing and the size of the bag is immutable. The only thing left is to do a better job of packing -- and that is precisely what county planners intend to do.

Last Monday, the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission sponsored a conference to talk about the challenge. To catalyze discussion, the commission distributed a planning framework subtitled "Revitalizing Centers . . . Reshaping Boulevards . . . Creating Great Public Spaces." The subtitle implicitly identifies existing physical problems plaguing the county, offers possible solutions to those problems and suggests strategies for managing future growth.

Topping the all-too-familiar list of county problems are severe traffic congestion and inadequate road capacity. Added to this are lack of road network connectivity and pedestrian-hostile arterials such as Rockville Pike, Georgia Avenue and University Boulevard. Other problems identified include a shortage of affordable housing and the existence of underused, unattractive strip shopping centers scattered throughout the county.

Despite some innovative zoning initiatives, pervasive single-use residential and commercial zoning has produced many isolated enclaves and neighborhoods. Zoning-induced physical segregation not only deters social interaction but also engenders car dependency and guarantees clogged arterials.

The commission's report observes that existing master plans and zoning laws would legally permit much of the projected growth if all county land were built out to maximum allowable density. But the patterns of uses and densities adopted in the 20th century won't lead to the kinds of communities envisioned for the 21st.

So the commission proposes "a new planning paradigm."

Its provisions include:

Instead of large-area master planning, small-area, neighborhood-based, fine-grain planning would "direct growth inward and upward." There's no choice: Future growth must entail redevelopment of existing properties, and at higher densities. Commercial centers and surface parking lots, covering thousands of county acres, would be especially targeted for revitalization.

Infill development and redevelopment not only must yield higher densities, but also must include residential, commercial and non-commercial uses to ensure round-the-clock activity. Equally critical is designing animated public spaces, whether plazas or streets. Given pedestrian-oriented activities and ease of pedestrian movement, many people would choose to live near where they work and shop. And if each resident and worker reduced daily automobile trips by only two a day, the aggregate drop in traffic would make a significant dent in highway congestion.

Transit-oriented development, at Metro stations or along light-rail or bus lines, likewise demands dense, diverse land use. Yet transit still complements an interconnected road network. Because people will continue owning and driving cars, building ample, transit-related parking structures is essential.

Segments of the county's automobile-dominated arterials should be transformed into tree-lined "boulevards," shared public spaces that are attractive, that accommodate both cars and buses, and that are safe and inviting for bicyclists and pedestrians. Imagine Rockville Pike as a boulevard with tree-shaded sidewalks abutting buildings and storefronts instead of parking lots.

With its ordinances on adequate public facilities and moderately priced housingand with its Agricultural Reserve, Montgomery County has long been viewed by other jurisdictions, regionally and nationally, as a model of enlightened, progressive planning. And pursuing the new "planning paradigm" clearly shows that it intends to maintain its reputation.

Yet little will change unless the county's political leaders, property owners, businesses and voters buy into the new paradigm. This is not an easy sell. Rewriting development rules to radically reshape familiar physical environments requires new thinking and new attitudes, achievable only through sustained public education. Because many jurisdictions face the same dilemma confronting Montgomery County, and because -- despite recent public criticisms of the planning system's management -- it is the model, let's hope the county is successful in helping its residents pack those future groceries into an attractive grocery bag.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor of architecture at the University of Maryland.

One Urban Panorama Fades, Another Rises
Church of the Rapture and Paradise Liquor are Washington relics. As the future moves in, they prepare to leave their corner behind. The first of two parts.

By Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page A01

On the second floor of a battered building on the corner of 14th and T streets NW, more than 300 worshipers are caught in the driving syncopation of drums and organ. Church of the Rapture has occupied this corner for three decades. Beyond the doors of the Pentecostal storefront, the sun is out and the iPod people walk by. A real estate agent hammers in a "For Sale" sign pointing to a T Street rowhouse that six years ago sold for $282,000 but now has granite counters and is going for $839,000.

Upstairs in the church, the music oscillates, and the worshipers are out of their seats, some so deep in the spirit that their shouts of "Yes, Jesus" and "Hallelujah" become bursts of unrecognizable syllables.

"I thank God for this church and we can express ourselves," a pastor says when the music quiets. "No one to pull your coattail and make you sit down. We are in a beautiful place, saints, free as a bird flying over this building. No one will hinder us. I see prosperity all over the church."

Not only spiritual prosperity. The church that started with nothing more than a sweat-stained tambourine and a small group of followers had just sold its property for $10 million. Its pastor and founder, known to her congregation as the Honorable Doctor Theresa Garrison, a high school dropout with prophecies and visions, closed one of the most lucrative deals in the 14th Street real estate boom. Church of the Rapture was going condo.

How much longer would Paradise Liquor be holding down the other corner? The grimy package liquor store is where $2 half-pints of Velicoff are shelved behind bulletproof glass and the customers have names like Bo-Bo, Snipe, Jerome, Miss Brenda, Koo-Koo and Peanut. Now Koo-Koo is standing at the counter next to a young blond man who's asking for fresh limes.

"Fresh limes!" says manager David Lee. "These people are so picky! Nothing is good enough like it is."

Church of the Rapture and Paradise Liquor are two stubborn relics from a bygone era of a bygone city. This year, after decades of sharing the same tattered geography, both decided it was time to go. The future of the neighborhood stared at them from across the street: the steel-cut letters that said "Saint-Ex" and smoked glass windows that revealed a bistro crowded with white people.

Soon there will be luxury lofts in the spot where Pastor Garrison hollers about the end days, a prediction that in one sense is coming absolutely true.

* * *

It has been more than a decade since the crosswinds of urban renewal started blowing across Shaw, once the crown jewel of black Washington that slipped into blight and is now being re-imagined by baristas and purveyors of tapas. Race and class are colliding on dozens of other blocks in a city where demographics are shifting by the month, but 14th and T represents something else: that split-second before the curtain drops on one era and rises on another.

This corner has turned before. The young Duke Ellington used to carry his sheet music here in 1917 as he rounded for home at 1816 13th St. In the 1940s, the Sunny South Market was a corner grocer that catered to the working-class and Howard University faculty members who lived nearby. On the other corner stood Club Bali, where Billie Holliday played, and all along the side streets, tea lights were strung in backyard gardens in makeshift after-hours clubs.

History turned again on a balmy night in April 1968 when the radio at Peoples Drug Store on 14th and U announced that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. It was a block south, near 14th and T, that some of the first store windows were smashed, unleashing days of rioting that left 95 businesses destroyed in black Washington's commercial Mecca.

One Urban Panorama Fades, Another Rises
After the riots, 14th and T was a boarded-up marketplace for heroin and numbers. The beautiful Bali club operated as Jack's Lounge until 1976, when the owner was slain in his back office. Heroin gave way to crack cocaine. Prostitutes worked out of the second floor of the liquor store building. It was hard to imagine that Sarah Vaughan had once sung "A Night in Tunisia" here. Garrison called it "Sodom and Gomorrah" when she bought the building on the southwest corner in 1974 and made it her church. Arena Stage bought the Bali building in 1985 to use for its Living Stage theater company.

In the late 1980s, urban pioneers began snapping up nearby houses at rock-bottom prices, and multigenerational black families were suddenly neighbors with white gay men and other bargain hunters, a demographic trend that only gathered in strength. In a 10-year period, housing costs doubled, then tripled.


Fourteenth and T remained essentially untouched until 2003, when Cafe Saint-Ex arrived, bringing Dutch lager to a crossroads that was home to the 40-ounce. Replacing an Ethiopian restaurant and Laval's Good Food To Go, Saint-Ex was a cause for celebration for some, an elegy for others. "It was like Saint-Ex was putting its flag down on the moon," says Rachael Storey, a documentary filmmaker who lives nearby and misses Laval's.

Now, the conversion from rough-and-tumble intersection to a smooth-blend urban utopia is in full gear. On a recent afternoon, in the swirl of a single moment:

"MAYOR WILLIAMS IS A SELL-OUT," someone has written in pink chalk on the sidewalk on 14th, a frequent refrain of those who accuse the mayor of giving away the city to real estate developers. Brownie and Daisy troops are holding camp at Church of the Rapture while they still can. The rhythms of Latin cumbias bounce down the alley from a mechanic's garage, and a car with fender-rattling hip-hop pulls up to the curb outside Paradise Liquor. The packed No. 52 bus door opens, and the driver shouts for his passengers to get back and make way for new ones.

Crossing at the light is a ragtag youth baseball team wearing T-shirts that say "The Art of Hustle." Dropping mitts and blowing bubbles as they pass the sleek new furniture boutique with a $4,000 couch in the window, they are herded home by their coach, 19-year-old Jeremy Drummond. "Y'all keep acting like this, and y'all can just write off McDonald's," he shouts.

Drummond, a sophomore at Temple University in Philadelphia, has lived in the neighborhood most of his life. "It seems every time I come home from school, there's a new high-rise going up. A lot of families have moved away."

Burning in the sky above is the Church of the Rapture sign, illustrated with a cross and the flames of hell, shouting: "NOW! IT IS TIME TO COME TO CHURCH AND TO GOD."

Blinking back at the church is the liquor store sign that says, "Welcome to Paradise."

* * *

At Church of the Rapture one Sunday morning, the blinds are partially closed against 14th Street below. Rows of good church shoes sink into the seafoam green carpet. On the pulpit there are three ornately carved chairs, but they are rarely used. The pastors sit down with the people, which is why members love this church. Many describe themselves as "country people" though they live in places such as Forrestville and drive Ford Explorers. What they mean is that Church of the Rapture is the roots of who they are.

Services last five hours. The drummer keeps a gallon jug of water at his feet, pounding out a military beat unique to Church of the Rapture. The music ranges from old-timey gospel to Christian contemporary to a free-form frenzy. The service thrives on the unexpected.

On this morning, Brother Irving is called to testify. He is wearing a royal blue suit. He is deep in prayer, and then the spirit takes over and he hops across the carpet on his invisible pogo stick. Four men surround him, a circle of safety to make sure he doesn't hurt himself. The organ pounds and someone grabs a tambourine. Chairs empty and a swirl of human passion erupts: heads thrown back, tears streaming, people shaking and clenching their fists. Mr. Robinson, the quiet doorman, shouts "Hallelujah" in a high, broken voice, and Minister Darryl comes over and tenderly wipes his face with a handkerchief. Two D.C. paramedics arrive and take a woman out on a stretcher. Children doze peacefully.

Brother Irving returns to the front, his white cuffs peeking from his blue suit as he raises his hands, flattening his palms in the air as if against some imaginary window pane. "Deliverance is in the building," he announces.

Garrison is out sick, so her husband, Lawrence, does the preaching. Even when she misses church, she keeps an Oz-like presence over the congregation, issuing decrees through her co-pastors. One day she sends word that all women should wear stockings to church. This morning, her husband merely mentions her name and the congregation applauds.

Garrison grew up in the District's Clay Terrace public housing, where as a teenager she preached at tent revivals and in church basements. In 1967, she started the Free Evangelistic Church on the corner of Eighth and G streets SE near the Marine barracks, one of the first female preachers in the city. Her style was raspy and ferocious, and her big wide eyes intensified the experience. In 1974, Garrison shocked her congregation when she announced that they were moving across town to 14th and T. "People said, 'Fourteenth and T, are you crazy?'" Althea Jackson remembers. "You just didn't come up here, especially at night." But Garrison convinced her congregation that they were missionaries and there were souls to save. The church paid $220,000 for the old Adams-Burch restaurant supply company building.

From 14th and T, Garrison began broadcasting the Freedom Revival Hour on WYBC-AM. Men sat on one side and women on the other, with Garrison up front, her straightened hair flipped low over her forehead, her sermons full of pragmatic prayers for the federal city. "God, I want to be a GS-14," she preached during one of her broadcasts. In those days, some members lived close enough to walk to church or take the bus. Others were joining the exodus to the Maryland suburbs.

In 2000, as the real estate market surged, Garrison considered selling the church but decided instead to stay and renovate. Problems followed with contractors and a pastor who took money. The church struggled with debt. Parking grew worse as boutiques opened on 14th. During Thursday-night prayer services, the Black Cat nightclub across 14th was rocking just as hard as the church. Garrison's preaching against homosexuality was no longer theoretical; the neighborhood had become one of the gayest in the city. Garrison put the church on the market and sold last spring.

As the search for a new property begins, the congregation is spared details, but tantalizing hints are dropped during services. "I see where we've been, and I seen where we are going," says Charlton Woodyard, who is involved in the sale of the church and the search for a new location. "When you see where we are going, whoo-whee, this is a new day!"

The churchgoers are frozen in a humble, working-class mindset. At collection time, the organ plays softly as Pastor Penny takes the microphone and urges, "Give what you can, saints, and if you can't give, just touch the basket."

When church is over at 2 or 3 on a Sunday afternoon, they pour out onto the 14th Street sidewalk, holding keys and Bibles, in no hurry to go. Most of the license plates are from Maryland. For many, Church of the Rapture is their last tie to the city. "It's going to be unbelievable when we ride through here," says Theresa Reliford. "'Oh, there was our church, and look at it now.'"

Some of the children run up to the KFC on the corner. A man in a three-piece suit with slicked-down hair walks past the Sunday brunchers at Cafe Saint-Ex eating organic eggs and polenta and then past a male couple walking arm in arm.

Woodyard is not sentimental about leaving. "D.C. had a lot of black churches back in the day," he says. "It's not that way anymore. It's a business now. This is an occupied territory."

Friday afternoon at Paradise is like the old days. The bell on the door jingles madly and customers are lined up at the check-cashing window. A woman with "Daddy's Girl" tattooed across the back of her neck wants two Red Bulls and a pack of Capris. At the far end of the counter, a woman in a pressed nurse's uniform purchases two money orders and two postage stamps.

Alfredo from the used car lot across 14th comes in wearing his mirrored sunglasses, leaning down toward the opening in the bulletproof glass, flashing three fingers and whispering in his Spanish accent, "I got a Honda Accord, man, just for you."

Inside Paradise, the linoleum floor is peeling up in hunks. Kids throw their bikes in the doorway when they come in to buy cold drinks after school. Trembling hands peel off a few bills to pay for a fifth of gin.

This is David Lee's turf. For eight years, he has been crammed behind the bulletproof glass with Prince Albert's Cherry Vanilla, Slim Jims, aspirin, phone cards, Ensure, Snickers bars, Philly Blunts, batteries, peach snuff and studded condoms. Lee was born in Korea but grew up in his parents' corner store in a low-income black neighborhood in Chicago, which explains his Asian homeboy dialect. He wears his hat cocked and his Nikes beaming white. He lives in an apartment in Annandale with his wife and a new baby, but Paradise is home. Lee describes the early years as "a pay-per-view special." Back then, he would leave the window to fight when someone challenged him. Now he is 41 with a bum leg, and the world beyond the bulletproof glass has become unrecognizable. Not long ago, he observed several dogs being led around by one person. Someone explained the concept of dog walkers to him. "Like a human babysitter," he says, bewildered. "That's when I know this neighborhood is really going down the hill."

Paradise received its formal death sentence last year when a new landlord bought the rundown building for $900,000, raising the monthly rent from $2,460 to $8,000, an impossible increase for Byung In Min, the owner of Paradise. His 10-year lease expires this fall.

The beginning of the end really started two years ago when the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission and others who live nearby -- sick of public urination, drunks sleeping in the grass and empty half-pint bottles glittering in the gutters -- presented Paradise with a 22-point voluntary agreement. Lee couldn't believe the clout of the neighborhood group. Basically, Paradise had to give up its ghetto ways or lose its liquor license.

The three-page agreement put it this way: "Licensee agrees to attempt to better serve the needs of the neighborhood residents by selling upgraded, quality products including but not limited to corked wines, juice mixers and other food products, etc."

The list of demands called for Paradise to stop selling single beers, single cigarettes, rolling papers and to-go cups. No more cheap black shopping bags. One of the neighbors brought Lee a bag from a Dupont Circle wine store as an example.

Lee says the loss of single-beer sales -- the 40-ounce in particular -- severely cut into profits. Longtime customers accused Lee of turning his back on them. "They tell me, 'Oh, you trying to be with them high-class white people now,' " he says. To entice the upscale market, Lee started ordering imported beers he had never heard of, $12 bottles of wines with corks, and single-malt Scotches such as Dalwhinnie for $39.99. He brought in Tia Maria coffee liqueur gift sets.

But higher-end customers failed to materialize in large enough numbers. Residents such as Louis Patierno, a mortgage broker who lives a block away, patronize stores that have adapted to the new flavor of the neighborhood, such as the Whitelaw Market on 13th and T, which started stocking Ben & Jerry's ice cream and better wine and listened to Patierno's request for "more table crackers, less pork rinds, please."

Lee refuses to take down his bulletproof glass, another request the beautification people wanted. Still too dangerous. So for nine hours a day, he works the area of a gangplank with two helpers. At the far window, Sang Choi runs the lottery machine. Customers are convinced that the bespectacled Choi is gifted with numbers. "No, I want him to do it," a customer insists, pointing to Choi. And there is Nega Mengisto, an Eritrean employee whose halting grasp of English includes phrases such as "Hennessy Privilege."

Business is so slow in the afternoons that they sometime just stare at one another. The priestly Choi paces the gangplank with his hands folded behind him. Lee chain-smokes. Mengisto, wearing the Hypnotiq T-shirt a liquor salesman gave him, stocks the cooler with pints of Christian Brothers for the after-work rush.

With time running out on 14th and T, the owner of Paradise spends his days searching the District and Maryland for a new location, somewhere deeper into the urban neighborhood not yet touched by gentrification. "Me and black people, we kick it off better," Lee says. "'Thank you, baby,' this and that. Whites, I don't know how to approach these people or serve these people. I get this feeling I'm doing something wrong. Maybe it's my own self-conscious. I say, 'hello' or 'thank you.' There is no expression on their face."

One day a young man comes in and says, "We're making mojitos."

When Mike Benson opened Cafe Saint-Ex two years ago, he loved the idea of starting a bar around the corner from where Duke Ellington lived. Benson envisioned a place where musicians, artists, bartenders, punks, lawyers and bicycle messengers could hang out on a corner as they do on St. Marks Place in the New York's East Village. The dream came true, for about five minutes. Now the changes that Benson helped ignite on 14th and T are obliterating his original vision. He watches a parade of cabs pull up to his bar and drop off customers in spaghetti-strap dresses. Real estate listings use the bar as bait ("Within walking distance of Cafe Saint-Ex.") for the new lofts and condos going up all around.

Saint-Ex is being visited by a khaki aesthetic. "The bridge and tunnel crowd," as one waitress calls them. The people from Reston.

But guess what, says John Snellgrove, the general manager, who one Saturday night is checking ID's at the door. They aren't coming from Reston. "They all live here now."

To combat the influx of suburbia, Saint-Ex discontinued its trendy Pabst Blue Ribbon nights. Benson wants the deejays downstairs to keep playing his favorite Manchester Brit pop instead of the crowd-packing hip-hop. The art school graduate is 6-foot-3 and wears combat boots and a modified Mohawk. At 39, he looks like a Sex Pistol by way of Chapel Hill. His employees lean toward tattoos, motorcycle chains and arty black glasses, and on their breaks, they read books entitled "21st Century Modernism: The 'New' Poetics."

When Benson and his wife, a lawyer, moved to the neighborhood in 1997, he saw that culinary choices below U Street were limited to $7 Salvadoran or soul food dinners and African restaurants with gambling and khat-chewing on the down-low. No one had yet served up the bowl of garlicky mussels and frites that the newcomers were craving. Hip retailers had already opened south on 14th, Home Rule being the first in 1999. On the southeast corner of 14th and T was the red-brick glory of the former Sunny South Market from the 1940s. Benson became interested in the space in 2002 when it was occupied by an Ethiopian restaurant. He approached the owner about buying his lease. So perilous were the racial sensitivities about white interlopers taking property that Lawrence Guyot, a community activist, went to see the restaurant owner. "I wanted to make sure the black man was not forced out," Guyot recalls. "I got that in writing. He was not forced out."

Using his house as collateral, Benson borrowed $200,000 and strung together a group of investors, including a handful of bartenders, some pitching in as little as $5,000. They dug out the basement and worked around the clock, going seriously over budget renovating the building. Benson wanted his place to look like one of the old cavern bars along the Seine River in Paris and would name it after the French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupery. On opening night, their assets drained, one investor ran across the street to Paradise Liquor to buy four bottles of Stoli and four bottles of Absolut, maxing out the last available dollars on his credit card. Opening night was a smash.

Now one of the developers for the Church of the Rapture loft project has approached Benson about opening a bar in the ground floor of the condo.

Benson shrugs. "I'd rather that be the case than another Starbucks."

One night at Saint-Ex, someone leaves a flier on a table that says "Save Our Black Neighborhoods." The flier calls Ward 1 council member Jim Graham "Gramzilla, the black business killa" and says Graham is trying to "destroy our beloved Black neighborhoods and families."

The next afternoon, the flier sits on the bar in front of bartender Demetrios Tsiptsis. "Cities cannot be ghettos anymore," Tsiptsis says. "It's not feasible. I always tell people, 10 years ago this was a ghetto. Years before that, it was a thriving black community. Years before that it was occupied by whites, and before that, Indians."

"Gimme two Stella Artois," a guy says, pulling out a platinum United Airlines credit card. Liz Phair's "Whip-Smart" is playing on the iPod mix. A large chalkboard displays the handwritten names of epicurean beers: Tilburg Dutch Brown, Coniston Bluebird Bitter.

The flier just sits there, unnoticed among the clink of glasses inside Saint-Ex.

Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

Housing Surge and Resurgence
New Homeowners Changing Southeast Neighborhoods

By Robert E. Pierre and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 7, 2005; Page A01

The 65 new brick townhouses of a development called the Townes at Hillsdale sit high on a hill and offer their residents expansive views of Washington's monuments and the river beyond. The manicured lawns and cul-de-sacs would not be out of place in Montgomery or Fairfax counties.

But this development is in the District -- not in Northwest, but east of the Anacostia River, in a vast expanse stretching from south of the 11th Street Bridge to Bolling Air Force Base that has been known mostly for its negative attributes: crime, poor schools and unemployment.

In recent years, however, a steady stream of couples and thirtysomethings has left the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to settle in homes like these, which were built on the site of a 1960s-era apartment complex where drug dealers once ruled and stray bullets regularly disturbed the peace.

Since 2000, more new housing developments, totaling nearly 8,000 units, have been built in the area -- which includes the neighborhoods of Anacostia, Barry Farms, Congress Heights and Shipley Terrace -- than anywhere else in the District except near downtown.

Most of the new homes are designed for families with low or moderate incomes and are financed in part by the D.C. government at a time when housing in many neighborhoods in the region is too expensive for all but the most affluent. An increasing number, like the Townes at Hillsdale, are privately developed and charge market prices that, by the standards of other parts of the city, are a bargain.

It is a remarkable turnaround for an area that lost thousands of residents in the 1990s, and there are other signs of a resurgence. The first new supermarket in recent memory this far south in the District is slated to open at Alabama Avenue and Stanton Road SE, raising hopes that dining options will soon expand beyond franchise fried chicken and Chinese takeout.

While other D.C. neighborhoods have experienced a similar boom in residential construction in the past decade, here there is one major difference: The racial composition, more than 90 percent black, has stayed the same in these communities that make up what is now Ward 8. The middle-class newcomers are primarily African American, with a smattering of whites, Hispanics and Asian Americans.

Maliik Turner, 31, a manager at a high-tech firm that does government contracting, is typical. Turner rented an apartment in Columbia Heights in Northwest Washington for seven years but knew he could not afford the rising prices of houses in that neighborhood. He wanted a short commute to his job near the Pentagon, so two years ago he and his 30-year-old wife, who works as a dental hygienist in Bethesda, paid $199,000 for a brick townhouse in the Townes of Hillsdale on Howard Road SE, just off Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

"This is the last area in the city that had affordable housing," said Turner, as he washed his silver sport-utility vehicle on a recent Sunday afternoon. He said he is undeterred by the continuing poor performance of the District's public schools. He said he and his wife will probably put their daughter, who is 2, in a private school.

Homes in the development sell for the upper $200,000s -- a moderate price in the current market but a fortune to many in a ward where the median household income is $26,000.

That leaves some housing advocates and potential home buyers worried that the working-class families who have traditionally lived in the area are seeing their options dwindle, even with the influx of what the D.C. government calls "affordable" housing.

On Howard Road, where the Hillsdale development was built across the street from 60-year-old brick rowhouses occupied in many cases by the original owners or their children, the issue of class and income is perfectly framed. The only shopping on the street is a gated strip mall with a corner convenience store that sells everything from behind bulletproof glass. The middle-class homeowners of Howard Road worry about keeping their yards neat and their property values rising, but they are surrounded by thousands of renters who are barely making it.

The disparity fuels anxiety.

"Who can afford it?" asked Delva Dandridge, a crossing guard for the public elementary school next to the Townes of Hillsdale. Dandridge said she earns less than $20,000 a year and lives in Southeast.

D.C. officials insist their plans for more affordable housing and development can improve neighborhoods like Ward 8 without displacing residents.

"We don't want to create areas of the haves and have nots," Stanley Jackson, the District's deputy mayor for planning and economic development, told a recent meeting of Democrats in Ward 8, where he is a longtime resident. "Our goal is not to have people feel like they have to leave D.C. Our residents don't have to feel threatened with the newcomers and change."

Change is clearly what the D.C. government has in mind. No other part of the District has so much land ripe for development -- from riverfront property along the Anacostia to the former National Guard encampment of Camp Simms to more than 300 acres at St. Elizabeths Hospital -- and such ambitious ideas for what to do with it.

There are plans for new retail and commercial developments at St. Elizabeths, the Anacostia Metro, and the waterfront in both Southeast and Southwest. Among the proposals is a light rail system connecting Anacostia to downtown and a possible soccer stadium at Poplar Point on the banks of the river.

The Anacostia River has long been a symbolic dividing line in Washington, with residents on the eastern shore feeling that residents in Georgetown and Adams Morgan and Capitol Hill got the better of everything because D.C. leaders cared more about the whites who lived there.

The term "east of the river" seems to imply one homogenous place. But it includes two separate wards -- 7 and 8 -- that are home to about 130,000 people.

Many of them live in neighborhoods that have struggled with grinding poverty and crime since the late 1960s, when thousands of poor families were relocated to public housing there from other parts of the District, sending many black and white middle-class families fleeing to the suburbs. But the region is also home to stable, upper-middle-class communities like Penn Branch and Hillcrest, with houses as grand as any in the city.

The most recognizable community in Ward 8, and east of the river, is Anacostia. Its boundaries are amorphous, depending on who is asked, but generally extend from the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, with Alabama Avenue to the east and Suitland Parkway to the south.

The area's largest developer, Chris Smith, who has some 3,600 housing units east of the river, saw promise in some of the District's poorest areas as far back as 1990, when he decided to focus on building and renovating there. "It was seen as all that was wrong with the city," he said during a recent tour of the area. "We thought we could change the image."

The company's first project for sale, the Townhomes at Oxon Creek at Mississippi Avenue and 19th Street SE, sold out quickly in the mid-1990s. It attracted black residents who had moved out years earlier to Prince George's County in search of a calmer suburban life but also a large number of longtime residents of the ward who had always rented.

Smith now plans to turn the former Camp Simms into a multimillion-dollar project of 75 single-family houses that are expected to start in the mid-$300,000 range. A new Giant grocery store on the site is expected to open in 2007. Residents are pushing, in addition, to attract sit-down restaurants like Applebee's or Outback Steakhouse -- a part of the mix that will be needed to attract and keep residents moving from areas with better amenities.

He cautioned that the going has been slow and probably will not get any easier. "Logan Circle took 25 years to take off," Smith said.

For the past year, Darrin Davis, a real estate agent for Prudential Carruthers Realtors, has led occasional weekend tours of homes for sale in Anacostia. Davis said one of his real estate colleagues jokingly asked him if he was going to have a police escort for a recent Sunday afternoon tour. "I said, 'You haven't been here in a long time,'" Davis said.

Overall crime in the area covered by the 7th police district is down 57 percent since 1993. Homicides have dropped by a similar amount, to 54 last year from 133 in 1993.

On a recent Sunday, Davis had 18 pages of homes for sale east of the river and four African American women showed up for his two-hour walking tour. Two women were college graduates in their 20s, each looking to buy her first home; another potential buyer was a fortysomething lawyer for NASA who had just moved to the area from Atlanta; the fourth was a computer consultant who was looking for an investment property for her and her lawyer husband.

The first stop on the house tour: a shotgun rowhouse, built in 1905, in historic Anacostia at 13th and W streets SE. Price: $274,900. A few years ago the same houses would have been roughly $125,000.

Tiffany Armstrong, 28, who rents an apartment in Laurel, got the message.

When the tour got to Hunter Place Condominiums, a few blocks off Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, she didn't hesitate to sign a $250,000 contract for a three-bedroom unit. Armstrong got one of the last remaining luxury condos. The renovated units, in what was an abandoned apartment building eight months earlier, sold out in two weeks.

James Bunn, who owns a strip of buildings on the avenue about a mile from the Hunter Place complex, sees opportunities in the newcomers. His tenants include a hodgepodge of shopkeepers, including a sprinkler company upstairs and a barber shop and hip-hop clothing store on the first floor.

"I've seen this neighborhood go from good to bad to terrible, and now it's rebounding," Bunn said. "You're not going to have to worry about kids writing on walls and people throwing trash anymore. It's going to get more like Georgetown over here."

Still, there are no shortage of examples of how far Ward 8 has to go.

Take Bryan Place in historic Anacostia, where Mauricio Ticas, a 36-year-old pharmacist technician and his partner, Tommy Beckner, spent much of the summer cleaning up beer bottles, candy bar wrappers, trash and rusted car parts that littered the alley next to their $175,000 rowhouse. Behind their house sits a boarded-up apartment complex.

Ticas, a native of El Salvador, kept his Dupont Circle place but moved in this summer with Beckner, a 24-year-old mortgage loan officer from Northern Virginia, to Southeast Washington. The couple is adjusting to their new community. "Being a snob from Northwest, I'm not used to being pulled over for roadblocks," said Ticas, who said he has had to stop on his way home at checkpoints set up by police.

But, he added, he has rebuffed efforts by neighbors to get him to report people acting suspiciously in alleys. "We didn't move to this area to call the cops on people," he said.

Hannah Hawkins, a community activist who has lived on Howard Road for more than two decades, is concerned about whether her new neighbors will become involved. "You can't come into our community and be silent," Hawkins said. "You have to make a difference."

Maliik Turner, the high-tech specialist, has his own concerns. About five months after he had moved with his family into their new house, gunshots were fired through the front door and windows. No one was home and no one got hurt, but he admitted, "I was wondering, 'Did I make a mistake?'"

Still, he is bullish on the neighborhood. "You can tell it's changing and getting safer," Turner said. "The bad element is moving out. They can't sustain a lifestyle over here."

Is the purple line for the metro moving along at all?

Stadium's Modern Design Is Clear Winner on Council

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 18, 2005; Page A01

A much-anticipated design for a new home for the Washington Nationals features glass, stone and steel as the primary materials and departs sharply from the popular red-brick throwback ballparks.

The design will not be released for several weeks and still could be modified, but Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) and key city officials have given the nod to the modern look.

In briefings over the past week, the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission presented a projector show to Williams and several D.C. Council members containing drawings developed by the stadium's architectural team, led by Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum Sport of Kansas City, Mo.

The stadium, which will be along the Anacostia River in near Southeast, features an exterior wall largely made of glass and broken up by limestone portals, according to city sources who have seen the drawings. Aspects of the design create a translucent quality, offering fans inside views of the surrounding neighborhood and teasing those outside with glimpses of game activities.

People who have seen the working version say the ballpark will open to the northeast and afford views of the Capitol -- but only from a limited number of upper-deck seats and the press box.

It provides 78 luxury boxes in two stacked rows and 3,000 club seats between first base and third base, affording high-paying patrons prime views. Some of the club seats and a restaurant would be in the lower deck behind home plate.

Beyond the outfield, architects have placed another restaurant and a public walkway, designed to be open to the public even on days when there are no games.

Two cantilevered ramps leading to the upper decks contain viewing platforms from which fans can pause to take in sweeping scenes of the city -- the federal monuments to the north and the Anacostia River to the south.

Outside the stadium, a slender, angled building for offices, probably for the team, juts from the stadium from behind the home plate stands. Two large aboveground parking garages are situated to the north of the stadium.

As for the playing field, the deepest part of center field is 408 feet, the sources said.

The city plans to build the 41,000-seat stadium and related infrastructure on several city blocks near South Capitol Street SE and the Navy Yard at a cost of $535 million, most of it public money.

In separate briefings, Williams, D.C. Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D) and council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) told commission officials that they are comfortable with the designs, the sources said.


Stadium's Modern Design Is Clear Winner on Council
"I thought it was nice," Cropp said yesterday. "It's different and unique. It's very modern."

Sports commission Chief Executive Allen Y. Lew has declined to release the drawings, but officials said the designs could be made public within a few weeks.

Williams "liked it," mayoral spokesman Vince Morris said. "He thought it was very unique, really distinctive. . . . We're getting to a point where he feels like he's seeing designs he's comfortable with. When he feels ready to go, we'll release it."

The only holdout among city leaders who have seen the stadium designs was council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who has long pushed for a red-brick ballpark. Evans demanded that the commission present him with an alternative design in time for a public hearing on baseball matters before the council Nov. 28, sources with knowledge of the meetings said.

"Jack was like, 'No, no, no!' " said one city source involved in the discussions. "He thinks it looks like an office building."

Morris stressed that no final decisions have been made.

"Until we have a final design, then most things are still on the table," he said. "That's why the mayor reached out to Sharon and Jack and Linda. He wanted to share with them what he knows."

Cropp has told Evans that the final decision on the stadium will be up to the mayor, as the council does not get involved in voting on the design of public buildings.

Nevertheless, Evans has argued that a largely brick stadium could be cheaper than the current designs and has asked for a cost analysis, the city sources said.

Sports commission officials have been concerned about the stadium's budget, saying that costs have risen since initial budgets were prepared more than a year ago, in part because of the soaring cost of materials. This week, city officials negotiating a lease agreement for the stadium with baseball officials asked the league to contribute $20 million for underground parking, saying the budget could not cover that.

By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page B01

Trees would be planted, hiking trails rerouted and traffic allowed to continue rolling along one of Rock Creek Park's busiest weekday stretches under a broad proposal introduced yesterday by the National Park Service.

The plan for Rock Creek Park includes recommendations that are likely to win wide support, including the renovation of the Nature Center and Planetarium and removing stream blockages to ensure that herring and shad can migrate north to a Maryland lake to spawn.

But one proposal that prompted immediate criticism would keep open to weekday traffic a two-mile stretch of Beach Drive, between Joyce and Broad Branch roads, that is popular among bicyclists, skaters and pedestrians. That section would continue to close on weekends.

Adrienne A. Coleman, Rock Creek's superintendent, said the Park Service had determined that most of the general public, as well as a host of civic and elected officials, favored keeping the road open during the week.

However, the Park Service proposes that the speed limit along that stretch of Beach Drive be reduced from 25 to 20 mph and that traffic bumps be added to make drivers slow down. "The point is designing a plan that takes in consideration all the different interests," Coleman said after presenting the plan at a news conference at the Nature Center.

Peter Harnik, a founder of the Peoples Alliance for Rock Creek Park and who attended the news conference, said he did not believe that the measures would improve safety along a stretch that draws 18,000 vehicles daily during rush hour. "We wanted to hear that the National Park Service would treat this as more of a parkland than as a commuter thoroughfare," Harnik said.

D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), whose ward includes neighborhoods adjoining the park, countered that surrounding areas would be inundated with traffic if the park was closed to motorists. "This is a win-win," he said. "The overwhelming majority thought it should stay open."

The federal plan is the first to present a long-term vision for the 115-year-old federal park, a preserve of woods and creeks, winding roadways and trails that comprises more than 3,000 acres and stretches from the District's midsection to the Maryland border. The proposal, part of a federal effort to draft management plans for national parks across the country, is the culmination of nine years of air and water quality studies, traffic analyses and a review of more than 6,000 comments submitted by the public.

The plan, Coleman said, would cost at least $14.8 million, and that figure is largely for renovations to existing buildings, such as the Peirce Mill complex and the Peirce-Klingle Mansion. She said the Park Service has not initiated cost analyses for completing other recommendations.

Reducing the speed limit along Beach Drive could happen shortly after Feb. 15, the deadline for the public to submit reaction to the plan. But most aspects of the proposal, Coleman said, could take years to accomplish and would occur as funding became available.

"All of it will eventually happen," she said, referring to the proposals. "The way this seems to go, even though we may not get the funding in the year we ask for it, eventually we do get it."

The plan recommends that the Lodge House, now a U.S. Park Police substation on Beach Drive, be converted to a visitor center. The police would move to an office outside the park or to a new substation that would be built inside it.

Parts of the plan are general, such as the recommendation to restore un-vegetated areas so that trees can be planted. It also suggests that hiking, biking and horse trails be relocated from steeply sloping areas to prevent erosion.

Coleman said she was unable to cite specific trails at this time.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said the plan is necessary to preserve "one of the great neglected wonders of our country."

"We have trivialized this park, residents make too little use of it, and tourists don't know where it is," Norton said. "Neither the city or the federal government has bothered to make maximum use of it. The problem is that it had no plan and it's in a state of great deterioration."

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/vscoggins/RockCreekPark.gif

it doesn't matter what the stadium will look like, if it never gets built.

It'll get built, it has to or they'll move. But we have 'til the '08 season to have it built. They will for sure get it built. They already have proposed plans and pretty much have property.

But they only have until the end of the December to get the lease deal done. Plus there is the possiblity of a new mayor backing out of the deal (looking towards Sharon Cropp...)

As hard as Williams has been pushing this, I don't think there's anyway he leaves without sealing this deal somehow. The leasing is not a problem, we can reach a deal there, really it's the budget, and coming to a final proposal, which they already have concised, supposedly most of it is dealt with anyway and in the next week or two they're gonna unveil the official plans and all that.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120100761.html

"Two things in my opinion can save this deal," Graham said. "One is a major financial concession from baseball to pay for cost overruns. The second is to relocate the deal to the RFK site."


The problem is it's out of Mayor Williams hands. It's purely the city council and MLB. And it's not a good sign that they're talking about the RFK site again.

does anyone have any renderings of the new condos going up in College Park? :? :)

Tentative stadium deal in Washington
By ASHTON WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
December 3, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Major League Baseball is close to a tentative agreement with the city that would clear the way for a new stadium for the Washington Nationals and the long-awaited sale of the team.

D.C. Council Chair Linda W. Cropp said Saturday on WRC-TV that a deal had been reached with baseball agreeing to contribute $20 million to a contingency fund and guarantee rent payments.

However, a spokesman for Mayor Anthony A. Williams said talks between city officials and baseball are still being held this weekend in Washington.

"We're just not there yet. There are some people who feel a little more confident in saying," spokesman Vince Morris said. "I'd rather have it hand before I claim that we've got a deal."

Baseball has said it will not sell the Nationals until there is a lease agreement. Eight bidders are ready to pay $450 million for the team, which is owned by the other 29 major league teams.

If approved, the $20 million is expected to go toward covering expected cost overruns on the $535 million state-of-the-art ballpark project south of the Capitol. Baseball would agree to a letter of credit to pay the team's rent in case of a terrorist attack or players' strike.

The Council must still approve the lease before any work can begin on the stadium.

"We think we'll be in a spot within a week or so, maybe two weeks tops, where the Council will have had time to look at it and approve it," Morris said. "Our thought is shortly after that we'll be able to pull the trigger and start building the new stadium, which is what everybody's been hoping we'd do all along."

Cropp said the vote could come Dec. 20 and the Council should have the lease next week.

"The second we've got a deal that we feel is locked in place, we're absolutely going to go forward with it," Morris said.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-nationals-stadium&prov=ap&type=lgns

It's going to happen. But too close for me. If I had felt that moving of the site was a real possibility I wouldn't have felt confident either. I personally don't know why it's so difficult for the council to come through. I mean, I understand the other factors, but if we want a stadium than we need to get a deal done, if we wanted to deal with other problems of the city, that's fine too, but we shouldn't make ourselves look bad for all this red tape.

D.C. Baseball Stadium Cost Could Exceed $700 Million

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; A01

Top District officials discussed new estimates for a baseball stadium project along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington yesterday and determined that costs could reach more than $700 million, which is more than $100 million beyond the previous forecast of the city's chief financial officer.

Officials stressed that the new estimates are preliminary and take into account all potential costs, including $41 million for underground parking, $20 million to upgrade the Navy Yard Metro station and $12 million to rebuild nearby roads. They added that some of the work might not have to be paid for by the city or done at all.

The new cost figures were discussed briefly in a meeting with Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and others yesterday afternoon. Accounts of the meeting varied.

A source with knowledge of the discussions said the estimates reached $714 million. That source, who had seen a document detailing the costs, spoke on condition of anonymity because Gandhi is working on a report of new estimates and the numbers are not final.

Vince Morris, spokesman for Williams, disputed that figure.

"The $700 million doomsday budget is not ours and does not reflect reality," Morris said. "We told the citizens of the District that we'd build a gem of a ballpark on time and on budget, and that's what we intend to do."

Gandhi's previous estimate was $535 million for the stadium project, plus $54 million in financing fees, for a total of $589 million.

Gandhi confirmed that he met with Williams and Evans yesterday but declined to comment on specifics. His office is working on an analysis of how much it would cost to build a stadium at the waterfront location vs. the cost of building it adjacent to Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which some council members have said would be cheaper.

"I can understand that because of Hurricane Katrina, costs have changed" for construction materials, Gandhi said. "What we're doing now is working at those estimates. We hope that pretty soon we'll have the numbers."

The source said the new estimates from Gandhi's office include $58 million to cover financing fees associated with stadium construction bonds, which the city plans to pay using revenue generated by taxes from Washington Nationals games this past season and interest on the bond money before it is spent next year.

The council approved spending $535 million on the stadium project last year and will not approve any new funds, said Evans, chairman of the council's Finance and Revenue Committee.

"None of these numbers change the 535 million-dollar number," he said. "That's still the number."

But Gandhi's new estimates also include $40 million in contingencies, twice the $20 million extra in contingencies that Major League Baseball recently agreed to contribute to the project during ongoing stadium lease negotiations, the source said.

Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who opposes the project, said yesterday that he intends to introduce two stadium-related emergency bills at the council's legislative meeting today, including one that would cap the cost of the project at $535 million.

In recent weeks, Catania and others had calculated that the projected price had reached well over $600 million because city officials removed $55 million of infrastructure costs and $54 million in bond financing fees from the original budget to deal with escalating stadium costs.

Because the city is financing the construction bonds with other revenue, it might have to pay the infrastructure costs with city money in the future, Catania said.

The new project estimates come as the city is close to finalizing a stadium lease with baseball. City officials have said they hope to complete the lease deal and send it to the council by Friday. Council members said last week that baseball's recent concessions show progress.

The lease is critical because until it is completed, city finance officials will not issue construction bonds and Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig has said he will not sell the Nationals.

Along with the $20 million payment to cover rising construction costs, baseball has agreed to give the District a letter of credit that would guarantee the Nationals' rent payment for one or two seasons in case of a terrorist attack or players' strike.

In return, the city has agreed to give baseball one-third of parking revenue generated by a new stadium on non-game days, city officials said yesterday.

Over the course of the stadium's life, expected to be 30 to 40 years, baseball would get back its $20 million, according to sources familiar with the lease negotiations.

City planners say they anticipate people parking in the stadium year-round because they are working with private developers to create a nearby entertainment district, featuring shops, restaurants, residential units and office space.

The details of the parking revenue split have not been finalized because baseball's negotiators are concerned that the stadium parking lots will not produce as much revenue as anticipated on non-game days, sources with knowledge of the stadium discussion said.

"The problem is, there's uncertainty there," Evans said. "It's possible no one would park in those lots for years. Even then, every one of the buildings [in an entertainment district] would have a parking garage."

Nationals President Tony Tavares and other Major League Baseball officials declined to comment yesterday, citing ongoing negotiations.

Critics who object to the public investment in the project said yesterday that if the District gives parking revenue to baseball, it would negate the impact of the $20 million payment.

Baseball "offers to help with $20 million, but they'll get that back and then some over time," Catania said. "It's outrageous. . . . That's not a true advance of $20 million in a way one would expect a partner to share some of the costs."

Baseball will receive all parking revenue from the 81 games each season, except for tax money that goes to the city. Baseball's negotiators also argued that the stadium agreement signed by baseball officials and Williams last year stipulated that baseball would get parking revenue on non-game days.

Mayoral spokesman Morris characterized the deal as a victory for the District.

"Instead of letting Major League Baseball keep all the money from its parking lot, we've cut a deal where we keep two-thirds" of all parking revenue on non-game days, Morris said. "Even better, Major League Baseball is still going to give us the $20 million upfront."

But council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) said baseball's contribution is "totally illusory. It doesn't deceive any thinking person."

Staff writer Thomas Heath contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Mayor Insists Stadium Costs Will Not Rise

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 6, 2005; 5:00 PM

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said that media reports today that the cost of a baseball stadium complex could reach more than $700 million were misleading, the result of misinformation perpetuated by stadium opponents "who have been against this deal from day one."

"Under no circumstances will this stadium cost $700 million," Williams said at a midday news conference. Yesterday, D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi acknowledged in a meeting with Williams, D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and other city officials that Gandhi's staff has determined that the stadium, along with all ancillary costs, could reach $714 million. Gandhi has stressed that he has not finalized his report, which will be given to the council by Friday.

Williams said that he will spend no more than the $535 million authorized by the D.C. Council last year. Of that, $300 million will go to pay for construction materials and labor to build the ballpark structure, he added.

However, Williams acknowledged that the stadium project budget does not contain money for ancillary costs such as improvements to a nearby Metro station and roads, an underground parking structure, bond financing fees and other potential costs. Estimates for those costs alone add up to more than $180 million.

Those costs have been the cause of much consternation by city officials in recent days. The new estimate being discussed is far more than Gandhi's previous estimate that the stadium project would cost $535 million, plus $54 million more for bond financing fees. The rising costs have concerned the D.C. Council, which could vote on a critical stadium lease agreement between the city and Major League Baseball within two weeks.

The city will not issue construction bonds and baseball officials will not sell the Washington Nationals until the agreement is in place.

Williams and Mark H. Tuohey, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, reiterated today that Gandhi's re-estimate includes costs that they expect to be borne by the federal government and private developers.

"I never believed these costs should be borne completely by the baseball stadium budget," Williams said. "They never have been borne completely by other cities with stadiums."

But several council members said they approved the $535 million budget with the expectation that the figure included money for roads, Metro and bond financing. The sports commission has acknowledged recently that it removed $55 million earmarked for infrastructure to deal with escalating stadium costs. And Gandhi said that $54 million for bond financing will be paid with other revenues outside the stadium budget.

"These other costs are ancillary," Tuohey said. "I have assured the council that I will work with the mayor and the CFO and other federal agencies and private developers to . . . get added money for the important infrastructure needs."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Rte. 7 Makeover Part Of Dulles Rail Plan
Metrorail Proposal Cuts Costs but Adds Pedestrian-Friendly Design in Tysons

By Leef Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 8, 2005; Page B08

Leesburg Pike in Tysons Corner is a mishmash of fast-food restaurants, car dealerships and chain stores. Access roads bump up against the main highway, traffic lights are jammed together, and this time of year, cars slow to a crawl.

Now picture an eight-lane, pedestrian-friendly urban boulevard with a Metrorail line overhead.

Planners say they would use the arrival of Metrorail to turn Route 7 in Tysons Corner into a pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare. The proposed Silver Line would occupy the median of Route 7 from Route 123 to the Dulles Toll Road.

Managers of the massive project that would extend Metro through Tysons Corner are envisioning just that and will offer specific plans tonight at a public hearing.

But the unveiling of the changes to Leesburg Pike is muted by the fact that they are part of measures taken to reduce the cost of the proposed 11-mile Metrorail extension from $2.4 billion to $1.8 billion. The price still exceeds by $300 million the $1.5 billion in the project's financing plan.

The proposed improvements to Leesburg Pike (also called Route 7) -- which have long been on the drawing board, but have never been specific until now -- are a byproduct of the cost reductions. The cuts were announced in August, but details will not be made public until the hearing tonight.

Planners cut $200 million by reducing by half the length of a planned Metro tunnel near the intersection of Routes 7 and 123 and increasing the amount of aerial track. The second most significant savings would come by using a more common, less architecturally stylized design for columns supporting the elevated portions of the rail line.

Some Tysons merchants and office-goers already had expressed concern that the columns and elevated tracks would be ugly.

"I want [the line] to look as aesthetically pleasing as possible, and some of that may have to be addressed later on, but right now the important thing is getting rail to service this corridor as soon as we possibly can," said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D).

When complete, the proposed Silver Line would extend 23 miles from East Falls Church to Dulles International Airport.

Phase one of construction, which could get underway as soon as next December and be completed by 2011, would stretch from the East Falls Church station through Tysons Corner to Wiehle Avenue in Reston.

Officials said yesterday that the proposal now includes a plan to shift the rail line from the south side of Route 7 to the road's median, where it would run on elevated tracks from just west of Route 123 to the Dulles Toll Road.

In doing so, officials said, they would eliminate the access service lanes that now stretch along Leesburg Pike, as well as many left-turn lanes, completely transforming the busy roadway.

"We're trying to create a boulevard effect instead of this strip-mall-oriented, used-car-dealer piece of highway," Connolly said. "I think that over time it's going to be a profound change for the Tysons area and a welcome one."

Officials said the changes would be dramatic for those familiar with the road network.

"You'll have to learn to drive all over again in Tysons," said Marcia McAllister, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

Under the current plan, Metrorail would make four stops in Tysons Corner, starting with Tysons East, at the intersection of Route 123 and Scotts Crossing Road. The station would be on the edge of Tysons Corner, where officials said the line would rise 55 feet above the ground. The next stop would be Tysons Central 123, on the north side of Route 123 between Tysons Galleria and Tysons Corner Center.

The proposed route then dips into a 2,100-foot tunnel. Because the tunnel has been shortened, officials said, tracks would now go over the Gosnell Road intersection rather than under it.

From there the route continues on to Tysons Central 7, on Route 7 midway between Gosnell Road and Route 123, and then to a Tysons West stop at the intersection of Route 7 and Springhill Road.

Officials said that the average height of the elevated track -- from the ground to the base of the rail line -- would be 35.7 feet, with the highest point reaching 64 feet where the Beltway crosses 123.

Exactly who would pay the increased cost is unclear. The financing plan for the first phase assumes that the federal government would pay half, with the state and Fairfax County each paying 25 percent. A special tax on Tysons Corner landowners is expected to generate a maximum of $400 million, leaving Fairfax to raise an additional $50 million toward construction. The state plans to use money collected on the Dulles Toll Road to pay its share. The project still needs approval and a financial commitment from the federal government.

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/vscoggins/rt7.gif

Accord Reached On New Stadium
Second Agreement Requires Nationals To Stay for 30 Years

By David Nakamura and Thomas Heath
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A01

The District government and Major League Baseball reached a formal agreement on a stadium lease yesterday after three months of negotiations and turned it over to the D.C. Council, which is to take a critical vote in 10 days.

The city and baseball also completed a second agreement that would require the team to play in the District for 30 years. It would allow the team to relocate as many as three regular season home games once every five years to an international venue or another place requested by Major League Baseball.

Under terms of the lease deal, baseball would give the city $20 million for stadium construction and a letter of credit that would cover Washington Nationals rent payments in case of a terrorist attack or players' strike.

The city agreed in return to give the Nationals a third of the parking revenue generated at the stadium on non-game days from the 1,225 spaces required at the site. That would return about $20 million to baseball during the 30-year lease.

"We've negotiated a good deal for the city and persuaded Major League Baseball to concede on many fronts," Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said in a statement released by his office. "I look forward to a full discussion of the lease during a hearing next week and I urge the Council to approve this lease as quickly as possible the following week."

The lease agreement requires approval from the 13-member council, which has scheduled a vote for Dec. 20. However, council members are concerned about rising costs and said they would reject the deal if baseball did not make a significant financial contribution.

If the council approves the lease agreement, stadium construction could begin in March. The Nationals played their first season at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium and are scheduled to play there the next two seasons. If construction is completed on time, the stadium will open in March 2008.

"We worked hard to accommodate the areas of pressing concern identified by the city," baseball President Robert A. DuPuy said in a written statement. "We now look forward to a favorable vote by the City Council."

If the council approves the lease agreement, baseball is expected to announce a new owner for the team shortly thereafter. Eight groups have bid on the franchise, for which baseball has said it has set a price of $450 million.

The city has approved a $535 million budget, along with $54 million in bond financing fees, for the publicly funded stadium project along the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington. The bulk of the money would be paid through a gross receipts tax on businesses as well as taxes on utilities and stadium concessions.

Natwar M. Gandhi, the city's chief financial officer, is scheduled to give the council an updated cost study Monday. This week, Gandhi's office told city officials that preliminary estimates reached as high as $714 million for the stadium and related infrastructure.

Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who has voted against public funding for the project, said he was unimpressed with baseball's promise of $20 million because the city would be paying it back with the non-game-day parking revenue.

Accord Reached On New Stadium
The Nationals would receive all parking revenue on game days if the garage was limited to 1,225 spaces. But if the city built more parking spaces, the team would collect all game-day parking revenue and the city would keep all non-game-day revenue. This provision is designed to allow the Nationals to select whichever option the team thinks will provide more income, but the team must choose before the first season.

"I don't think that's fresh cash," Graham said. "I don't think this works. My vote's not changing."

But Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), a key baseball booster, said the lease represents a fair deal. "It's the best negotiated deal we could get from Major League Baseball," he added.

City financial officials have said they will not issue construction bonds, and Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has said he will not sell the Nationals, until the lease is approved.

"This grueling process at last has an end in sight," Nationals President Tony Tavares said. "I wouldn't characterize anybody at baseball as being happy right now. I would characterize them as being hopeful that this comes to a positive conclusion on the 20th."

Baseball's letter of credit would come from a bank with a rating of at least AA and cover one season of rent. If the money was used, baseball would replenish the reserve account with another credit letter covering a season's rent.

The team would collect all stadium revenue other than non-game-day parking and advertising collected by the city during the 18 days the city could use the stadium for other events. And the Nationals would control all advertising on and inside the stadium and would receive all income from naming rights if a corporate sponsor paid to put its name on the ballpark.

If the stadium did not open by March 2008, the District would be required to pay penalties that could reach millions of dollars, depending on how much revenue the team lost during the delay.

The Nationals would pay an average of $5.5 million in rent during the 30-year lease and donate 8,000 tickets to city charities each season. In a statement, the city said it would control development rights on land outside the stadium and within the 21-acre footprint of the project. The lease agreement states that the Nationals and the city will "jointly evaluate . . . to attract economically viable commercial activity" south and east of the stadium.

The lease also calls for the team to pay the city $1 for every ticket sold over 2.5 million during the season. The team would not be required to pay rent if the stadium was damaged and home games could not be played, except during strikes, lockouts or other labor disputes between the owners and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

"Nobody won everything, but I think we ended up just fine," said Mark H. Tuohey, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission and negotiator of the lease for the city.

Also yesterday, Williams authorized final designs for the new stadium, which features glass, steel and limestone as its primary components and departs sharply from the popular red-brick throwback ballparks. The city plans to make the designs public shortly after the lease is approved.

The council has scheduled a public hearing on the lease for 10 a.m. Tuesday. Those wishing to speak must register by 5 p.m. Monday.

Reimagining a Mall That Has Outgrown Itself
Designers Propose a New Frontier -- East Potomac Park -- for Expansion

By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 9, 2005; Page B01

The architects and designers were giddy with the possibilities: They talked about giant sculptural bridges, soaring waterfront museums, inland canals, water taxis and monuments that would forever change the nation's capital.

"This is something that only happens every century or so. This is really a once-in-lifetime opportunity," said Rick Harlan Schneider, an architect who tipped his head back and imagined what it would be like to help redesign the nation's front yard, the Mall.

With a glut of memorials, monuments and museums waiting to be built, and other champions for other causes in the wings, the question of whether the Mall should be considered "a finished piece of civic art" gained new momentum this week during a meeting at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Schneider is one of a growing number of planners whose solution is rethinking the Mall itself, reconfiguring and expanding the space, the way a Senate commission did about 100 years ago when the Lincoln Memorial was built on swampland that became the western axis of one of the nation's premier public spaces.

"Ultimately, the Mall is not a collection of museums and memorials. That's not what the Mall was intended to be. It's a living, lively place, and it can keep changing," said Judy Scott Feldman, chairman of the National Coalition to Save Our Mall, the group that has spent the past two years championing another move as bold as the one involving the Lincoln Memorial.

Feldman's plan to expand the Mall to include East Potomac Park is an attempt to solve the problem of memorial clutter by creating more space that would be considered prime Mall real estate. It would be big enough to include more of the strolling, biking and ballgames that get crowded out by museums while making room for more monuments.

Her group hosted the forum this week that featured the ideas of six architects. They created plans for marinas, water taxis, shopping, restaurants, museums and fantastical bridges. One design would move the Supreme Court to East Potomac Park, creating a triangle, with the Capitol and the White House, to represent the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government.

The mood at the lecture was electric, with architects in black turtlenecks and historians in tailored suits popping from their chairs with ideas. It was supposed to last an hour, but people stayed for more than two, talking long after the gallery staff had stacked the chairs and dimmed the stage lights.

The meeting drew federal planners faced with the quandary daily when they receive proposals for memorials and museums that have been approved by Congress despite less space where they could go.

"The monuments and memorials are going to keep coming. Something's got to happen," said Thomas Luebke, secretary of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, who came to listen but took no official position on the plans.

Representatives from the National Capital Planning Commission also attended, but they are firmly holding to their solution: the "Legacy plan" and the Memorials and Museums Master Plan, which names 100 spaces approved for memorials in pocket parks and on forgotten plots, to democratize and spread monuments. The commission is also working with city officials on turning the South Capitol Street corridor into a Mall-like park next to the proposed baseball stadium.

"We consider the Mall a finished work of civic art," John V. Cogbill III, the National Capital Planning Commission chairman, repeats often at meetings of the commission, where groups constantly clamor for more space.

In most cases, groups sponsoring memorials feel slighted or disrespected when offered a spot that is not on the Mall. That's why Feldman says that the Mall simply needs to grow, to simply make that coveted space a little larger.

But Patricia E. Gallagher, executive director of the commission, said that simply annexing East Potomac Park, a waterfront park with a golf course, children's parks and a steady population of joggers and cyclists, isn't an easy answer. That space is known as "the people's park."

"Taking over the recreational uses would be very, very controversial. That park is treasured for recreational purposes," Gallagher said.

At the Corcoran meeting, one man in the audience chimed in with similar thoughts. "I run that park about once a month. There are bikers; it's a place where people go," he said.

But Feldman and the designers said they want to integrate recreation into their plans. They talked about swimming areas, a national skateboard park, a national putt-putt course, walkways, water canals and bike paths.

For those who think the plan is outrageous and unreasonable, Feldman points to a quote from a 1902 park commission report to the Senate, before the Mall was expanded toward the Lincoln Memorial:

"The demand for new public buildings and memorials has reached an acute stage. There has been hesitation and embarrassment in locating them because of the uncertainty in securing appropriate sites."

I personally don't like this idea that much.

Man! Prices for stadiums are SUPER high! over 700 Million! Wow! How did these prices get so out-of-hand? :uh:

BTW, have you guys heard anymore on the new high-rise Condos going up at College Park? And renderings you know of? :)

Thanks.

The only thing I could find were northgate condos, but I didn't see any renderings.

But it's being done by Monuement Realty and they seem to be pretty decent.

I personally don't like this idea that much.
Ditto. I do think East Potomac Park can stand for some improvement, but I don't want to see it urbanized. Whatever happened to the proposal to relocate the Supreme Court to Buzzard's Point?

The idea of elevating the Metro rail in between the road is very interesting. If they want to make it "as aesthetically pleasing as possible", embanking the rails with some kind of stylized wall would look nicer than columns sticking up. Maybe some kind of red-brick wall or grassy embankment would make it look less imposing.

Ditto. I do think East Potomac Park can stand for some improvement, but I don't want to see it urbanized. Whatever happened to the proposal to relocate the Supreme Court to Buzzard's Point?
Moving the Supreme Court to Buzzard's Point is now less likely to happen if the new stadium is built along the waterfront at South Capitol Street. Moving the Supreme Court was intended to bolster development along the Southwest and Southeast quadrants, as well as create a new grand Mall-like boulevard south of the Capitol for new Federal buildings, civic structures and the like.

I'm not really opposed to that, I'm more opposed to having a bunch of areas full of annoying tourists. I'm all for beautification and the current location of the supreme cout is kinda shitty, I like the idea of the 3 branches being in a triangle.

Rogers & Us
Height Squabbles Aside, D.C. Still Gets a Standout Design by a Towering Figure

By Benjamin Forgey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 11, 2005; Page N01

At last, Washington will get a building designed by Richard Rogers, an architect whose luminous creativity has made a mark in many a European city for more than three decades.

Unfortunately, we are getting sort of a hidden Rogers, a reticent Rogers, a background Rogers. Not a bad Rogers, mind you, not bad at all. It will doubtless turn out quite well, perhaps even wondrously.


The U.S. Congress -- note, that is not the D.C. Council -- actually had something to do with the look of the building. For what it said were security reasons, Congress lopped off two floors of the building, reducing its height from 130 to 110 feet, after a District agency approved the height.

Congressional interference in District affairs is nothing new, but in this case, Congress did not commit an aesthetic sin. Actually, the lower height might turn out to be a bit better.

The 1936 Acacia Building, to which the Rogers building is to be attached, is one of those classically inspired, Greco-Deco efforts that are so self-effacing they practically recede from view. The stone griffins that guard the main stairwell on Louisiana Avenue NW -- precise address, No. 51 -- theoretically might combine the speed and power of eagles and lions, but somehow this pair manages to be sedate rather than ferocious.

But as far as Congress is concerned, apparently even the most menacing, stone-faced human guards would not ease concerns over security for a building that will be less than 500 yards from the nearest section of the Capitol.

Washington's notoriously complex regulatory system for getting buildings approved and built got a bit more complex in this case. The reason? An obsession with designing projects so that there will be "absolutely nothing that would somehow facilitate somebody's illegal or irrational behavior."

That's how Geoffrey H. Griffis, chairman of the District's Board of Zoning Adjustment, characterized a letter from the Architect of the Capitol objecting to the proposed height of the Acacia addition. In that January meeting, the board ignored the letter and voted to approve the variance, raising the building's permissible height by two stories, to 130 feet.

Congress did not like that, and in an outrageous but not atypical breach of the principle and practice of home rule, overruled the city agency. It did so in June by attaching a rider to an appropriations bill.

In the board meeting, Griffis did not identify the source of the architect's worry, but in a July statement to Post reporter Dana Hedgpeth, Senate Sergeant at Arms William H. Pickle noted that "a sniper . . . was one of many concerns."

Is that a reasonable worry? There is risk everywhere but, as Griffis implied, it is foolhardy to try to prevent all possible breaches of security. Micromanaging the security issue is one of the scourges of today's Washington and, in this particular case, Congress and its security forces were guilty of it.

As fates would have it, the building, in any case, will be vehemently closed to the general public. To be principally occupied by one of those huge law firms without which Washington would not be Washington, the structure will entice but not invite. The best thing about the design -- a structurally ingenious, spatially invigorating atrium -- will be inaccessible and only partially visible to folks lacking appointments with high-powered lawyers.

The building also suffers from a number of typical D.C. constraints. It is a large addition to a historic building of modest stature. It is, like all Washington buildings, subject to the city's limits not only on building heights but also on densities. The project also had to pass through the rigors of the local reviewing system -- and then some.

In the face of all that, Rogers and his colleagues in the Richard Rogers Partnership created a bold, intriguing, intelligent design for their second building in the United States. And in fact, the 110-foot height might actually be more pleasing.


(As provided in the law, officials of the JBG Cos., the site's developer, have continued to negotiate with the appropriate congressional officials. There has been no give, however, and JBG appears ready to absorb the economic loss and push ahead. For that, as well as for picking its outstanding architect, the company is to be lauded.)

The addition, to be sure, is not destined to be a city-regenerating star of the kind Rogers and company have produced in other places -- starting with the 1976 Pompidou Center in Paris (designed in collaboration with Renzo Piano) and continuing in London, Berlin, Bordeaux, Cardiff and Antwerp.

Rather, the Washington building plays a supporting role. Its destiny might be simply to steal the show in its particular Capitol Hill neighborhood. By doing so, it can perchance inspire a younger generation of Washington architects and, even more important, broaden the perspectives of the city's legion of architectural reviewers.

Like the building, the immediate neighborhood desperately could use some livening up. People in search of the nearby Hyatt Regency Hotel or the National Japanese American Memorial tend to wander about aimlessly. That will not happen after the Rogers addition is built -- it automatically will become the eye-catching landmark of the vicinity.

The five-story Acacia Building, designed with such succinct politesse by the New York firm of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, shares its five-sided block with an undistinguished, though somewhat taller, 1953 addition, and one of those worst-of-the-1970s concrete parking structures. (Besides Louisiana Avenue, the site is bordered by New Jersey Avenue and First, C and D streets.)

It was the ugly garage, of course, that provided the economic opportunity. Only four stories tall, it was a clear target for redevelopment when purchased last year by Bethesda-based JBG, which has a long history in the Washington area. Much of the space in the replacement building immediately would be spoken for by Jones Day, the expanding law firm that occupies both the original Acacia building and the 1950s addition, JBG founding partner Benjamin Jacobs says.

Jacobs had to have nerve to hire Rogers for the job. He says he did it because Rogers had done some "very different, very exciting" work next to historic buildings in London. That puts it mildly. The developer cited, in particular, a recent commercial building next to the Tower of London. Called St. Katherine's Estate, its likes have never been seen in Washington. Or even anywhere near Washington. (Rogers's first U.S. building was built 20 years ago in an industrial park near Princeton, N.J.)

Picturesquely broken into masses of differing heights, St. Katherine's is a complex combination of metal and glass finishes, a building of many vivid parts. There are exposed stairwells and other "servant" spaces (in the manner of Louis Kahn, long an inspiration for Rogers), a towering glass atrium and office facades that have differing window patterns dependent on orientation to the sun. The whole package, the firm's description says, is enlivened by retail uses and complicated but navigable connections through and around the building.

St. Katherine's is not the most impressive of the Rogers Partnership's recent output -- which you can check on at http://www.richardrogers.co.uk/ -- but it typifies the firm's positive approach to new materials, sophisticated urban design and environmental responsibility, as well as its continuing adherence to a machine aesthetic. That last element seems almost old-fashioned these days, but it remains a fresh tool in the Rogers cabinet.

The Washington building exhibits some of the same characteristics, but it's nowhere near as complicated. It divides basically into two distinct pieces -- one boring, one not.

The boring part, of course, is the office building. It's an overly fat glass box sawed off at 10 floors in the Washington way. Potentially, two things can save it.

One is the quality of the glass curtain wall. Like the firms of Norman Foster, Nicholas Grimshaw and other British high-techers, the Rogers Partnership is famously obsessive about glass and metal and how those materials come together. "We're tenacious, and we won't let go on the quality of the detail," says Ivan Harbour, design director of the Washington job. So this might turn out to be one heck of a glass box.


Its shape might be the building's second saving grace. Rogers insisted that it be trapezoidal rather than rectangular, with a sharply angled side leading dramatically to the atrium entrance, set back about 50 feet from New Jersey Avenue. This simple but important gesture visually ties the private interior space to the public neighborhood. And make no mistake: A visual connection alone is far better than none at all.

That is particularly true with an atrium such as the one the Rogers teams has designed. With a few notable exceptions, Washington's office-building atria are nondescript empty boxes intended simply to bring in natural light. The Rogers atrium, by contrast, is the brilliant linchpin of a complex of buildings.

At the center of the basically triangular space is a stunning steel structure supporting platforms and bridges connecting the three buildings and resolving the differences in floor-to-floor heights. (In the Acacia, the measurement is a magnanimous 15 feet; in the new addition, an "efficient" 10.)

Designers often refer to the structure as the "tree" because its steel supports are akin to trunks and its bridges to limbs. Harbour prefers the analogy of an upright skier whose arms are stretched outward, holding steadying ski poles.

Whatever one calls it, this design has wonderful potential, with people walking to and from amid the visible counterbalances of structural forces. The vast triangular roof, made of glass supported by a boomerang-shaped pattern of steel trusses and cantilevers, will be a fitting treetop or, if you like, an appropriate surround for the arms of a giant skier.

If all goes well, then, in a couple of years, we'll have a Rogers marvel here in the District. And that's nothing to dismiss.

It's All About the Pitch for United
Team Takes Stadium Appeal to SE Residents

By Robert E. Pierre
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005; Page B01

The audience of 500 in Ballou Senior High School's auditorium wanted to know one thing from the president of D.C. United: How would a soccer stadium benefit them?

Kevin Payne had prepared for that question, so he had quick answers as he talked about displacement, jobs and contracts, offering assurances that the $1.5 billion project in Southeast Washington would have something for everyone. There would be a hotel, job training center, community soccer fields and housing -- including a percentage for first-time home buyers and preference for local residents. Payne said the project would rival the entertainment district that has sprung up around MCI Center.



D.C. United wants to build a soccer stadium at Poplar Point in Anacostia. The team says the project also would include a hotel and housing. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
"The ball, the sport will bring a stadium," he told the crowd, as he held up a soccer ball, "a stadium that is an integral part of a new neighborhood."

Deals for new stadiums in recent years for the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Redskins, and now the Washington Nationals, have been struck between team negotiators and politicians, who, with varying degrees of success, tried to sell residents on the plans.

But United, while quietly working the political angle, took its quest for a new facility to the streets, inviting residents to lunch and hosting dozens of meet-and-greets, including the Ballou event that incorporated gospel singers, teen models and the school marching band. United players handed out soccer balls and signed autographs into the evening.

United officials hope the campaign will ease the approval process and help extend the team's fan base in a part of town where few people have played or followed the game and don't count themselves fans. United is starting a youth soccer league there in the spring to change that.

"The purpose of these meetings was just as much to hear what the folks in the neighborhoods wanted," Payne said. "They don't just want housing. They want opportunity."

That is certainly the case. "Our kids don't know soccer," said Addie Cook, president of the Fort Stanton Civic Association, who often petitions the city to fix the lights, leaks and broken water fountains at her recreation center. If the project results in more places for children to play, though, Cook said she is willing to listen.

The proposed site is at Poplar Point in Anacostia, just across the river from where the Nationals' stadium is planned. The surrounding area is devoid of soccer fields and soccer programs. There also are few jobs for residents of nearby neighborhoods, including Anacostia and Congress Heights. Double-digit unemployment is the norm, and Vera Jamison wants the 8,000 construction and 2,500 permanent jobs projected for construction and operation of the project reserved for residents.

"We definitely have to get these guys off the street corner and put them to work," said Jamison, 64, who has lived in Congress Heights for 25 years. "They need the work -- not all these other people coming into the community."

The Anacostia Community Land Trust, a competitor for the land where the stadium would be built, is hinting to city officials that it might be willing to partner with United, a sign that the team's effort is making headway. In fact, D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) switched from stadium opponent to proponent and is working to combine the stadium with the proposal from the competing group, which is pushing for low- and moderate-income housing for Southeast residents.

United draws fans from throughout the region, including Richmond and West Virginia. But not many of the team's fans come from the neighborhoods closest to the 100-acre site.

Federal officials had promised to transfer the federally owned site to the District, but a proposal in Congress could put the land on the open market.

City officials remain confident they will get the land but have not determined whether they would partner with the soccer team or with another developer to build on the land. One selling point to residents and public officials is that the team's owners -- with decades of experience in real estate development -- plan to use their own money, instead of asking taxpayers to build the stadium, part of a push by Major League Soccer to build soccer-specific stadiums in the cities that are home to its 12 teams.



D.C. United wants to build a soccer stadium at Poplar Point in Anacostia. The team says the project also would include a hotel and housing. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)
Three stadiums have been built since 1999, another is scheduled to open in Chicago next year, and two are slated for the following year. The goal, as with the United plan, is to have the sites active year-round. The development around Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Tex., used by FC Dallas, has 17 championship-quality fields and is used more than 300 days a year for concerts, soccer matches and even high school football.

"The stadium will bring spending that otherwise wouldn't be there," Payne said, noting that a typical housing development would not do that.

The group pushing the land trust idea also wants the land to develop hundreds of new homes at the site for people with low and moderate incomes. Buyers would own their homes, but the land would be held by a common trust organization, allowing qualified buyers to get a $300,000 house, for instance, for as little as half that amount.

It would stabilize the neighborhood and preserve it from gentrification by stipulating that new owners could sell only to buyers with qualifying incomes and that they could only recoup their investment with an adjustment for inflation, keeping the properties affordable in perpetuity.

Promoters said it's a way of evening the field. "The free-market system does not provide for most of the people who live in Anacostia, and it won't," said Richard Carr, a developer who is part of the land trust group. "It's important for people who understand how the system works to make it work for everybody."

Dianne Dale, president of Frederick Douglass Gardens Inc., is backing the land trust proposal. Over the past 50 years, she said, urban renewal and now gentrification have typically meant that black residents get pushed out, as was the case in Southwest, in Georgetown and on Capitol Hill. The prime riverfront property, she said, should be preserved for those who stuck out the hard years instead of the thousands of outsiders.

Even though her pet project, a national garden, is included in the soccer proposal too, United's promises make her uneasy.

"The soccer people are coming in there with gifts and promises," she said. "You can promise anything, but will you deliver?"

Others are enjoying the attention for the area east of the Anacostia River, where residents have long complained of neglect in services and amenities compared with the rest of the city.

"This is the best outreach from an outside group that I've seen," said Phil Pannell, executive director of the Anacostia Coordinating Council, hired to help organize the Ballou meeting. "They're treating us like we have value."

Soccer officials said that's also the way the sport treats its fans. "Our athletes are incredibly accessible and spend a lot of time after the game signing autographs," said Mark Abbott, chief operating officer for Major League Soccer. "They have an understanding that we're trying to build something here."

Because United has spent 10 years in the city and plans to stay many more, Payne said the team is mindful of not antagonizing potential new neighbors, as many have charged Major League Baseball with doing in its proposal for a new, publicly financed stadium for the Nationals. That has resulted in noisy protests by residents who consider public financing an example of misplaced priorities.

"I certainly would not have done things the way Major League Baseball has done," Payne said.

But to people who live near the site, soccer needs a lot of help to persuade them it is the way to go.

At Ballou, images of famous soccer players flashed across a screen in the auditorium, the marching band belted out tunes while decked out in D.C. United T-shirts and, later, hundreds stood in line for free, regulation-size soccer balls autographed by members of the team. Frieda Murray, 87, got two. "One for me and one for my grandson," said Murray, a retired schoolteacher and longtime member of the Anacostia Garden Club.

She said the attempts to build a baseball stadium left a bad taste in her mouth, but the soccer stadium appeals to her because the team owners are spending their own money and offering to build things that the community has always wanted.

"I'm for upscaling the community," she said. "I don't know if I will be around to see it."

A Future Free From Gridlock, For a Price
Toll Lane Network Swiftly Taking Form

By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 12, 2005; Page A01

Motorists would drive on the Capital Beltway during rush hour at the mind-blowing rate of a mile a minute. Drivers would zip from Fredericksburg to Frederick without hitting a single traffic jam.

In this strange, new world, people would run errands whenever they pleased, vacationers would leave town without spending hours in traffic, and express bus service would be launched on the region's major commuter routes.



Robert L. Flanagan says toll roads are the only way to pay for fixes. (Bill O'leary - Twp)
But these dream scenarios come with a cost: a toll as high as a dollar a mile in heavily traveled areas during peak times. A 56-mile commute between the Fredericksburg area and Washington could cost as much as $30 if a driver chose the traffic-free route, according to one analysis.

These 21st-century traveling possibilities are the result of fast-moving efforts in Virginia and Maryland to build a network of express toll lanes -- roads on which tolls increase when traffic levels rise to manage demand and prevent jams -- that would parallel nearly every major route in the Washington area. The existing routes would remain free -- and packed.

The vision of a regionwide network of these highways has suddenly come into focus just a year after Virginia and Maryland first showed serious interest in the concept. Maryland plans to begin construction on its first express lanes next year, while Virginia plans to build them on a 14-mile stretch of the Beltway within five years.

The projects, many of which will be built and operated by private firms, represent a radical shift in the way highways are financed and operated and promise to transform the way drivers in the Washington area and the nation travel.

"If you look at the full potential of this for the region, I think it's the biggest thing since Metro," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. "These are very significant and could be just the beginning. We haven't had highways of this magnitude in 20 or 30 years."

The shift to the private sector and to express toll roads mirrors efforts across the country to find new ways to pay for roads and manage traffic as congestion in the nation's urban areas increases and the effectiveness of the interstate system, which turns 50 next year, deteriorates.

Texas has launched an ambitious private-sector plan to lay 4,000 miles of new toll roads, while several other states, from Utah to Kansas to Georgia, are considering express toll lanes and other private-sector proposals.

The concept has gained currency as transportation leaders have switched their focus from "solving" gridlock to providing people with options out of it.

"We're creating choices that are not otherwise possible," said Maryland Transportation Secretary Robert L. Flanagan. "By using variable tolling you can use a market mechanism to keep those lanes relatively congestion free."

Flanagan and leaders in Virginia also said they don't have any other way to pay for fixes that run into the billions. So it's toll lanes or nothing. "People just need to appreciate the financial challenge of adding a lane on the Beltway in each direction," Flanagan said.

Critics of the concept said express toll lanes set up two classes of travelers: those who can afford to pay their way out of congestion and those who can't.

Trip Pollard of the Southern Environmental Law Center, which has studied these types of deals, said it is vital to provide rapid bus service on the highways so everyone can benefit. "We don't want it to be the case where if you can pay you get a decent commute and if you can't you're stuck in traffic," Pollard said.



Robert L. Flanagan says toll roads are the only way to pay for fixes. (Bill O'leary - Twp)
Maryland plans to begin construction of its first express toll lanes, on Interstate 95 north of Baltimore, in the next several months, and the state's plan for the intercounty connector linking Montgomery and Prince George's counties follows the express toll model.

These projects will be paid for and operated by the state, but Flanagan said Maryland would seek private investors for future toll lanes, including those being studied on Interstate 270 and the Beltway.

Maryland and Virginia also recently announced plans to jointly study building express toll lanes on parts of the Beltway that include the Woodrow Wilson and American Legion bridges.

Few states are as aggressive as Virginia in wooing the private sector. The state has signed a $900 million deal with a construction consortium to build high-occupancy toll lanes -- a version of express tolls that allows carpoolers to ride free -- on part of the Beltway, and the state is moving rapidly toward a similar $913 million deal with the same developers to build them on a 56-mile stretch of I-95 and I-395. Both could open by 2010.

At the same time, Virginia is one of the first states to consider leasing existing highway assets, such as the Dulles Toll Road, to private investors who would pay the state a lump sum in exchange for 50 years of toll revenue. State officials announced last week that they are considering four proposals valued at more than $1 billion to operate the Dulles Toll Road, some of which include adding express toll lanes. The state would be free to use that money for whatever it chose, although it probably would go toward a Metrorail line to Dulles International Airport and other projects in the corridor.

The result could be a region filled with roads -- and even sections of roads -- controlled and managed by any number of different companies.

"To our eye it will appear queer," said C. Kenneth Orski, editor of the Innovation Briefs transportation newsletter and an early champion of express toll lanes. But in other countries, "you come to a sign saying this segment of the auto route is being operated by such and such company, and 80 miles later you come to a sign that says this toll road is operated by another company, and it's seamless."

There are concerns, though, that companies with competing interests will lead to confusion for drivers and ever-increasing tolls as firms look to maximize profits.

"There are some very real technological and pricing issues," said Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer. "One of the things the region and commonwealth are looking at is some sort of umbrella or oversight group to make sure all the different pricing serves the public good."

Many of the companies that pioneered deals in Europe and Asia, where express highways are common, are targeting the Washington area.

Michael Kulper, vice president for the Australian firm Transurban, said his company "has taken the view that Virginia really is our primary market focus." The firm is a leader of the Beltway and I-95 projects and is one of the groups vying for control of the Dulles Toll Road.

Kulper said Washington and other cities across the country are ripe for these kinds of highways because of congestion brought on by "20 or 30 years of under-investment."



Robert L. Flanagan says toll roads are the only way to pay for fixes. (Bill O'leary - Twp)
Almost everything about these new highways will be different from what drivers have grown accustomed to and how roads have been built.

For the past 50 years, highways have grown out of the traditional governmental process. Communities cited needs, political leaders approved projects, and state transportation agencies drew up plans according to well-established guidelines. The money to pay for roads -- and later for maintaining them -- came from taxpayers, largely through a levy on gas.

Privately backed roads will be conceived, designed, built and operated by companies according to their ability to make money, a criterion that may not reflect the most pressing traffic needs.

Users, meanwhile, will have to get used to a whole new kind of toll. Rates will be market-driven and will change every few minutes according to traffic conditions. During rush hour, drivers might need serious money, while they could pay for a midnight ride on the same road with loose change.

Drivers will pay with E-ZPass-style transponders and will never have to slow down to pay tolls. There are several ways to charge drivers who slip onto the lanes without transponders, including photographing their license plates and mailing them bills.

Drivers will be charged in increments, say five or 10 miles at a time. Electronic signs will advertise prices before motorists enter stretches of roads, and users will be able to exit if they're unwilling to pay for the next section of highway.

One complication is that there isn't yet a foolproof way to enforce the roads in Virginia, where carpoolers would travel free and others would have to pay.

Supporters said such things are mere details. The future, they said, will be filled with a traveling experience that will give drivers a chance to escape the daily strain of traffic.

"I could see the day," said Orski, the newsletter editor, "when paying for a congestion-free trip will be really accepted as nothing extraordinary, just as we accept paying more for first-class air travel or for taxicabs instead of buses."

The only thing I could find were northgate condos, but I didn't see any renderings.

Thanks, NovaWolverine. :)

Moving the Supreme Court to Buzzard's Point is now less likely to happen if the new stadium is built along the waterfront at South Capitol Street. Moving the Supreme Court was intended to bolster development along the Southwest and Southeast quadrants, as well as create a new grand Mall-like boulevard south of the Capitol for new Federal buildings, civic structures and the like.
I'd like to see Southeast developed as much as anyone else does, but I can't help wondering if a baseball stadium doesn't ruin the stately aesthetics of the Monumental Core.

Might it not be better to create the beginnings of an Olympic stadium complex in neglected Northwest or Anacostia?

I'd like to see Southeast developed as much as anyone else does, but I can't help wondering if a baseball stadium doesn't ruin the stately aesthetics of the Monumental Core.

Might it not be better to create the beginnings of an Olympic stadium complex in neglected Northwest or Anacostia?
I totally agree. There is a hierarchical plan being compromised; it's all about placement and messaging.

A stadium is too large to be anything less than a civic structure. On one hand DC says it wants something contextual, and on the other hand it says it wants a design that reflects the Monumental Core. There is a definite conundrum: preserving the L'Enfant vision, yet acknowledging the Federal City is also a city of neighborhoods; a city not tied into the national or world stage.

Personally I think they should have selected the proposal to situate the stadium near the intersection of North Capital, New York and Florida Avenues. It would have been darn close to the original stadium, far enough out of the Monumental Core and in the neighborhoods to not be classified as "Federal" and the new New York Avenue metro station would have been on site.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2004-06/13023689.jpg

As to a larger sporting complex, I still think it should be built at the RFK site.

Once again (I think) the DC Council missed a great opportunity...

Yeah, I personally would like to see an olympic complex at rfk, not further into SE, if it is done, it should be done with compassion for the residents who have been there. I understand what you mean about the conundrum, but I think if this part of DC that's being developed can do what we hope it does, I think it would be great and a hell of a lot better than what we have, but the florida and ny ave. location isn't bad either.

I personally don't think that the stadium really ruins the aesthetics, compared to what's there now, it will challenge what we've been used to seeing, but I think the location is great, not so far out into some ghetto where a stadium alone wouldn't do anything, not in the middle of DT, but close enough and at a place that has potential, where a stadium could bring other changes like mixed use development and infrastructure improvements. Which would happen anywhere. If I were to see an aerial, I think the highway and water would take some of my attn. off the capitol, it's close and that's what Evans wanted.

My gripe with the stadium is the cost. I don't know what to think about expanding the mall, I love the idea of moving the court, bolstering the area and making new bridges and things like that, but I'd hate for the rest of the city to be excluded in a sense.

I think Cordish will do a great job for the stadium area.

Developers Named to Rebuild Anacostia Waterfront

By David Nakamura and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 12, 2005; 4:21 PM

The District government today named four national developers to build a mix of office, housing and retail on land near the site of a new baseball stadium along the Anacostia River in Southeast.

The goal of the project is to create a mixed-use entertainment district around the ballpark that will bring significant tax dollars for the city and foster broader redevelopment along the long-neglected waterfront, Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said at a news conference.

This redevelopment plan is a key element to Williams' plan to build the ballpark at the Anacostia location and today's announcement comes one day before the D.C. Council, which has grown concerned about rising public costs of the stadium project, will hold a public hearing on the matter.

Monument Realty LLC of the District and Cordish Co. of Baltimore were chosen to develop roughly 10 acres just north of the ballpark at South Capitol and M streets SE. Another team that includes Western Development of the District and Forest City Enterprises of Ohio was named as the lead developers for a roughly five-acre site, a few blocks south at First Street and Potomac Avenue SE.

"We're not in a cornfield in Iowa, but we're building [the ballpark] and they have come," Williams said of the developers, playing off the famous line from the movie "Field of Dreams."

The city, Williams added, "sent a message asking, 'Does anyone want to build around the ballpark?' The answer was, 'Yes, we are interested in bringing real economic development.'"

The city has approved a $535 million budget for the stadium project, but the city's commitment has grown to $589 million and new estimates from city financial officials said the total costs could reach $714 million.

Later today, the city's chief financial officer is expected to release the details of how much it would cost to build a stadium at the Anacostia site versus an alternative site near Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which some council members have said would be cheaper.

But Williams argued that the economic development promised at the Anacostia site would not take place at RFK.

The Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, established by the mayor to oversee the development effort, was expected to name a single "master developer" from amount five finalists. Instead, four of the development companies were named to the project.

Monument realty owns much of the 10-acres north of the stadium and has spent some $45 million in the last year buying up mostly vacant lots and abandoned buildings there. The rest of the site is owned by Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which uses the land to park its buses and house its repair garages.

The smaller site is owned by DC Water and Sewer Authority and is used mostly to park trucks. It sits near the huge redevelopment project at the Southeast Federal Center where Forest City plans to build a major residential, retail and housing complex.

The District will open negotiations to buy the land from Metro and WASA.

Although details of the land negotiations have yet to be worked out, city officials said they expect the developers to either buy the land outright from the city agencies or lease the land and allow the city to share in the profits of the development. Monument, which is best known for building office buildings in downtown, had offered to pay the city $180 million for the Metro land in its proposal.

"We want to build a $3 billon town center," said Herb Miller, who runs Western Development and has developed retail in Georgetown and Potomac Mills. "This area has been cutoff by the freeway for 60 years. . . . We want to create a destination."

Supervisors Approve Huge Fairfax Project

By Lisa Rein, "Washington Post"
– Plans for a massive complex of offices, apartments and stores in Tysons Corner, described as the future downtown of Fairfax, won unanimous approval from county supervisors last night.
Nine high-rise towers will join the skyline north of Route 123 between the two Tysons malls and alongside a proposed Metro station. Four of the towers will stand at 30 stories and will be among the tallest in Fairfax County. The project will include pedestrian bridges, small plazas, eight-foot sidewalks, ample parking garages and a park with an amphitheater - features that developer Lerner Enterprises said are designed to give the proposed Tysons II project a more urban feel than many of the surrounding office parks and malls.

"It's a transit-oriented development in an urban center of Fairfax County", Ben Tompkins, an attorney for the developer, told the Board of Supervisors.

The centerpiece of the project, which is billed as a new model of urban culture, will be a Metro station, one of four along a Metrorail extension planned to Tysons and, eventually, to Dulles International Airport.

Lerner will become the first developer to take advantage of a county incentive encouraging construction in the vicinity of public transit to reduce car trips. Supervisors permitted Lerner to double the number of square feet authorized to 4.1 million from 1.9 million.

And, like West Group Properties, which won approval last winter for four luxury condominium towers in Tysons, Lerner tripled the amount of space allocated for apartments under a separate county policy designed to attract housing rather than offices.

"Tysons is our commercial future, and we've got to get it right," said Supervisor Gerald E. Connolly (D-Providence), whose district includes Tysons. "This case moves us a step forward."

The vote was 8 to 0. Two board members, Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) and Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon), were absent.

The policy of handing a developer a density bonus for proximity to transit, when the rail proposal has not been funded by Congress, made at least one supervisor jittery.

"The great fear is the density comes and rail never comes," said Supervisor Stuart Mendelsohn (R-Dranesville).

Lerner agreed to some safeguards to protect the county: If funding for the rail project is not in place by 2005, the supervisors can rescind the extra density. If rail moves forward, Tysons II is authorized to move forward, too.

The county's Planning Commission had recommended against approval of the project this spring, expressing concerns about timing and density, transportation improvements and the developer's commitment to encouraging use of transit. But by the time the project came before them, supervisors were satisfied that Lerner was providing adequately to offset the effect of the offices and apartments. The developer will contribute $5 million to a fund to make road improvements in Tysons, add a lane on Route 123, build some affordable apartments and provide land for the Metro station, among other measures.

Some advocates of so-called smart growth planning criticized Tysons II, saying it would not follow such principles. Despite its proximity to a planned Metro station, Tysons II would turn out like any other office park, some critics said.

"The Lerner project does not go far enough to reduce sprawl, mitigate traffic impacts, or create 'community'," the Coalition for smarter Growth said in a statement urging denial of the project. "It is little more than a standard, upscale office development, with a sprinkling of houses and retail."

Most of the dozen civic and business groups and individuals who weighed in backed the project.

It "ensures that Tysons Corner does not remain a suburban office park, disconnected from a transit system and bogged down in traffic," said William D. Lecos, executive director of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.
______________________________________________________

Lerner Enterprises, founded by Theodore N. Lerner, is one of Washington, D.C.’s largest and most successful real estate developers. Lerner is involved in all phases of commercial and residential real estate including development, asset management, acquisitions and leasing. Lerner Enterprises has developed and currently manages through its leasing and management affiliate, Lerner Corporation, more than fifteen million square feet of commercial, retail and residential space.

Among Lerner Enterprises’ extensive office portfolio are The Corporate Office Centre at Tysons II in McLean, Virginia; The Corporate Office Park at Dulles Town Center in Dulles, Virginia; Flint Hill Office Park in Fairfax, Virginia; Parkview Executive Center in Herndon, Virginia; 7799 Leesburg Pike in Tysons Corner, Virginia; 400 Army Navy Drive in Pentagon City, Virginia; White Flint North in North Bethesda, Maryland; and Washington Square and 1133 Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C.
************************************************************************

Does any one have any updates about this project?

Loudoun Developers Sprint to File Plans
Applications for 21,000 Homes Submitted in Bid to Outrun Limits in County

By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 10, 2006; Page B01

In the final weeks of 2005, developers applied to build more than 21,000 houses, townhouses and apartments in a slice of Loudoun County west of Dulles International Airport.

Over the coming decades, the growth would add thousands of new residents, including enough schoolchildren to fill more than a dozen new schools and enough daily auto trips to flood county roads, according to Loudoun planning studies.


The projects are not new to public scrutiny. Developers began talking to county officials more than a year ago about changing zoning rules to allow dense new neighborhoods in a mostly undeveloped region between Loudoun's congested east and its rural west.

But the developers' choice to go forward with individual rezoning applications forces county leaders to decide whether to allow an enormous new building boom before they have had time to draw a blueprint for future growth in a central part of the county.

Loudoun supervisors decided last fall to wait to rethink development policy in an area that some hope to retain as a buffer between suburban and rural Loudoun. First, they have said, their priority is to develop rules that would limit home building in bucolic western Loudoun.

By submitting concrete rezoning applications, which state law requires the county to consider within one year, developers appear to be forcing much quicker action -- with less chance for a long-winded policy debate -- on the future of an important portion of the county, where many would prefer less, rather than more, home building.

"They're asking for suburban development in an area not slated for suburban development," said Loudoun's planning director, Julie Pastor. "They're trying to get in and get the process going."

Opponents of the applications say the more than 21,000 new homes would overrun Loudoun's roads, schools and parks. They say the developers are seeking a free ride -- big profits from high-density developments -- without sharing the cost of the growth.

"It's the fleecing of Loudoun County," said Robert W. Lazaro Jr., a slow-growth advocate and spokesman for the Piedmont Environmental Council. "People might as well bring their families in their cars. That's the only time they're going to see them, because they're going to be stuck in so much traffic."

Packie Crown, a vice president of Vienna-based developer Greenvest, said it is important to remember that even if the Board of Supervisors approved the rezoning applications, years would go by before all the units would be built.

Greenvest submitted four of the seven applications, hoping to build more than 15,000 homes.

Crown also said her company's proposals would provide much of the infrastructure that opponents say developers should fund. The company is offering to build $200 million worth of roads, including an interchange at Routes 659 and 50; a 200-acre regional park that would include athletic fields and a running track; and six schools. The proposals also include affordable housing units and neighborhoods for older adults.

"Ours is a pretty different proposal," Crown said. "I would ask that people really take a hard and close look at our applications and not judge our applications based on information provided by other groups that have not had an opportunity to look."

It's hard to dispute that the seven developments, most of them clustered around Route 50 and Braddock Road, would forever change the county.

They would increase by more than half the number of homes across Loudoun -- now 37,000 -- approved and in the pipeline for construction.

They and several other developments in earlier planning stages for the same area would attract 77,000 residents, 16,000 of them school-age, a county analysis last year showed.

According to county studies, the developments would cost the county $268 million in new capital spending, mostly for schools. The growth would add 57,000 daily trips to the busiest stretch of Route 50, earning much of that road a failing grade for traffic flow, according to county criteria.

"I'm heartbroken," said Debbie Moore, a resident of rural Peach Orchard Lane, whose home on one acre would sit across the road from the 5,867 single-family homes, townhouses and apartments of a development called Greenfields.

Together, the seven proposals represent nearly twice as many homes as there are in South Riding and Brambleton, two large communities that have helped define the Dulles South area.

Developer to dress up Suitland with $800M center
joe Coombs
Staff Reporter

A decade-long dream for Kevin Sills may be very close to coming true, and it could wake up a sluggish area of Prince George's County with an $800 million development.

Sills, president of Oakton-based Mid-Atlantic Real Estate Investments, has been assembling land near the Suitland Metro station for the past 10 years. With one more nod from Prince George's County, he will bring 1,100 residential units and 1 million square feet of retail and office space to an area characterized by aging strip malls and decaying homes.

"We can't wait to get started," Sills says. "Every day I come over here, I'm ready to dig a hole and start working."

Before he can break ground, Sills needs final approval for a zoning change from the County Council (www.co.pg.md.us). When the council meets Jan. 10, it is expected to grant a mixed-use town center zoning classification for Mid-Atlantic's 22 acres, on both sides of Silver Hill Road where it intersects with Suitland Road.

Sills says he's talking with three national developers that would partner with him on the residential portion of Suitland Gateway. He would not identify them. An unidentified national real estate investment trust has been tapped to develop the office/retail property.

A New York-based insurance firm might finance the entire project at a cost of $700 million to $800 million, Sills says.

"If you look at the number of people moving to Washington in the next five years, we have to get creative in using our existing space," says Henry Turner, a member of the Greater Prince George's Business Roundtable (www.bizroundtable.org). "Suitland is an area that could use some revitalization, and this is a good way of going about it."

Also working in Sills' favor: The Census Bureau is expected to complete its new $340 million headquarters by the end of this year just a couple blocks from Mid-Atlantic's property. The Census buildings will put 1.5 million square feet and 2,200 employees next to the Suitland Metro station.

Employment at the neighboring Suitland Federal Center, which houses divisions of the National Archives and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, is expected to jump from 9,000 workers to 11,000 workers by 2010. That provides a huge market for restaurants and retailers, as well as potential tenants for Sills' residential component, which will include a mix of apartments and condominiums.

"We're going to have a lot of people working over here," Sills says. "That's why we need to start this project right now."

If Mid-Atlantic can get the necessary zoning changes, it will start work immediately on the residential complex. A series of strip malls would be demolished to make way for the new residential and commercial buildings. Sills says all tenants are on month-to-month leases and aware of his plans.

Sills says he's talking with a handful of restaurants and a pair of national drug stores about occupying part of the commercial space.

County officials have pushed for a large-scale redevelopment of Suitland in recent years. In a 96-page report that touts the benefits of mixed-use zoning for the area, they decry the "distressed conditions" in Suitland.

Prince George's County is becoming a hot spot for some of the region's largest mixed-use projects. Work continues on the $2 billion National Harbor development. And approvals are pending for a major town center in Landover and a $1.4 billion planned community outside Upper Marlboro.

Includes construction of new western entrance to the Ballston Metro station

ARLINGTON, Va. – At its regular meeting today, the Arlington County Board approved a site plan to build a high-rise residential building with ground floor retail on the Arlington Gateway site in Ballston. As part of the project, the developer will construct a substantial part of the new western entrance to the Ballston Metro station.

“Opening a western entrance to the Ballston Metro station is a long-standing goal for Arlington,” said Arlington County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman. “The new entrance will improve accessibility to the Metro for many residents, workers, and visitors.”

The mixed-use building, known as the Fairmont, will be a 23-story condominium building with 237 units with ground-floor retail. It is scheduled to open in January 2009 and will complete the Arlington Gateway site, development of which was begun in 2000. The condominium building will be an all-glass tower, the first all-glass residential building in the Ballston area.

New western entrance to the Ballston Metro station
Located above the Ballston Metro station, the condominium project is constructing a major part of the new Metro entrance as a community benefit. The new Metro entrance will be the westernmost entrance in the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor, making Metro more accessible to neighborhoods to the west of Ballston, particularly Bluemont.

The total contribution by the developer to the Metro entrance project is estimated at $11 million. This construction saves approximately $20 million on the total cost of the Metro station entrance, thanks to efficiencies in construction and timing.

Community process
The project was considered during a thorough public process that included numerous meetings and hearings, as well as discussions with owners of neighboring properties. Through this process, many improvements were made to the project to increase pedestrian safety, as well as to improve accessibility, traffic flow, management of truck traffic, and parking capacity.

Arlington Gateway
This building will complete the Arlington Gateway site, which consists of office buildings, residential buildings, retail, and the new Westin Hotel. This parcel is one of the last redevelopment sites in the high density district surrounding the Ballston Metro station, bordered by N. Quincy St., Fairfax Drive, Glebe Rd., and Wilson Blvd. Since 1978, this has been planned as one of the highest density areas in Arlington.

Recently, the Arlington Gateway was recognized by the Community Appearance Alliance of Northern Virginia, which gave the site a Community Appearance Award, recognizing the “modern, tasteful group of buildings that enhance the entire community.”


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Project at a Glance

Project:
Fairmont, 4420 Fairfax Drive, Arlington


Contact: 240.333.3740, fairmont@jbg.com
Developer:
The JBG Companies


Contact: 240.333.3740, fairmont@jbg.com
Architects:
Weihe Design Group


Contact: George Dove, 202.857.8300
Size:


244,000 gross square feet
237 condominium units
23 floors
7,088 square feet of ground-floor retail
Timetable:


Groundbreaking: July 2006
Estimated completion: January 2009 (30 months construction)
Community benefits:


JBG will construct a substantial portion of the new western entrance to the Ballston Metro station; estimated value $11 million.

###
Arlington, Va., is a world-class urban community that was originally part of the “10-mile square” parcel of land surveyed in 1791 to be the Nation's Capital. It is the geographically smallest self-governing county in the United States, occupying slightly less than 26 square miles. Known for its urban villages and transit-oriented development, Arlington maintains a rich variety of stable neighborhoods, quality schools and enlightened land use. In 2002, the county was the first recipient of the Environmental Protection Agency’s highest award for “Smart Growth.” Home to some of the most influential organizations in the world – including the Pentagon – Arlington stands out as one of America’s preeminent places to live, visit and do business.


The Official Date and Time of this Release is: 1/21/2006 4:31:15 PM

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/vscoggins/ballstonbuilding.jpg

Streetcar plan moves forward
Anacostia service could start in 2007
By Mike Rupert
Examiner Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, January 22, 2006 10:09 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page

A trolley passes by the U.S. Capitol building in Washington in 1961. Courtesy of National Capital Trolley Museum
It's been nearly 45 years since streetcars were heard rumbling through streets of the District. Now D.C. transportation officials say they will get them rolling again by early next year - and the project is moving to Capitol Hill.

D.C. Transportation Director Dan Tangherlini says plans for a nearly 3-mile line through Anacostia are on track, and the streetcars are expected to be in service by early 2007.

And Karina Ricks, coordinator of the Great Streets Project for the D.C. Department of Transportation, said the District is working to expand the project to Capitol Hill.


Ricks said the city is expected to request bids this summer to install tracks along H Street and Benning Road. The 3.5-mile stretch of road is already being completely rebuilt, and officials, with the support of neighborhood leaders, said they decided to go ahead and lay the tracks. The tracks would run from near Union Station to the Minnesota Avenue Metro station.

"It's a case of measuring twice and cutting once," Tangherlini said. "We didn't want to come back in two or three years and have to rebuild the road again."



Tangherlini said it could be another three to five years before streetcars are seen rolling through the area. He said the streetcars are "clean and quiet" and should fit nicely with the neighborhood's character.

Transportation officials said additional options for commuters were needed along the busy corridor. As many as 20,000 people use two Metrobus lines along the route each weekday, officials said. The H Street rail project is part of $50 million being spent on road improvements in the corridor as part of the city's Great Streets initiative, Ricks said. Construction is expected to begin this fall.

Streetcars Return



- The last streetcar ran in January 1962

- H Street plan calls for four lanes of traffic and two lanes for streetcars

- Neighborhood leaders hope project will ease traffic and parking problems

Streetcar plan moves forward
Anacostia service could start in 2007
By Mike Rupert
Examiner Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, January 22, 2006 10:09 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page

A trolley passes by the U.S. Capitol building in Washington in 1961. Courtesy of National Capital Trolley Museum
It's been nearly 45 years since streetcars were heard rumbling through streets of the District. Now D.C. transportation officials say they will get them rolling again by early next year - and the project is moving to Capitol Hill.

D.C. Transportation Director Dan Tangherlini says plans for a nearly 3-mile line through Anacostia are on track, and the streetcars are expected to be in service by early 2007.

And Karina Ricks, coordinator of the Great Streets Project for the D.C. Department of Transportation, said the District is working to expand the project to Capitol Hill.


Ricks said the city is expected to request bids this summer to install tracks along H Street and Benning Road. The 3.5-mile stretch of road is already being completely rebuilt, and officials, with the support of neighborhood leaders, said they decided to go ahead and lay the tracks. The tracks would run from near Union Station to the Minnesota Avenue Metro station.

"It's a case of measuring twice and cutting once," Tangherlini said. "We didn't want to come back in two or three years and have to rebuild the road again."



Tangherlini said it could be another three to five years before streetcars are seen rolling through the area. He said the streetcars are "clean and quiet" and should fit nicely with the neighborhood's character.

Transportation officials said additional options for commuters were needed along the busy corridor. As many as 20,000 people use two Metrobus lines along the route each weekday, officials said. The H Street rail project is part of $50 million being spent on road improvements in the corridor as part of the city's Great Streets initiative, Ricks said. Construction is expected to begin this fall.

Streetcars Return



- The last streetcar ran in January 1962

- H Street plan calls for four lanes of traffic and two lanes for streetcars

- Neighborhood leaders hope project will ease traffic and parking problems


this will make the whole arlington area revitalize! and plus it will be loads of fun to ride, maybe we will see it in futures films =) and make it an icon of nothern va

http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b236/vscoggins/ballstonbuilding.jpg

Nice building. :)

Yeah, transit wise, I think the area is going to be come very interesting, Gov. Kaine is raising the funding to 1 B a yr with a good portion going to northern va. I'm really interested in the DC streetcar too. It's going to help Anacostia, I just hope it's really tangible, which I think it will be, and the denser development in Arlington and Alexandria and eventually Tysons, Reston, and Springfield from the transit improvements are going to do so much.

And I like that building too, there are a couple more on the way, I think I will recap some of the arlington projects in a bit. This building in ballston has a metro stop underneath, it's going to be pretty much a brand new station, rebuilt when finished, that's why this building won't be done 'til '09, also there's a little building on this site that needs to be razed.

:deadthrea , I realize D.C. (being from there) is not a skyscraper city, and never will (in my life anyways), but I am gonna try and salvage this thread yet. :)

The following is a number of big (MD) projects. Enjoy.

Okay, okay :

National Harbor (http://www.nationalharbor.com)

NATIONAL HARBOR

Location : Oxon Hill-Fort Washington Area of Prince George's County

Use : Mixed Retail, Residential, and Office

Cost : 2 Billion USD (some serious dough)

Offers great views of Alexandria, and D.C.

Anchored by the Gaylord Hotel and Convention Center (classy joint :))

great part of PG's redevelopment :banana:

AND BEST OF ALL : NEON LIGHTED NATIONAL HARBOR SIGN ON PIER!!!

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/accent_home.jpg


http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/National-Harbor-Rendering.gif

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/nh_model1.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/nh_model2.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/01top13harbor.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/accent_tenantdir.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/PH2005072401180.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/nh_siteplan.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/directions_map.gif

MORE TO FOLLOW!!!

National Harbor is currently the project I'm following the most. Here is an article from the Examiner on PG's development.

PG Moving On Up (http://dcexaminer.com/articles/2006/01/22/news/maryland_news/03newsmd23development.txt)

Moving on up
Prince George's County striking it rich
By Karl B. Hille
Examiner Staff Writer
Published: Sunday, January 22, 2006 11:28 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page

A sold sign indicates that someone has already staked their claim to one of the high-end single-family homes at Fairwood in Glenn Dale, where developers have acquired pristine land with meadows and rolling hills from the Fairwood Turf Farm, located just minutes from the Beltway, off Route 50. Greg Whitesell/Examiner
Long neglected by the money-movers and decision-makers of the business world, Prince George's County is becoming the darling of developers throughout the region.

With a fast-growing population and more open land than almost any other jurisdiction in the Washington region, county government and business leaders are finally getting their due.

"It's just a huge amount of development that's going to go through," County Executive Jack Johnson told The Examiner. "Three years ago, we were the fifth-richest county in the state. Now we are No. 2. We've surpassed Anne Arundel and Baltimore as well as Howard County."


In part because developers overlooked the county for so long, it has become a more enticing place for businesses as other jurisdictions run out of large, empty parcels of land, said Arthur Turner, economic development chair for the Prince George's Chamber of Commerce.

"I think we are getting more of our fair share now," Turner said. "We still are looking for more commercial office development, particularly on property that abuts our Metro stations."


Construction on the National Harbor project is slowly beginning to take shape after 10 years of delays and lawsuits. The project is located in Oxon Hill, on the banks of the Potomac River at the base of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Photo by Greg Whitesell/Examiner
Until now, commercial development meant shopping centers such as Bowie Town Center and Boulevard at the Capital Centre, he said. Metro station developments have tended to focus on large, self-enclosed federal complexes such as the Internal Revenue Service facility in Landover and the Census Bureau in Suitland.

Serious commercial office developments "without wrought-iron fences" tend to bring more money to the local economy, he said.

The tide is turning.



With National Harbor - the "granddaddy of all our efforts" - already under construction, Johnson said more business interests are seriously considering the county as a place to locate.

When he took office in 2002, Johnson made it a priority to help such projects get moving. For a decade, National Harbor had been mired in lawsuits filed by neighboring civic groups unsure how the giant moving in next door would affect them.

In other situations, he found the decision-makers just didn't see Prince George's County as a place to spend money. They were too busy looking west - to Fairfax, Loudoun and Arlington.

"People spend money where they live. The people with the money tend to live west of 16th Street," Johnson said. "I think in the last five or six years, you saw a shift.

"It's a matter of opportunities and timing and a lot of other things. We have a lot of resources and land," he said.

The county's higher-than-average unemployment rate - 4.5 percent compared with the state's 4.1 percent average - actually helps, said Aris Melissaratos, Maryland's secretary of business and economic development. There are more people available to accommodate the growth in jobs, he said.

"Given its location and given the economic success that's all around it, I think Prince George's is poised to be the next growth engine among counties," Melissaratos said.

The numbers appear to bear out his assessment. In 2004, Prince George's County outstripped both Fairfax and Montgomery counties in commercial development space.

In another coup, Johnson lobbied the International Council of Shopping Centers on the merits of Prince George's County. He addressed audiences at the group's annual conferences in New York City and Las Vegas, and this year brought them home to visit: On Feb. 2, the council will hold an Alliance Program at the University of Maryland's College Park conference center.

Kwasi Holman, president of the Economic Development Corporation, said Johnson's efforts are changing the county's image among national retail institutions that are influenced by the shopping center group.

The Feb. 2 conference "is a way for the local community, local developers and the retailers to take a look at the progress that's being made in the county," Holman said.

2003-04 Commercial development in square feet

- Frederick County: 1.28 million

- Montgomery County: 2.97 million

- Prince George's County: 4.82 million

- Fairfax County: 4.8 million

- Loudoun County: 2.65 million

- Prince William County: 3.04 million

- Washington: 5.99 million

Source: Council of Governments

Estimated average household income

2004: $68,488

2009: $76,561

Source: Prince George's Economic Development Corporation

Population growth

The county's population is growing by an average of 1.33 percent each year.

n 2000: 801,515

n 2004: 850,384

n 2009 (projected): 908,563

Source: Prince George's Economic Development Corporation

Commercial centers under construction this year

National Harbor in Oxon Hill

- 4 million square feet of enclosed space

- 1,500 hotel rooms

- 275,000-square-foot convention center on the Potomac

Steeplechase 95 International Business Park in Forestville

- 1 million square feet of industrial development on 110 acres

- Restaurant and retail center

- Foreign Trade Zone designation pending

U.S. Census Bureau in Suitland

- 1.5 million square feet of office with parking incorporated, across from

- Suitland Metro Station

Woodmore Towne Centre in Landover

- 245 acre mixed-use development

- Shopping, residential, hotel and office space

Karington in Upper Marlboro

- 382 acres of housing, from apartments to single-family homes

- 300,000 square feet of shopping

- 700,000 square feet of office space

- 2 luxury hotels and a conference center

Konterra in Laurel

- 2,200 acres of mixed-use development

- Town center, regional mall, business campus and housing

Kwame Jackson, one-time Apprentice star, has (with his company Legacy Holdings) been attempting to jump start Rosewood City, a mixed use, new "fake" city. It would be centered around 8 million square feet of office, and tons of retail.

Legacy Holdings Press Release (http://legacyholdingsllc.com/press/)

I can't find many renderings, though.

I'm so happy that PG county has some good projects, that's what I try to explain to ppl, all people know about PG is crime, but it's a divided county in aspects and it's positives people don't really know. The CP-Hyattsville-Greenbelt area is really going to take off, they've got some nice projects too.

The natl. harbor will be fantastic, I wish it were closer to the city though, but who knows how it'll be when it is complete which is a good ways away.


They've also got some nice ideas about using the potomac more. Like the whitehurst freeway possibly coming down and revitalizing the g'town waterfront, along with water taxis and ferrys.

Also, they want to do more with east potomac park, maybe integrating it better with the mall, and possibly some bridges in the future.

Silver Spring also just had a 145ft tower approved.

Great Project, just approved back in '05.

Greenbelt Station (http://www.mncppc.org/pgco/planning/pdf/09-15-5/CSP-01008MAPS.pdf)

Greenbelt Station (http://www.mncppc.org/pgco/planning/pdf/09-15-5/CSP-01008A.pdf)

Greenbelt Station (http://www.greenbeltstation.com)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/gs18mr.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/gs23jc.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/gs46kj.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/gs52fx.jpg

The Stadium vote is this week, is it not?

Greenbelt Station is a fantastic project that also has decent access to the metro. Anytime people bash PG County, eventhough we know it's not doing so hot, it still has large projects coming there like this one and the natl. harbor and other countless housing developments. It's surely a very divided, somewhat misunderstood county. Greenbelt/Hyattsville/College Park is a corridor that is going to do well in the next ten yrs or so.

I believe the vote is this week, I mean as much as I know something will eventually work out, I've grown so god damn tired of the bullshit, I mean while the DC gov't in the past has been pretty shitty, this time they do take some blame, but then again a city that has other social issues to deal with, they weren't getting that great a deal. Something will work out.

Lots going on, indeed! :)

Washington city council rejects new stadium lease (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060208/sp_nm/stadium_dc)

I really hope DC is able to hang on to the team. What a disappointment it would be to see them leave. :( What would happen to the plans for a rebirth of the Anacostia region if there is no stadium there to spur redevelopment?

The Anacostia waterfront will be developed with, or without the baseball stadium. Well over $1.7 billion has been invested in SW development in the last decade alone. More is yet to come. This isn't merely proposed, it's happening now. If you get the chance, check-out JDland.com (http://www.jdland.com/dc). There, you will find some great pics of the waterfront area under development, along with what's to come, and what has already been built:

Before
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/2wk-35-3n-200308-1.jpg
Two years later:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/2wk-35-3n-200601-1.jpg

Florida Rock/100 Potomac Avenue
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/floridarock-overall7.jpg

Hull Street within the Navy Yard
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/hullo-00-200404-1.jpg

Department of Transportation under construction:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/hullm-45-0-200412-1.jpg

Looking North along New Jersey Avenue:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/newjerseyn-00-200405-02.jpg
Only 20 months later looking North along New Jersey Avenue:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/newjerseyn-05-4i-200601-1.jpg

More of what's yet to come:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/smwm-sefc-2.jpg

As you can see, the stadium represents a small portion of the development that's been going on here...

Yeah, but whatever, I'm so fucking pissed at what has happened with the stadium issue, this is, in a nutshell, what is, and has been wrong with the dc gov't for a long time. They need to get some of these relics and career politician types out of office. I'm confident that something positive will ultimately come out of this, but the dc council hasn't listened to the public, and has mislead the public and it's a shame to see those that have put so much effort and time in this stadium deal be put to waste. But yeah, other than that, there is a lot of development to be proud of in the city.

The SE waterfront is a goldmine and can really be made into something great, with the addition of retail, food, and residential units, it's gonna be great. There are also talks of putting an old ship like in b'more and a museum there too. But this stadium would have been something else.

And like it has been said, it's not directly taxpayer money, this is money that wouldn't have been there unless the stadium was built.

Yeah, but whatever, I'm so fucking pissed at what has happened with the stadium issue, this is, in a nutshell, what is, and has been wrong with the dc gov't for a long time. They need to get some of these relics and career politician types out of office. I'm confident that something positive will ultimately come out of this, but the dc council hasn't listened to the public, and has mislead the public and it's a shame to see those that have put so much effort and time in this stadium deal be put to waste. But yeah, other than that, there is a lot of development to be proud of in the city.

The SE waterfront is a goldmine and can really be made into something great, with the addition of retail, food, and residential units, it's gonna be great. There are also talks of putting an old ship like in b'more and a museum there too. But this stadium would have been something else.

And like it has been said, it's not directly taxpayer money, this is money that wouldn't have been there unless the stadium was built.
I think the council is playing bluff with MLB; the DC metro area is too large and wealthy for MLB to leave.

"Stadium lease for Nats gets OK"

Council reverses itself after agreeing on capping costs
By Jeff Barker
Sun Reporter
Originally published February 8, 2006
WASHINGTON // The D.C. Council last night rejected a stadium lease agreement that the mayor had negotiated with Major League Baseball, but then reversed its action in a marathon session in which it reached a consensus on capping costs.
After initially rejecting a lease in which the city would rent a stadium to the Washington Nationals, the council reversed course. It first approved a stadium cost cap and then endorsed a lease agreement in a 9-4 vote.




The final vote came after the council could not initially agree on a stadium cost cap that could have salvaged the lease by addressing many members' chief concern: cost overruns.


But then, at the urging of baseball proponents, the council took up the issue again. It debated past midnight before voting to approve a new measure that would cap costs.

The sponsors said that the new language would cap stadium costs at about $610 million.


Some members who had voted against the lease at first supported the new legislation. Among them was former mayor Marion Barry who said, "We have made a bad deal just a little bet better."


It remains to be seen whether baseball will approve the new cap.

"We'll see what it looks like and how it impacts our contract with them, and we'll comment on it tomorrow [today]," said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. "I cannot comment until I see it and see what impact if any it has on the contract they approved a year ago December. They have amended it repeatedly tonight so I am not really sure what it says."

Council member Jack Evans, a leading baseball advocate, said before the earlier lease rejection that baseball might have walked away if the council didn't approve the deal.


The former Montreal Expos began playing at timeworn RFK Stadium last year but planned to move in several years when a new stadium was constructed on the Anacostia River waterfront.

In a statement after the first vote, DuPuy said baseball would have proceeded with arbitration on the stadium deal.


Baseball had earlier suggested that arbitration could mean a worse deal for the District in terms of stadium costs - a scenario that could further splinter the relationship between the city and MLB.

Mayor Anthony A. Williams said after the initial vote: "The majority of the council took a shortsighted view in denying this lease."

The first vote came after Williams had submitted a spending cap in an effort to win council backing for the lease.

The mayor's proposal contained a maximum price to be paid to the firms that will construct the stadium. Council opponents said their consultant told them the mayor's plan didn't account for all contingencies, and that the city could still be liable for cost overruns. The council last year approved $535 million for the stadium and related expenses, but cost estimates have been increasing.

The mayor said yesterday that the council-hired consultant had a "shocking conflict of interest."

In a prepared statement, Williams said the consultant, Louis Cohen, had previously worked for the organization that led the effort to relocate the Expos to Virginia instead of the District of Columbia.

"How can the residents of the District of Columbia trust the advice of a lawyer when his previous work was on behalf of Northern Virginia?" Williams said.

At the meeting, council member David Catania said in reply that the consultant had indeed represented the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority. But, Catania said, "They informed us they don't represent them anymore."

Cohen's colleague, Peter C. B. Bynoe, denied Williams' charges in a written response to The Washington Post.

The mayor's "suggestion that Mr. Cohen, myself or our firm is in a conflict of interest is completely unfounded and untrue," Bynoe wrote.

The club is owned by baseball, which plans to sell it to private investors. But the sale has been postponed by the on-going financing debate.



jeff.barker@baltsun.com
The Associated Press contributed to this article.

------------------------------------

There you go! :)

Thank goodness. I knew they were playing around, but after this, how can you still want to play around. I mean, I haven't doubted whether or not dc was getting shafted in the deal in the beginning, in the beginning it was a deal heavily in favor of the mlb, it still is, but for christ sakes, make some progess. I'm glad that this worked out, I want to hurry up and see some of the plans for the stadium. Jack Evans has wanted a red stadium, but supposedly he didn't like the last plans, he said they looked like an office building. Nevertheless, it'll integrate some glass and probably highlight some architecture seen in some dc buildings. I always envisioned like a grand entry and some tall pillars and stuff, like a real monuement, but that's out there.

After reading Boswell's column last night, I couldn't feel any way but disgusted after the situation, but at least it's coming to an end.

The guy on Kornheiser yesterday called it. He said it wouldn't have enough votes until it did, and then it would 8 or 9, just because people didn't want to be the ones that were responsible for bringing baseball, and not be responsible for causing baseball to leave town.

Politics as ususal, anyone?

I'm not an expert on the way the council works, but I wasn't even aware of all these emergency legislation meetings and all this. It is pure politics, we're trying to get a good deal, which is better but still in their favor, but to stretch the process and nerves of people on both sides, I don't know how they do it.

Hey guys, will there be a metro stop at the new field? Plus if so, will it connect to Baltimore? The reason I'm asking is that I'm dreaming of a "subway" world series between Baltimore and DC. :D Wouldn't that be wild!? :D

BTW, it's good that Baltimore is getting a new tallest and lots of other great things are going up there, because DC is jammin'! I mean, with the Anacostia Waterfront, National Harbor, Greenbelt, etc....Wow! :uh: There will be SO MUCH MORE to do in both cities. :)

I'm not an expert on the way the council works, but I wasn't even aware of all these emergency legislation meetings and all this. It is pure politics, we're trying to get a good deal, which is better but still in their favor, but to stretch the process and nerves of people on both sides, I don't know how they do it.
It is politics at its worst: look at the cast of characters involved. Barry and his lawyer especially stand out like a sore thumb!

As for the placement of the stadium, I still think the Anacostia waterfront is a bad location. The stadium ought to be constructed elsewhere in the District. I don't understand why DC has this compulsion to think it needs to build the stadium to spur development along the waterfront. While the stadium in San Francisco works well by the Bay, I'm not convinced the DC stadium will work at all "by the river". I just have a feeling DC is squandering a unigue stretch of waterfront for what will end up being a rather ordinary and "blah" structure. Looking at the proposed alignment of South Capitol Street, the bridge over the river, stadium placement...it all looks so convoluted!

That's DC politics at it's finest!

The stadium will have the navy yard stop right there which is being overhauled for increased capacity of the stadium and the m st. corridor's growth of late.

I agree with eerik kinda. I think the location could be great, but I don't want a blah building over there. If it can be turned into half a wriglyville or fenway park area, I'd be extremely happen. Which can happen, they just need to get started converting the warehouses and providing the mixed uses. They use to have underground clubbin and that kind of thing down there, it'd be great if they could have some upscale entertainment along with some nightlife.

Basically, it's a good location, it's got the metro, close to I-95, not all the far from DT, ppl will want to live there, so we need to make it the best neighborhood we can.

There's a lot of construction in the District as most of you all know. But since it's low-rise, it's not that big a deal to forums like these, and there's a lot of them which kind of makes them all similar when they're all low rise. But nevertheless, the city is doing great, it's arguably the strongest and most resilient economy in the nation and ranked as the #1 national and international investment market among foreign investors (AFIRE) and the #2 retail investment market by Marcus & Millichap. I believe that #1 may be #2 now to London, but it's been 1 or 2 for the past 5 or 6 yrs. To most these mean nothing and no highrise is synonomous with nothing exciting going on. Anyway, enough with this boosting crap, here are some projects that are under construction. After this, I will try to get some that are either approved or proposed.

Department of Transportation HQ
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/dotr2.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/dotr.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/dot3_05.jpg
Capitol Visitor Center
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/vceastplaza.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/vcinside.jpg
Capitol Hill Towers
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/capitolhilltowersr.jpg
Freedom Forum and Newseum
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/newseumr.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/newseumr4.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/newseumr3.jpg
ATF HQ
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/gsafedbldgr.jpg
Capitol Hill Plaza
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/capitolplazar_04.jpg
Columbia Center
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/1152_15thstnwr_05.jpg
1101 New York Avenue
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/1101nyavenwr_04.jpg
Republic Square Phase 1
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/republicsqr2_04.jpg
Embassy Suites
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/embassysuitesr_04.jpg
E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/barrettcourthouse.jpg
The Columbia Residences of Washington, DC
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/columbiar_04.jpg
Kenyon Square/Victory Heights
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/kenyonsqr2_05.jpg
1601 K St.
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/1601kstnwr_04.jpg
Capitol Gallery Expansion
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/600mdaveswr_05.jpg
Harman Center for the Arts
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/shakespearetheaterr.jpg
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/620fstnwr_04.jpg
Highland Park
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/highlandparkr_05.jpg
Harbour Side-South Building
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/harboursidesouth2_04.jpg
Rialto At Logan Circle
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/jeffersonlcr_04.jpg
Atlantic Building
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/atlanticbldgr_04.jpg
1875 Pennsylvania Avenue
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/1875pennavenwr2_04.jpg
Jenkins Row
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/jenkinsrowr3_05.jpg
The Flats at Union Row
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/unionsqr_04.jpg
Sovereign at 2400 M St.
http://www.dcmarketingcenter.com/images/development/2400mstnwr.jpg

There's a ton more too. Lots more infill. There are some other very high profile and expensive projects too, but I can't find any good pics of them.

Also, there are a lot of renovations that are impressive that aren't included above, a lot of this information and pictures were found from the DC Marketing Center.

cool. :)

And they said that DC is a sleepy southern town, not anymore!

Yay! Glad the stadium lease deal got approved by the council. Hopefully MLB won't have any major problems with it. A summer night at the ballpark sounds like a great time to me. Hopefully I'll be able to do that in a beautiful new DC ballpark sometime in the future if I ever move there (DC's #2 on my list just behind Chicago for where I'd ultimately like to live). :)

http://www.davisconstruction.com/assets/ProjectPhotos/00000783.jpg

I thought this one was of the new GSA building off New York Avenue (not ATF headquarters). I drove by it on Thursday.

That's what the marketing center had on their site, it could be wrong. But I also thought GSA was moving to somewhere in SE, maybe where the hospital use to be. I know GSA is the gov't contractor for construction so to speak, are you sure it just wasn't their logo shown?

That's what the marketing center had on their site, it could be wrong. But I also thought GSA was moving to somewhere in SE, maybe where the hospital use to be. I know GSA is the gov't contractor for construction so to speak, are you sure it just wasn't their logo shown?
I think the building or project is called the GSA Federal Building, but it'll apparently house ATF headquarters. Call me confused.

Even if it is lowrise, it still looks good (for the most part anyway!)

yeah, some of it doesn't look all the great, but the a lot of projects are pretty expensive up in the 200 million plus range and large in the millions in office space, that goes for the renovations and proposed and planned projects as well.

I find it amazing how the ATF building is being plopped right there on NY Ave and Florida Ave.....just a few blocks east you have some of the most crime ridden areas of DC....that new metro stop certainly has spurred development on

The other day I met a couple who paid 400,000 for a rowhouse on the 1400 block of Neal Street (off West Virginia Ave near Gallaudet)....for those who don't know, that area is called Trinidad, and although it is improving, it still has the highest crime rate in the city!

Its getting crazy with real estate in this city

lovely renderings!!!!!!!!

when I get some time, I will post some of the cool renovation, proposed, and planned projects, those that I can find that is.

I love all those renderings!

There is so much going on in the metro area, it is impossible to keep up.

Glad to see this thread get some activity, especially with renderings.
The district has a serious crane situation.

Great site with info on Rosslyn: http://www.beyonddc.com/profiles/rosslyn.html

The New This Old House (http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/tvprograms/currenthp/0,16515,,00.html) is renovating a rowhouse in D.C.

As you know we have ALOT of project going on in the D.C. area but most residents seem to be in la la land when it comes to this kid of stuff and it's significance. In downtown Silver Spring there are over 20 residential projects. Here are a few Silver Spring projects for now.

My personal favorite

United Therapeutics Headquarters

United Therapeutics Corporation
1110 Spring Street
Silver Spring, MD 20910
(301) 608-9292
Attention: Paul Mahon, Esquire, Executive Vice President and General Counsel

Description:
United Therapeutics is a publicly held biotechnology company. They seek to expand their existing Silver Spring headquarters in order to consolidate a large component of their company and provide for future growth. The project will include both offices (148,598 sf) and laboratory space (48,434 sf). The property that is the subject of their applications includes two parcels on opposing corners of the intersection of Spring Street and Cameron Street within the Silver Spring Central Business District (CBD). (One of these parcels is currently a public surface parking lot.) The proposed project consists of two eight-story office buildings with ground floor retail (16,000 sf), public plazas and other landscaped public spaces. The two structures will be connected by a bridge over Cameron Street at the seventh floor level; the bridge will function as a private corridor for use by company employees only. The project includes minimal below grade parking; most employees and guests will park at the adjoining public parking garage #21.

Status

Under Construction

comments
A biotech company that is profitable and on the move. The building will be a LEED building with solar panels on the roof. There will be an elevated bridge in the shape of a double helix or "Silver Spring". The art piece will include cube seats that glow when people sit on them and plasma TVs for learning purposes outside.

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/unitedthumb.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/united2.jpg

National Harbor Touts Bookings

By Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 23, 2006; Page D04

Advance booking for rooms and convention facilities at Gaylord Hotels' $850 million National Harbor development in Prince George's County, which is scheduled to open in 2008, have surpassed pre-construction contracts signed at its other locations, the company said yesterday.

Large groups and conventions have reserved 547,000 room-nights at the hotel, which anchors the National Harbor development on the Potomac River. Viewed consecutively, all of those nights -- booked over the next several years -- translate to 9 1/2 months of business with the hotel filled to capacity. Because conventions are typically booked three to four years in advance and a financial commitment is required to hold a date, the company said it is confident the bookings will hold up. The news conference was arranged by county officials, who said the bookings proved those who had doubted the project wrong.


Gaylord Entertainment chief executive Colin Reed talks to Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson, right, and council member Tony Knotts. (By Mark Gail -- The Washington Post)

The interest in Gaylord National, as the Prince George's hotel is known, has prompted the company to expand its plans for the hotel, increasing the number of rooms by 500, to a total of 2,000, and making it one of the largest on the East Coast. The company and county officials jointly announced a funding plan to pay for the additional rooms and boost the amount of meeting space by 30,000 square feet to 450,000 square feet. The hotel will also include three restaurants, a nightclub, salon, biking path and marina.

"When we selected this location, an executive at a large hotel chain said that he did not think this was a good location. I disagreed," said Colin Reed, chief executive of Gaylord Entertainment Co., which is based in Nashville. "Now, that hotel chain and three other hotel chains want to build around our hotel."

Prince George's politicians relished the progress report. Even though county officials have for years prodded national retailers and restaurateurs to locate there, Prince George's still lacks the upscale department stores and fine dining found in other local jurisdictions.

National Harbor, headed by Milton Peterson of the Peterson Cos., is the largest development in the history of the county. Along with Gaylord National, plans call for retail properties, restaurants, residential space and other hotels.

County Executive Jack B. Johnson called Gaylord's expansion a sign of National Harbor's success and "a dream come true." The harbor project had been planned for decades but changing developers, lawsuits filed by residents, lack of financing and difficulty wooing tenants kept it grounded.

"Five years ago, no one could have dreamed that these things would have come to fruition," Johnson said.

Prince George's County council member Tony Knotts (D-Temple Hills) described the expansion as a seminal event. "This is independence day. Prince George's has an opportunity to separate itself and cut the umbilical cord from the District of Columbia."

Mary Jo McCulloch, president of the Maryland Hotel & Lodging Association in Annapolis, said she was impressed with Gaylord's half a million pre-bookings. She expects Gaylord National to both compete with and complement the District's hotels and convention center.

"What has happened in Washington, D.C., in recent years is that a lot of the larger [hotel] properties have gone condominium, so they don't have the room nights available to accommodate large conventions," she said. "They have the meeting space but not the bedroom space. All of that became very clear to Gaylord."

Johnson said that later this month he will ask the county council to approve $50 million in bonds to fund the expansion. County council members, who have already given Gaylord $100 million, are reviewing that tax incentive package.

Reed also said Gaylord will give Prince George's Community College $1 million to start a hospitality institute on its campus. The company plans to hire 2,200 employees when the property opens.

National Harbor hotel expands
Johnson seeks $50M more for Pr. George's site

By Jonathan Marino
Examiner Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2006 8:26 PM EST
E-mail this story | Print this page

Prince George's County Executive Jack Johnson is proposing that the county borrow $50 million to expand construction at National Harbor, the Potomac shore development that plays a key role in his plans to boost the county's economy.

Johnson made the announcement with executives of Gaylord Entertainment after the company pledged to add 500 rooms to the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, the 18-story centerpiece of National Harbor and the largest such East Coast facility north of Orlando, Fla.

"Fifteen hundred rooms are not enough," Johnson said Wednesday, explaining his desire to secure the bonds. The money would complement an additional $140 million Gaylord is investing for the expansion.

The County Council would have to approve issuance of the bonds. Johnson, along with Council Member Tony Knotts, D-District 8, stopped short of saying he had enough legislative support to pass the measure, or that he even had spoken with each elected official about the move.

"It might not go through the way we propose," Johnson said.

"Due diligence" would be given to the legislation, said Knotts.

Proponents say the borrowing will ultimately add wealth to the county.

Gaylord Entertainment chair and chief executive Colin Reed, who joined Johnson and Knotts in urging the council to pass the bond extension, predicted an economic boom for the county with National Harbor's construction and completion.

"This expansion will mean more construction jobs," Reed said. "A lot more visitors will be looking to spend more money in Prince George's County."

Though the hotel is not scheduled to open until 2008, Reed said it already had more than a 500,000 "room nights" booked in advance - at least five times greater than early bookings made for Gaylord's Texas and Florida entertainment complexes.

"We are seeing very high demand for Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center from meeting planners," he said.

On Wall Street, shares of Gaylord stock jumped more than $1 at about the time of the announcement.

Pr. George's Benefits

- It is predicted that taxes generated by National Harbor will approach $500 million over a 30-year period.

- The expansion financed by the bonds would generate 200 additional jobs.

jmarino@dcexaminer.com

Ehrlich wants fast work on Metro line to BWI

By DAVID ABRAMS Staff Writer

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said yesterday that if re-elected he'll work to get a Metro extension to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport completed in "less than 10 years" - twice as fast as the most optimistic previous estimates.

"I don't think it should take two decades," he said in an interview yesterday. "That would be intolerable."

Earlier at the Governor's Mansion, he talked over lunch with about 40 county business leaders about another project that he got on the fast track: the Intercounty Connector, a road project linking Gaithersburg in Montgomery County with I-95 near Laurel.

Just after taking office, Mr. Ehrlich had a chance to chat with President Bush about speeding up the $2 billion-plus project.

The newly-elected Republican governor was hesitant to answer truthfully when the president asked him how things were going.

"I told the president we need to get this done," the governor told the delighted crowd. "People have been lied to for more than 30 years."

Mr. Ehrlich, a former Republican congressman who's a disciple of former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, got a call from U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta soon after his talk with the president, informing him that the ICC would be placed on the fast track for federal funding.

The project is now slated for groundbreaking by the end of this year.

The example wasn't lost on the business people in attendance, who thanked the governor for including $1 million in his budget to study a Metro line extension from Greenbelt to Laurel, Odenton, Fort George G. Meade and the airport. The project cost is estimated at $2.5 billion.

"We need to expand on all the building blocks that are bringing home just gold," County Executive Janet S. Owens told the governor.

She sat at the head table with the governor and officials from the National Security Agency and the BWI Business Partnership.

Expansion around Fort Meade is expected to bring between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs over the next decade.

Col. Kenneth O. McCreedy, the installation's commander, said other plans need to move forward in addition to Metro.

"Metro, too far out," he said. "But the discussions about MARC are tremendously important."

The work at the Odenton MARC station is crucial to west county leaders.

Construction is under way to add more than 400 parking spaces there, but even after the expansion there will only be 1,985 spaces. Last year, 2,047 passengers used the station, and that number is expected to grow.

There is $3.1 million in the governor's budget to finish the parking lot by next year, but only $426,000 over the next two years to study adding another 2,500 to 3,500 spaces.

Meanwhile, business leaders, including developer Mitchell Weber, president of the Baltimore-based Heffner & Weber, said it's crucial to keep improving access to the airport if it wants to be competitive with Dulles International Airport in Virginia, which is further along in building a subway line connecting it to downtown Washington.

"If we rest on our laurels, we're going to have our lunch eaten," said Tim Campbell, executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration, which runs BWI.

Mr. Weber and Sen. Ed DeGrange, D-Glen Burnie, first pitched the idea of extending the Green Line to the airport in a meeting with the governor a year ago.

Mr. DeGrange said he'll push the governor to expand the Metro line even farther.

"He's only looking at going to BWI, but it needs to go all the way to Baltimore to link the cities together," Mr. DeGrange said.

- No Jumps-

Published February 23, 2006, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
Copyright © 2006 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.

1200 East-West Highway

Goodman East-West I, LLC
1220- 19th Street, N.W., Suite 500
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 331-7170
Attention: Stuart Jones

Description:
This application seeks to redevelop CBD-2 property at 1200 and 1212 East-West Highway in the South Silver Spring Overlay District. A 14-story, mixed-use building is proposed under the Optional Method of Development, including 247 dwelling units and approximately 10,600 square feet of retail space. A significant amount of on-site parking (at least 220 spaces) will be provided in an underground garage; the balance of the parking requirement will be satisfied through payment of the parking district tax.

Status

Approved

Opportunities for Public Participation:
The Planning Board conducted public hearings on the preliminary plan, project plan and site plan.

Planning Board Review Process & Case Number(s):
Site Plan #8-06014

Planning Board Action:
Preliminary Plan #1-05084 and and Project Plan #9-05004 were approved on June 30, 2005. The Planning Board approved the site plan on January 26, 2006.

comments
The best of the high rise projects so far.

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/1200eastwest2.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/1200eastwest3.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/1200eastwest1.jpg

What are the chances of DC and Baltimore being linked by metro in the next 20 years?

What are the chances of DC and Baltimore being linked by metro in the next 20 years?

This should have been done years ago but common sense does not bestow our politicians. And to your question 20 years if the ICC is built.

The Crescent Condos

930 Wayne Avenue LLC, c/o the Patriot Group
1003 K street NW, suite 207
Washington D.C. 20001

Description:
Construction has begun on this proposed project which is located on the south side of Wayne Avenue between Georgia Avenue and Fenton Street, across from the Downtown Silver Spring project. The project will include 143 dwelling units and 2300 square feet of retail space in a 14-story building. 140 below grade parking spaces are also proposed on site. The site backs up to an abandoned multifamily building on Bonifant Street that is currently owned by Montgomery County.

Status

Under Construction

Opportunities for Public Participation:
The Planning Board has concluded its regulatory reviews.


Planning Board Review Process & Case Number:
Project Plan: #9-04005; Site Plan #8-05004

Planning Board Action:
The Project Plan was approved by the Planning Board on April 29, 2004. The Site Plan was approved on October 28, 2004.

Notes from M-NCPPC Staff:
The proposed Silver Spring library relocation may occur on the lots located between this site and Fenton Street.

comments
The high rise condo in Silver Spring. Right across from the new downtown project and Discovery. Great Location, average architecture.

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/930wayne2.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/930wayne.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/930wayne3.jpg

Gramax Building Renovation

Description:
The Gramax Heliport building at 8060 - 13th Street was an active office building during the 1960s; however, it was an abandoned eyesore during the 1990s. RST Development has converted it into a modern apartment building with 180 units (efficiencies, one and two-bedroom units). Various financial incentives (e.g. $7.2 million in State tax credits, tax-exempt bond financing underwritten by the housing Opportunities Commission, etc) have made it possible for 70% of the apartments to be priced as affordable housing for qualified applicants.

Status

Completed

Applicant:
RST Development, Mr. Scott Copeland, (301) 816-4243

Opportunities for Public Participation:
N/A

Planning Board Review Process & Case Number:
N/A


Notes From M-NCPPC Staff Contact:
This project involved the renovation of an existing building and was therefore able to obtain the necessary building permits without the reviews required for new construction.

comments


http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/gramax2.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/gramax1.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/gramax3.jpg

http://www.mc-mncppc.org/silverspring/Images/gramax4.jpg

I'm really looking forward to NY Ave expanding, along with the ATF building, there are numerous towers going up in that area, it's really going to take off with the metro and union station nearby along with 95, it'll expand the downtown even further up. The area NE on NY Ave. has a ton of deveopment potential.

http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/stadium-ne.jpg

http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/stadium-nw.jpg

http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/stadium-se.jpg

http://www.jdland.com/dc/images/stadium-sw.jpg

Other than tha parking garage, I'm pretty satisfied with it. I wish it would have been less boxy though, but still looks good. I want to see more renderings.

Senate Bill 373 that allows for transfer of development rights has been passed in the VA State Legislature. This ought to be great for Northern Virginia areas of Loudoun and Fauquier County. It'll be in effect starting July 1st. This is a major step in the right direction planning wise for the state. Maryland passed this a while ago.

Does anyone have any comments about the projects currently under construction?

Ehrlich wants fast work on Metro line to BWI

By DAVID ABRAMS Staff Writer

Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said yesterday that if re-elected he'll work to get a Metro extension to BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport completed in "less than 10 years" - twice as fast as the most optimistic previous estimates.

"I don't think it should take two decades," he said in an interview yesterday. "That would be intolerable."

Earlier at the Governor's Mansion, he talked over lunch with about 40 county business leaders about another project that he got on the fast track: the Intercounty Connector, a road project linking Gaithersburg in Montgomery County with I-95 near Laurel.

Just after taking office, Mr. Ehrlich had a chance to chat with President Bush about speeding up the $2 billion-plus project.

The newly-elected Republican governor was hesitant to answer truthfully when the president asked him how things were going.

"I told the president we need to get this done," the governor told the delighted crowd. "People have been lied to for more than 30 years."

Mr. Ehrlich, a former Republican congressman who's a disciple of former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, got a call from U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta soon after his talk with the president, informing him that the ICC would be placed on the fast track for federal funding.

The project is now slated for groundbreaking by the end of this year.

The example wasn't lost on the business people in attendance, who thanked the governor for including $1 million in his budget to study a Metro line extension from Greenbelt to Laurel, Odenton, Fort George G. Meade and the airport. The project cost is estimated at $2.5 billion.

"We need to expand on all the building blocks that are bringing home just gold," County Executive Janet S. Owens told the governor.

She sat at the head table with the governor and officials from the National Security Agency and the BWI Business Partnership.

Expansion around Fort Meade is expected to bring between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs over the next decade.

Col. Kenneth O. McCreedy, the installation's commander, said other plans need to move forward in addition to Metro.

"Metro, too far out," he said. "But the discussions about MARC are tremendously important."

The work at the Odenton MARC station is crucial to west county leaders.

Construction is under way to add more than 400 parking spaces there, but even after the expansion there will only be 1,985 spaces. Last year, 2,047 passengers used the station, and that number is expected to grow.

There is $3.1 million in the governor's budget to finish the parking lot by next year, but only $426,000 over the next two years to study adding another 2,500 to 3,500 spaces.

Meanwhile, business leaders, including developer Mitchell Weber, president of the Baltimore-based Heffner & Weber, said it's crucial to keep improving access to the airport if it wants to be competitive with Dulles International Airport in Virginia, which is further along in building a subway line connecting it to downtown Washington.

"If we rest on our laurels, we're going to have our lunch eaten," said Tim Campbell, executive director of the Maryland Aviation Administration, which runs BWI.

Mr. Weber and Sen. Ed DeGrange, D-Glen Burnie, first pitched the idea of extending the Green Line to the airport in a meeting with the governor a year ago.

Mr. DeGrange said he'll push the governor to expand the Metro line even farther.

"He's only looking at going to BWI, but it needs to go all the way to Baltimore to link the cities together," Mr. DeGrange said.

- No Jumps-

Published February 23, 2006, The Capital, Annapolis, Md.
Copyright © 2006 The Capital, Annapolis, Md.

Ehrlich wants to extend the Washington Metro to BWI, yet he's doing nothing to expand Baltimore's Metro. Can you believe that? It's as if he's ignoring Baltimore and trying to focus Maryland as a big suburb of DC. I really hope this guy doesn't get reelected.

Ehrlich wants to extend the Washington Metro to BWI, yet he's doing nothing to expand Baltimore's Metro. Can you believe that? It's as if he's ignoring Baltimore and trying to focus Maryland as a big suburb of DC. I really hope this guy doesn't get reelected.
^^ Especially considering the fact that DC Metro extensions of this sort are just pandering to suburban dwellers, while much of Baltimore is underserved by transit. :bash:

Someday hopefully both lines will extend that far or at least close.

Aside from the political campaign, it's a matter of priorities. While traffic congestion exists in the Baltimore area, it pales in comparison to Washington. State funding is like triage: you tend to the bigger problem first. The Maryland suburbs of Washington are growing faster than the Baltimore area, so they get the bulk of funds.

Currently, the only rallying cry in Baltimore for subway construction is coming from a small interest group. The vast majority of Baltimore area residents are not interested in using mass transit, or funding it. Using the MTA bus system as an example, routes are continually being consolidated with others, or eliminated entirely. Baltimore's fare-box revenue is extremely low compared to similar sized cities, a sure sign of both a lack of interest and on a larger platform...need.

In Baltimore, those who do rely on mass transit generally do so for financial reasons: be it they don't own a car, can't afford auto insurance, etc. It is perceived as a "poor man's" means of transportation (read: minority), and a large percentage intentionally avoid using it. A small percentage like myself, use mass transit not because we're poor...but only when we see it as a better alternative to the car.

In larger metropolitan areas where diverse mass transit is justified by need, passengers rely on bus and subway service since it's convenient. To drive would mean a longer commute. In addition, associated fees such as high parking costs prohibit the justification of using the car.

For Baltimore to get funding for expanded mass transit in the form of rail, three things must happen first:

1) traffic and congestion increase, resulting in an increase in mass transit ridership;
2) residents complain and threaten to act via the political process; and
3) government steps in to fund and construct system

In the Baltimore area, as long as the public prefers, and via elected officials continue to maintain a car-centric agenda, whereby approving construction of new highways, widening of existing roads, as well as a policy of granting autos prime dominance in the Baltimore City, all we are doing is delaying the funding and construction of a system.

So, in regards to the article, by David Abrams, I can't blame Ehrlich of any wrong doing. He is simply responding to the voter. That's what politicians do. The traffic and congestion in the DC area is so bad, that residents are threatening to act via the political process if new transportation solutions aren't found. If anything, I give Ehrlich credit for killing two birds with one stone...recognizing BWI is a large economic revenue generator for Maryland and acknowledging the pro-transit voters. He is protecting State investment in the airport while creating an opportunity to link the Washington Metro with the Baltimore Light Rail system.

PS-less parking lots and garages in Baltimore City. The next time a company cites lack of adequate parking as a reason to leave the Central Business District...let them. The cost of moving an organization, everything from the actual cost of moving trucks, building out new space, lost opportunity costs, to the dollars and cents associated with changing addresses on stationary all adds up. Afterall, if parking were a deterrent, all the companies you find in cities like New York or Chicago would be located in places like Topeka or Billings.

MetroWest Development Is Approved In Fairfax

By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; Page A01

Fairfax County agreed last night to let a developer replace a neighborhood of 65 single-family homes at the Vienna Metro station with a massive complex of mid- and high-rise towers that could transform the way people live, commute and work in Washington's largest suburb.

The Board of Supervisors' approval of Pulte Homes' MetroWest project, after three hours of public comment, ended a contentious three-year debate over how the county should find homes for its ever-growing population.

Instead of sprawling cul-de-sacs, MetroWest will cluster offices, stores and 2,250 townhouses, condominiums and apartments south of the Vienna Station, making the project the centerpiece of an effort to concentrate development in dense, urban settings.

It's a vision that's sweeping land-use decisions from Largo to Tysons Corner, where planners and politicians -- to the chagrin of many neighbors -- are accommodating the region's demand for housing with densely packed homes on slivers of land near public transit with the goal of coaxing people from their cars.

MetroWest's many critics have argued that the mini-city will bring too many cars to the congested roads off Interstate 66 and too many riders to the crowded Orange Line. But county leaders said the cluster of 13 buildings on 56 acres will concentrate growth in the only space left in Fairfax, the Metro station's back yard.

The buildings closest to the station will feature retail stores on the ground level, with condominiums, apartments and offices above, tapering to townhouses farther from the station. The complex will be linked by narrow streets designed for pedestrians.

"We've seen people who think this [project] represents runaway growth," said Linda Q. Smyth (D-Providence), whose district includes the site. "In fact, it is just the opposite. This is growth that has been constrained. There is not density creep here."

Smyth criticized what she called a "politicization of the land-use process" during the debate on the project.

The vote late last night was 8 to 1, with Supervisor Michael R. Frey (R-Sully) opposing. Supervisor Gerald W. Hyland (D-Mount Vernon) was absent.

Frey said he could not support the project because too many MetroWest residents will compete with his constituents for space on the county's roads.

"We seem to act as if the people who don't use transit will disappear when they get off the site," he said. "They won't. The people I represent today can't find a parking space at the Metro."

The planning commission backed the project, which will be one of the county's densest developments, earlier this month.

The rest at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032701624.html

Thanks for explaining Eerik, I didn't realize that.

Interesting that Erhlich is suddenly interested in transit as we approach the election. Wish he had this interest throughout his term. He could have gotten something done.

...political pay-off time! It's amazing to see how much money is being tossed around right now. Between fast tracking the ICC, endorsement of the State Center in Baltimore along with the bio-tech park at Hopkins Hospital, the state may pretty well soon find itself bankrupt.

Does anyone have any comments about the projects currently under construction?
The highrise being built near the Barnes & Noble on Rockville Pike is surprisingly tall.

The highrise being built near the Barnes & Noble on Rockville Pike is surprisingly tall.

Midtown Bethesda North (http://www.midtownbethesda.com)

According to Emporis its 211 Feet and 19 stories. Pretty tall for that area but there are taller immediately surrounding it. I wonder how they got the 211 ft when the limit is 200ft. I guess an amendment.

This thread isn't doing much lately so here are some construction pictures of Midtown Reston I took on the 1st.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/01reston04.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/05reston104.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/16reston104.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/05reston104.jpg

While I personally abhor the suburbs, the amount of construction taking place along the Dulles Toll Road, and in Reston, is amazing. When will it end?

Just a few years ago I remember driving out to the airport and thinking the market was being overbuilt. Cranes and construction everywhere. Albeit the economy at one point did stutter, but once again, construction is in full swing.

The only difference is this time around, developers seem to have run out of room. A significant portion of new construction includes building upon wooded lots. A couple of examples include the acreage across from WorldGate, next to the Booz | Allen | Hamilton building, and below the Reston International Center. In areas developers already control, building densities have increased significantly. Even in other Washington sub-markets like Bethesda, Annapolis and Baltimore, projects are pushing the density envelope.

Very nice towers being built there. :)

While I personally abhor the suburbs, the amount of construction taking place along the Dulles Toll Road, and in Reston, is amazing. When will it end?

Just a few years ago I remember driving out to the airport and thinking the market was being overbuilt. Cranes and construction everywhere. Albeit the economy at one point did stutter, but once again, construction is in full swing.

The only difference is this time around, developers seem to have run out of room. A significant portion of new construction includes building upon wooded lots. A couple of examples include the acreage across from WorldGate, next to the Booz | Allen | Hamilton building, and below the Reston International Center. In areas developers already control, building densities have increased significantly. Even in other Washington sub-markets like Bethesda, Annapolis and Baltimore, projects are pushing the density envelope.

I don't know about VA but tell me where in Maryland D.C. metro you will find anything recently built taller than 200 feet besides the Chevy Chase Bank towers. I don't see the developers "pushing the density envelope" because of the silly height limits implemented by the planning board and county council.

I don't know about VA but tell me where in Maryland D.C. metro you will find anything recently built taller than 200 feet besides the Chevy Chase Bank towers. I don't see the developers "pushing the density envelope" because of the silly height limits implemented by the planning board and county council.
pushing the density envelope = smart growth

Just about every project in the region is being built with context in mind. The corporate office park or apartment complex surrounded by a sea of parking is considered passé. Whereas a mere five to ten years ago, developers and architects were still designing with the auto as king. Today, an increasing number of developments place emphasis on the pedestrian. While the auto is still king, there is a propensity for projects today to not only address the automobile, but the pedestrian as well; projects are being better integrated with mix-use and mass transit.

While suburban Washington may not be sprouting high rise towers on every corner, the quality, and density is much higher than a few years ago. Nodes like Silver Spring, Reston, Shirlington, and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor are all great examples.

pushing the density envelope = smart growth

Just about every project in the region is being built with context in mind. The corporate office park or apartment complex surrounded by a sea of parking is considered passé. Whereas a mere five to ten years ago, developers and architects were still designing with the auto as king. Today, an increasing number of developments place emphasis on the pedestrian. While the auto is still king, there is a propensity for projects today to not only address the automobile, but the pedestrian as well; projects are being better integrated with mix-use and mass transit.

While suburban Washington may not be sprouting high rise towers on every corner, the quality, and density is much higher than a few years ago. Nodes like Silver Spring, Reston, Shirlington, and the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor are all great examples.


Please don't take this an offense but people seem to forget that Silver Spring was dense decades before "smart growth" most of the highrise buildings you see today were built in the 60's,70's,very early 90's and the tallest during the 80's. The planning never included paved parking infront of building entrances, the grid was setup like an urban area in Silver Spring. Silver Spring and Bethesda may just be in the minority as the other places you mentioned are relatively new. That is why I don't buy the whole "developers are pushing the envelope of density argument" because it was done before so what happened? Why did they stop? I guess office parks were more appealing but still this whole smart growth thing is nothing revolutionary. The density was all happening in the "suburbs" of D.C. with even greater heights back then.

D.C. looks to outmaneuver feds in Walter Reed race

By Sean Madigan
Washington Business Journal
Updated: 8:00 p.m. ET April 9, 2006


As District officials scramble to figure how to snatch even a sliver of the soon-to-be-vacant Walter Reed Army Medical Center site, their best bargaining chip could already be in their pocket.

"It's the Army's job to maximize the value of the site," says David Toland, a top aide in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. "Cash talks."

And cash may be what differentiates D.C.'s plan from those of its competitors for the site.

Both the General Services Administration and the State Department, the favorites in the quest for Walter Reed's precious 113 acres, have asked the Army for waivers so they don't have to pay fair market value for the land. D.C., on the other hand, has paid in the past for federal land that was no longer needed.

Still, the chance for local officials to grab a piece of D.C.'s biggest redevelopment opportunity looks like a long shot.

The only guaranteed winners in the process, as the old Army hospital gives way to millions of square feet of new development, will be developers. The city will only win if whatever replaces the hospital -- set to close in 2011 -- offers some opportunity for economic spinoff in the surrounding neighborhood.

Next month, the Army will decide who gets the land.

And all the cash that follows.

'Life after Walter Reed'

Whichever move the Army makes will mean millions of square feet in development, but the May 9 decision will greatly affect just what gets built: The site will either become a new highly secure federal enclave or be transformed from a long-isolated federal post into mixed-used housing and retail community.

"We all know we have to move forward to plan for life after Walter Reed," Mayor Tony Williams said late last month during a press conference to announce the establishment of a redevelopment authority committee for the campus.

The Defense Department says the city needs the committee to weigh in on the disposition. But just how much weight the city will have is unclear. After all, the State Department and GSA are hardly underdogs in this kind of competition.

Face it, D.C. -- the feds get first dibs.

District officials have until April 7 to respond to the federal agencies' requests for the property. What D.C. leaders will say, of course, is they want to work together with the feds. If they can't have the entire 113-acre site -- and they realize that is a very real probability -- then they would at least like to negotiate for a slice of it.

But how much?

"It's really hard to tell because it is a negotiation," says Ellen McCarthy, the city's planning director.

At the very least, the city would like to see some space along the campus perimeter used for mixed-use development.

At the moment, however, everything seems to be spoken for.

Space race

During the next 10 years, GSA estimates it will need about 9 million square feet of highly secure space in the Washington area. Walter Reed could house about a third of the requirement.

The agency figures it could develop an additional 4.5 million square feet on the St. Elizabeths west campus overlooking the Anacostia River, where it is planning a headquarters for the Coast Guard.

Many federal tenants, such as the Department of Homeland Security and FBI, require up to 50-foot setbacks at new buildings for security reasons -- which can't be accommodated in many places throughout the city.

The GSA has asked the Army for 34 acres on the north side of the Walter Reed campus, including the fortress-like hospital. A spokesman says the site would likely be redeveloped into about 3 million square feet of office space.

However, McCarthy says that if the zoning restrictions were changed, the same site might be able to accommodate up to 12 million square feet.

The State Department has asked for up to 80 acres along the south half of the campus, which it would use for embassy and consulate uses. A State Department spokesman said he could not immediately provide information about the department's request.

But McCarthy says the department originally asked for 17 to 20 acres. Given the difference, she says, "I would think there would be some flexibility, some room to negotiate."

Meanwhile, Williams is continuing to go through the motions on the city's behalf.

He has asked the National Capital Planning Commission to evaluate GSA's space needs around Washington and see if there is room for secure office space at other Pentagon-controlled sites nearby, such as Bolling Air Force Base.

It doesn't look promising that the planning commission will come up with many such sites, or at least sites as attractive as Walter Reed.

Says developer Chip Akridge, chairman of D.C. real estate firm Akridge: "We don't have the land mass to put that kind of space together downtown."

Senior Editor Douglas Fruehling contributed to this story.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12248890/

Please don't take this an offense but people seem to forget that Silver Spring was dense decades before "smart growth" most of the highrise buildings you see today were built in the 60's,70's,very early 90's and the tallest during the 80's. The planning never included paved parking infront of building entrances, the grid was setup like an urban area in Silver Spring. Silver Spring and Bethesda may just be in the minority as the other places you mentioned are relatively new. That is why I don't buy the whole "developers are pushing the envelope of density argument" because it was done before so what happened? Why did they stop? I guess office parks were more appealing but still this whole smart growth thing is nothing revolutionary. The density was all happening in the "suburbs" of D.C. with even greater heights back then.
A collection of a half dozen mid-rise office buildings at a junction of a couple of roads doesn't make an area urban. Unfortunately Silver Spring, like many ex-suburban crossroads have been declining area for decades. While some of the new construction in the late 70s and 80s helped sustain the area as a business center, for the most part, it was a wasteland. Frist, things really started to change when the Washington Metro opened, followed by NOAA and other large scale development. The most recent influx of retail and residential has definitely helped.

While I agree the notion of "smart growth" is nothing new, it is revolutionary since the concept has suddenly become so popular, all over the US. Sustainable communities is no longer just talked about by some old Hippies in Takoma Park. I think the offspring of the Baby-boomers became bored with the suburbs; they, along with some of their parents, are finding the term "urban" as exciting.

What I find so compelling is that in the age of globalization, people seem to be finding comfort in the concept of neighborhoods. It really is a contradiction of sorts.

A collection of a half dozen mid-rise office buildings at a junction of a couple of roads doesn't make an area urban. Unfortunately Silver Spring, like many ex-suburban crossroads have been declining area for decades. While some of the new construction in the late 70s and 80s helped sustain the area as a business center, for the most part, it was a wasteland. Frist, things really started to change when the Washington Metro opened, followed by NOAA and other large scale development. The most recent influx of retail and residential has definitely helped.

While I agree the notion of "smart growth" is nothing new, it is revolutionary since the concept has suddenly become so popular, all over the US. Sustainable communities is no longer just talked about by some old Hippies in Takoma Park. I think the offspring of the Baby-boomers became bored with the suburbs; they, along with some of their parents, are finding the term "urban" as exciting.

What I find so compelling is that in the age of globalization, people seem to be finding comfort in the concept of neighborhoods. It really is a contradiction of sorts.

More like 34+ buildings... Just out of curiosity what is your definition of urban?

Metro opened like 1978, that was a while ago. I'd say the street cars and the B&O railroad back way back when is what sparked the true building of Silver Spring as a commercial hub along with two businessmen there (can't remember their names). As far as it being a "wasteland" (as mentioned in that bias washington post artilce) I wouldn't go as far as to call it that, yes it was a blighted area but it held it's own as an important business hub.

Like I said before what you claim developers are doing now as revolutionary is nothing of the sort, more or less evolutionary. In fact they are just going back to the old way of developing things. It's a cycle plain and simple much like the retro cars coming back. Office parks were in urban out now it is in reverse again. I see nothing revolutionary about building highrises out on the loudon\fairfax border or around a metro station. It's been done. Popularity doesn't make something revolutionary but in many cases a fad (I hope it is not). When every new building constructed is a LEED building then you can claim this wave of development as sustainable and revolutionary.

More like 34+ buildings... Just out of curiosity what is your definition of urban?

Metro opened like 1978, that was a while ago. I'd say the street cars and the B&O railroad back way back when is what sparked the true building of Silver Spring as a commercial hub along with two businessmen there (can't remember their names). As far as it being a "wasteland" (as mentioned in that bias washington post artilce) I wouldn't go as far as to call it that, yes it was a blighted area but it held it's own as an important business hub.

Like I said before what you claim developers are doing now as revolutionary is nothing of the sort, more or less evolutionary. In fact they are just going back to the old way of developing things. It's a cycle plain and simple much like the retro cars coming back. Office parks were in urban out now it is in reverse again. I see nothing revolutionary about building highrises out on the loudon\fairfax border or around a metro station. It's been done. Popularity doesn't make something revolutionary but in many cases a fad (I hope it is not). When every new building constructed is a LEED building then you can claim this wave of development as sustainable and revolutionary.
Sigh. Ok, so you call it evolutionary, not revolutionary. Fine. Ferdinand de Saussure would have a ball here...

Fact of the matter is people are gravitating back towards the urban core. This isn't purely a "retro" movement. One hundred years ago people lived near the urban core because they had to; today people are moving back because they want to...

I might agree with the premise of "evolution" if and only if the hermeneutic cycle is somehow incorporated: where we are spiraling closer to a higher perfection.

Yet -- the shift in general -- back to the cities is remarkable. Take for instance the Baltimore market, where a mere fifteen years ago apartments and condos sat vacant due to a lack of interest (and I'm talking about before the recession). It's not they weren't available, people just didn't want to buy them. When you have a change in mindset over a short period of time, that is definitely an indication of the "R" word.

As for Silver Spring, it's a nice edge-town. I think calling it a hub for anything is a stretch. Maybe a hub for the community, but for the most part, it's like Clarendon, Rossyln, Towson, or Rockville. As it was just a mere ten or so years ago, it was a collection of a half dozen or so mid rise buildings from the 70s and 80s, with very little retail, amenities, people, residents, etc. As for my definition of urban, yes, I'd call Silver Spring as very urban. Would I call Columbia Maryland urban? That's a tough one. I'd say "almost urban".

As to your argument the Metro opened in the late 70s, that something else came before...sure, of course. But to say Silver Spring today has reverted back to a former grandeur is incorrect.

Don't get me wrong: I like Silver Spring. I'm very happy to see the area begin to live up to its potential. I just think it got caught up in some type of time-warp for a couple of decades where some serious stagnation took over. Like many US urban areas, it took a hit in the late 60s, and never really recovered...until now.

Sigh. Ok, so you call it evolutionary, not revolutionary. Fine. Ferdinand de Saussure would have a ball here...

Fact of the matter is people are gravitating back towards the urban core. This isn't purely a "retro" movement. One hundred years ago people lived near the urban core because they had to; today people are moving back because they want to...

I might agree with the premise of "evolution" if and only if the hermeneutic cycle is somehow incorporated: where we are spiraling closer to a higher perfection.

Yet -- the shift in general -- back to the cities is remarkable. Take for instance the Baltimore market, where a mere fifteen years ago apartments and condos sat vacant due to a lack of interest (and I'm talking about before the recession). It's not they weren't available, people just didn't want to buy them. When you have a change in mindset over a short period of time, that is definitely an indication of the "R" word.

As for Silver Spring, it's a nice edge-town. I think calling it a hub for anything is a stretch. Maybe a hub for the community, but for the most part, it's like Clarendon, Rossyln, Towson, or Rockville. As it was just a mere ten or so years ago, it was a collection of a half dozen or so mid rise buildings from the 70s and 80s, with very little retail, amenities, people, residents, etc. As for my definition of urban, yes, I'd call Silver Spring as very urban. Would I call Columbia Maryland urban? That's a tough one. I'd say "almost urban".

As to your argument the Metro opened in the late 70s, that something else came before...sure, of course. But to say Silver Spring today has reverted back to a former grandeur is incorrect.

Don't get me wrong: I like Silver Spring. I'm very happy to see the area begin to live up to its potential. I just think it got caught up in some type of time-warp for a couple of decades where some serious stagnation took over. Like many US urban areas, it took a hit in the late 60s, and never really recovered...until now.

I think the "R" word your looking for is renaissance not revolutionary and that certainly is the case for some cities like Baltimore (especially if 10 Inner Harbor is built!) and even calling it that can be somewhat of stretch when talking about other cities, it is just too soon to tell if it will be short lived or not but nothing world-shattering is happening that didn’t happen before, simply put the cities are getting healthier, it was bound to happen. Without a doubt there is a housing boom going on. During the late 80's early 90's there was construction boom for office space, cities like Charlotte got a 871 foot tower but no one was calling that revolutionary, certainly the mindset of corporations changed, Bank of America could have built out in the burbs but didn't. The focus has simply shifted from office to residential combined with low interest rates. As much as we are happy to see the cities being redeveloped lets not forget that the majority of development going on in the country is still in the suburbs and this would show that most people still like living out in the boonies.

Pertaining to Silver Spring, I am by no means trying to put it on a pedestal, I don't think it will ever regain it's former glory as there is too much competition today but lets not try to down play things and lets just give credit where it is due shall we? It is certainly a business hub and even Emporis.com thinks so as well and like I said before (but you insist on down playing) most of the high-rises were built during the 70's and 80's and they were certainly more than half a dozen more like over 20 and along with that you had the densely packed low rise commercial and office buildings. For starters it has over 7,254,729 square feet of office space within a square mile. It has the second busiest metro station in the entire D.C. metro system with over 60,000 passengers a day! You would think that would be inside D.C. itself but surprisingly it is what many want to call an insignificant "suburb". You also don't place an intercity bus terminal (greyhound and peterpan) and the district court of Maryland in any old place. It is also bigger than Bethesda and Wheaton combined and bigger than Rosslyn and Ballston corridors combined in geographical size and population. Facts are facts it is not as important as it once was but it is certainly regaining it’s strength.

As for Columbia, I don't understand why it is even mentioned it has a long way to go before reaching the density of Silver Spring and Bethesda. I think it is very much similar to Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, as they will even both have 275 foot condo towers.

I think the "R" word your looking for is renaissance not revolutionary and that certainly is the case for some cities like Baltimore (especially if 10 Inner Harbor is built!) and even calling it that can be somewhat of stretch when talking about other cities, it is just too soon to tell if it will be short lived or not but nothing world-shattering is happening that didn’t happen before, simply put the cities are getting healthier, it was bound to happen. Without a doubt there is a housing boom going on. During the late 80's early 90's there was construction boom for office space, cities like Charlotte got a 871 foot tower but no one was calling that revolutionary, certainly the mindset of corporations changed, Bank of America could have built out in the burbs but didn't. The focus has simply shifted from office to residential combined with low interest rates. As much as we are happy to see the cities being redeveloped lets not forget that the majority of development going on in the country is still in the suburbs and this would show that most people still like living out in the boonies.

Pertaining to Silver Spring, I am by no means trying to put it on a pedestal, I don't think it will ever regain it's former glory as there is too much competition today but lets not try to down play things and lets just give credit where it is due shall we? It is certainly a business hub and even Emporis.com thinks so as well and like I said before (but you insist on down playing) most of the high-rises were built during the 70's and 80's and they were certainly more than half a dozen more like over 20 and along with that you had the densely packed low rise commercial and office buildings. For starters it has over 7,254,729 square feet of office space within a square mile. It has the second busiest metro station in the entire D.C. metro system with over 60,000 passengers a day! You would think that would be inside D.C. itself but surprisingly it is what many want to call an insignificant "suburb". You also don't place an intercity bus terminal (greyhound and peterpan) and the district court of Maryland in any old place. It is also bigger than Bethesda and Wheaton combined and bigger than Rosslyn and Ballston corridors combined in geographical size and population. Facts are facts it is not as important as it once was but it is certainly regaining it’s strength.

As for Columbia, I don't understand why it is even mentioned it has a long way to go before reaching the density of Silver Spring and Bethesda. I think it is very much similar to Washingtonian Center in Gaithersburg, as they will even both have 275 foot condo towers.
"Evolutionary", "Renaissance", whatever word you want to use...fine with me. I just think we are witnessing a trend out of the ordinary; something American cities haven't experienced in more than a hundred years.

As far as Silver Spring goes, so goes the nation. Oh wait a minute, that was General Motors. Sorry...

According to Maryland Census Demographic Profiles, Silver Spring is the third largest after Baltimore and Columbia in terms of population. I don't have recent or accurate figures for commercial space in Silver Spring, but I do know it is more than 7,000,000 square feet. A colleague remarked Montgomery always runs into quandaries with its bottom line for square footage: some tallies intentionally omit Class C figures, whereas other do not. I want to say it was closer to 13,000,000 square feet (all inclusive) in 2004.

As for the Rossyln-Ballston corridor, in 2001 there was 18,300,000 square feet of office space, and an additional 3,400,000 square feet of retail, plus 3,000 hotel rooms. In 2002 they had another 1,700,000 square feet of new commercial space and about 9,000 square feet of new retail under construction.

As of 2005, Tysons Corner had 26 million square feet of office space, and over four million square feet of retail (half is obviously the mall). These numbers do not include the Reston and Herndon along the Dulles Toll Road.

Overall, the Washington area has submarkets which outright consist of more office space than other cities. For example, if you exclude Baltimore City from the Washington market, their CBD only consists of (roughly) 12,500,000 square feet of office space -- less than the Rossyln-Ballston corridor. Likewise, if you took the entire Baltimore region, which is approximately 52,500,000 square feet, that is still less than the Rosslyn-Ballston-Tysons-Reston corridor.

So, when looking at the size of the classic edge cities around Washington DC, they are nothing to sneeze at; Silver Spring, as much as Clarendon, Herndon, Hyattsville and all the others have been, are, and in all likelihood will always be edge cities.

"Evolutionary", "Renaissance", whatever word you want to use...fine with me. I just think we are witnessing a trend out of the ordinary; something American cities haven't experienced in more than a hundred years.

Funny...the last time I check I thought it was you who was looking for the terminology. American cities are not that old compared to the rest of the world but otherwise agreed


As far as Silver Spring goes, so goes the nation. Oh wait a minute, that was General Motors. Sorry...

When you get knocked down, you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off. Silver Spring is far older and matured much more quickly than other places in the D.C. area, it went through a decline that was a fault not of it's own but was able to bounce back. Should we write off D.C. too? Who would have imagined it would bounce back like it has? One day Tysons Corner and Arlington will not be so "hot" anymore.


According to Maryland Census Demographic Profiles, Silver Spring is the third largest after Baltimore and Columbia in terms of population. I don't have recent or accurate figures for commercial space in Silver Spring, but I do know it is more than 7,000,000 square feet. A colleague remarked Montgomery always runs into quandaries with its bottom line for square footage: some tallies intentionally omit Class C figures, whereas other do not. I want to say it was closer to 13,000,000 square feet (all inclusive) in 2004.


I believe they are talking about the immediate areas because I believe the figures are about 76,000 for Silver Spring and 80,000 for Columbia but that is erreneous considering they are both unincorporated. Best thing to do is consider all the areas that share a Silver Spring or Columbia mailing address, if so there is no doubt Silver Spring's population would be larger in fact it would be larger than the entire county of Howard. The FDA is consolidating in the white-oak sub section but they're official address will say Silver Spring.


As for the Rossyln-Ballston corridor, in 2001 there was 18,300,000 square feet of office space, and an additional 3,400,000 square feet of retail, plus 3,000 hotel rooms. In 2002 they had another 1,700,000 square feet of new commercial space and about 9,000 square feet of new retail under construction.

As of 2005, Tysons Corner had 26 million square feet of office space, and over four million square feet of retail (half is obviously the mall). These numbers do not include the Reston and Herndon along the Dulles Toll Road.

Overall, the Washington area has submarkets which outright consist of more office space than other cities. For example, if you exclude Baltimore City from the Washington market, their CBD only consists of (roughly) 12,500,000 square feet of office space -- less than the Rossyln-Ballston corridor. Likewise, if you took the entire Baltimore region, which is approximately 52,500,000 square feet, that is still less than the Rosslyn-Ballston-Tysons-Reston corridor.

So, when looking at the size of the classic edge cities around Washington DC, they are nothing to sneeze at; Silver Spring, as much as Clarendon, Herndon, Hyattsville and all the others have been, are, and in all likelihood will always be edge cities.

I already know this, if I wanted to include them I would, the whole point of posting the office space figures was to show that Silver Spring is a commercial hub and it is one of the larger ones with a true urban atmosphere. Places like Tysons corner are office parks and it doesn't even have it's own mailing address. I could just as well compare the I-270 Technology Corridor and it would be far larger than Tysons Corner.

Anyways are you from the MD or VA side of the D.C. area because my original post was "I don't know about VA but tell me where in Maryland D.C. metro you will find anything recently built [significantly] taller than 200 feet besides the Chevy Chase Bank towers. I don't see the developers "pushing the density envelope" because of the silly height limits implemented by the planning board and county council [and lack of development with that density in PG]" but somehow we got to this point.

2 Legs Up With a 2nd Home
Whether for Vacations, Shorter Commutes Or Longer Visits, Pied-à-Terres Are Hot

By Tomoeh Murakami Tse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 15, 2006; Page F01

Film producer Randy Auerbach just bought a one-bedroom condo in the District that will serve as an East Coast bookend to her pink cottage near Beverly Hills. Babak Fouladi, a George Washington University alumnus, added a condo in Northwest to go with his flat in London. And Mark Goode, head of an insurance investment company, is planning to buy something in Georgetown but is not quite ready to give up his place on Miami Beach.

What's going on? Isn't investing in real estate passé, so 2005?

Auerbach and the rest aren't speculators angling to make a quick profit amid a tapering housing boom. They are part of a growing group of second-home owners in a real estate market teeming with house-rich consumers and affluent baby boomers -- and they plan to use the properties themselves as pied-à-terres .

A pied-à-terre, French for foot on the ground, is usually a smallish home-away-from-home, owned by someone who wants a city place to live in part time.

About 3.34 million non-primary residences were sold nationwide last year, accounting for 40 percent of all homes sold, according to a report released last week by the National Association of Realtors. That's up from 36 percent in 2004 and 33 percent in 2003.

Vacation homes, for use primarily by their owners, made up a third of those second-home purchases. Generally, pied-à-terres would be lumped into this category. The rest were investment properties acquired mostly to generate rental income or diversify portfolios.

The market for the latter, most economists agree, will cool drastically in 2006 as interest rates tick up and the double-digit gains in home values seen in the past five years come to an end. On the other hand, David Lereah, chief economist for the trade group, and others say sales of vacation homes will remain strong, and possibly cushion market downturns. Vacation home sales were up 17 percent in 2005 from the previous year, to a record 1.02 million properties, the report said. The median price -- half cost more and the rest less -- for vacation homes was $204,100. For investment properties, it was $183,500.

"The vacation home market has a very powerful demographic tailwind," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Economy.com.

Washington, of course, is hardly the vacation-home destination for out-of-towners in search of high surf or powdery snow. Still, some real estate agents say, suburban sprawl and urban revitalization have made pied-à-terres an increasingly attractive option for workers with long commutes or those who spend part of their week in the nation's capital.

Such second homes range from multimillion-dollar penthouses for the diplomat-and-executive set to bare-bones crash pads for young doctors, lobbyists or politicians with irregular work hours or families in different time zones.

Auerbach, a Washington native who moved to California 28 years ago, decided to purchase her second home around the corner from her father's house in the District after he became ill last fall.

Relatives called from Washington with real estate leads. She followed up when she was in town, either to see family or for research and development work for films. And after two months, Auerbach found a one-bedroom condo in a brick building near American University.

It wasn't anything fancy, worth about a third of her longtime home in L.A., with its outdoor deck and hot tub, which she values at more than $1 million. The condo features an electric stove, which Auerbach would not have tolerated had she been looking for a primary residence. But the apartment didn't need much updating, and no fuss was what Auerbach wanted in her pied-à-terre. There was no concierge service, but her family was close by. And the condo is on the second floor, which she felt would keep the place safe when she was away.

She liked that she could walk to movie theaters and restaurants, but also to parks and tree-shaded streets with deer-crossing signs.

"That's the beauty of D.C.," she said. "It's just perfect for my second place. It's made me realize how much I love the city."

A taste of the urban life, real estate agents said, is at the top of the list for many local second-home buyers.

"What people seem to want in pied-à-terres is proximity to entertainment, shopping and dining . . . or the potential for that in the future," said Jeff Sachse, of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage's Dupont Circle office.

Sachse and his business partner, Rick Quinones, said up to 20 percent of their business comes from pied-à-terres or from investment condos whose owners intend to use them as second homes in the future. Established neighborhoods such as Georgetown and Logan Circle are popular for the former, while the H Street corridor in Northeast has begun to attract people looking for future pied-à-terres , they said.

What Mark Goode mostly wanted was a peaceful place to come home to -- so far this month, he has traveled to France, Germany, Switzerland and Argentina.

"It's just nice not to have to pack and unpack, to be able to get off the plane and be in your own bed at night," said Goode, who used to stay in hotels during his twice-weekly trips to Washington. "While a hotel can be a nice luxury, it's not very restful."

So Goode, 45, whose primary residence is in Miami Beach, has been testing out a two-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath unit in a condo building at 3303 Water St. NW in Georgetown. He spends an average of three nights a week there, and plans to buy it at the end of the year.

The location was a big draw -- it's just two blocks from the office of Secondary Life Capital, an insurance investment company he founded in 2004. Besides, Goode said, he has dreamed of living in Georgetown ever since he was stationed as a captain at the Marine Barracks in Southeast Washington in the early 1990s.

Like his high-rise condo on Miami Beach, the building is near the water and boasts spectacular views. Instead of the ocean, his D.C. home looks out to the river and Rosslyn skyline, while the rooftop pool offers views of the Washington Monument. He has an exercise room in the unit, where he works with his Pilates instructor when he is in town.

"It's very secure, and very hassle-free -- everything is taken care of," Goode said. "You can close the doors and leave for two weeks and not think about a thing."

Babak Fouladi of London spends less time in Washington -- about 10 weeks a year. But he became convinced that buying a second home here was a sound financial and lifestyle investment after seeing neighborhoods transform.

"Every time I come here, I see the city booming," said Fouladi, 37, an information technology director for Ericsson, the telecommunications company. "It makes more economical sense for me to actually have a house here. I really enjoy the new neighborhoods."

So he put money down on a $400,000 one-bedroom unit at 1010 Massachusetts Ave. NW, scheduled for delivery next year. It's a neighborhood, Fouladi said, that didn't exist when he was a student at George Washington, from which he graduated in 1993.

Fouladi and his wife, a fashion designer who also travels to Washington on business, want to give the condo a modern decor -- something different from their two-bedroom, pre-World War II flat in London. And when it is finished, Fouladi looks forward to spending weekends here, too, instead of rushing to the airport after Friday meetings.

"I really want to make this city my second home," he said.

I know it's just a link, but so what.

http://www.piketransit.com/initiative/default.aspx

It has cool movies of Portland's streetcar that will most likely go into use in Arlington, and a cool vid of one simulated in arlington.

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/CPHD/Forums/rosslyn/rcp_bldghtssetback.pdf

This is the newest presentation of Central Place, which was shortened to 386 ft, I'm kinda pissed about this one being lowered, but whatever, hopefully, we keep pushing it, waterview, this one and some others are certainly going to look good though.

I know it's just a link, but so what.

http://www.piketransit.com/initiative/default.aspx

It has cool movies of Portland's streetcar that will most likely go into use in Arlington, and a cool vid of one simulated in arlington.

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/CPHD/Forums/rosslyn/rcp_bldghtssetback.pdf

This is the newest presentation of Central Place, which was shortened to 386 ft, I'm kinda pissed about this one being lowered, but whatever, hopefully, we keep pushing it, waterview, this one and some others are certainly going to look good though.
The only concern of the Pike initiative I have is that nothing is happening! I've been hearing grand proposals for years now, and not one item on the agenda has been realized. While the real estate market was hot, I thought (hoped) the process would begin to move along faster. I realize that whenever mass transit is involved, projects get bogged down in "process"...but even the commercial/residential projects haven't happened. While the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor remains red hot, and while some pressure has spilled over into South Arlington in the form of investment and development, I think the Pike initiative will require more time before anything happens.

Central Place is critical to Rosslyn: there currently isn't any other development in the corridor that has as great of an opportunity to improve existing conditions as this project. The retail component is sorely needed, and I hope it is boosted in size and scope.

Of course, the problem is whenever new retail is introduced into an area, existing retail normally takes a hit...however with the ongoing influx of residents and businesses into Arlington, along with a significant tourist base, this project will probably absorb demand without having a negative impact on other nearby businesses.

Of the two public park schemas, I hope they opt for the paved version, or at least configure whatever design is chosen to align it with the old Gannet towers. As it is now, pedestrians cut-through the Sarris Steak House parking lot, and a park on the south end of the block will better serve Rosslyn than the park on the north end, since it would create an important visual link...

Also, let's hope the appearance for the base for this project is due to an awkward rendering, and not the massive blank wall that it appears to be...

http://www.dcestonian.com/baltimore/dc/rosslyn/central_place/perspective.jpg

Yeah, I'm not sure if that's parking or whatever, I don't remember what they first were using that for, I know two floors are retail, and then there's the commercial and residential space of the resepective buildings. I'm not sure what it will look like actually, when lit it may look nice. In general, I become giddy at the prospects of having Rosslyn as a real destination someday for restaurants and other forms of attractions. I really wish they didn't shorten it though.

And I agree about the Pike thing, seems like they keep making revises, and different visions are looked at, but I feel like this one is the most credible, in some form, I think this is going to go through, at one time they were talking about about brts. I think with the brac relocations, there may be some more time, but then this proposal came out after the relocations were known. There's also a general sentiment that Crystal City and Pentagon City need to become better. There is some land both PC and CC, and some nice condos are going up. But I agree, more time, this latest development is cool though.

This is such a sleepy thread.

Here's a virtual video of Midtown Bethesda (B-CC High, represent)

Midtown Video (http://www.midtownbethesda.com/MidtownBethesdaNorth/kiosk/virtualtour.html)

Yea I think that these new Midtown developments are nice, I think that from the looks of it we will see a lot of these new Midtown properties. The Largo Town Center and Silver Spring projects are the ones I'll be paying close attention to.

I always like coming Bethesda it's a city with in it's self!

delete this double post...srry!

Here are some renderings of the "Greenbelt Station" project that will be going to Prince Georges County. The site is www.greenbeltstation.com. The developers claim that there is a possibilty that this project will be home to a Macy's department store.

http://www.greenbeltstation.com/images/1-re-garage.gif

http://www.greenbeltstation.com/images/3-24ft-wide.gif

http://www.greenbeltstation.com/images/4-apartment.gif

2,200 Upscale Residential Units
1.1 Million Square Foot Upscale Life-Style Retail and Entertainment Center
115,000 Square Foot Neighborhood Retail Center
1.2 Million Square Feet of Office
300 Hotel Rooms
111 Acres of Public Parkland
$2.75 Billion Dollars of Direct Revenues to County/State/City of Greenbelt through 2034
7,054 Permanent Jobs at Build-out
9,526 Temporary Construction Jobs
Conveniently located at the Greenbelt Metro Station and the Capital Beltway

man out of all the projects, i can't wait till the tysons line is built! it will definetely be interesting to see how "urban" tysons is going to get.

New Tallest (http://gazette.net/stories/050306/bethnew211543_31951.shtml)

Plans to bring a ‘‘festival street” that includes several hundred condominiums and a Whole Foods Market to North Bethesda received unanimous approval Thursday from county planners.

White Flint Crossing, a project proposed by an affiliate of Chevy Chase-based developer JBG Companies, is expected to ‘‘lead to the redevelopment to the North [of Bethesda] and White Flint mall,” said Planning Board Commissioner Meredith K. Wellington.

Located across the street from White Flint along Rockville Pike, the nearly six-acre development will consist of 440 condominiums, including 66 affordable housing units, and 223,000 square feet of commercial space built atop five levels of underground parking. The site currently includes a vacant Park Inn Motel, Subway shop and Avis car rental.

The new development will include three buildings, ranging from two to 24 stories, built around a pedestrian-oriented street and plaza.

Demolition of existing structures will begin in the next few months, and construction will begin by the end of the summer, said Rod Lawrence, a JBG Companies partner. The project is scheduled for completion in 2008.

The Planning Board approved the plans despite concerns about traffic counts in the project’s traffic study.

Wellington acknowledged that she had ‘‘huge problems” with the general methodology of traffic studies in the Transportation Planning Department at Park and Planning, but said, ‘‘It is what it is.”

Commissioner John M. Robinson agreed that it is a ‘‘long-term policy issue.”

A 24-story tower will anchor the project and create a ‘‘signature focal point...that is the gateway to the White Flint area,” said Steven Robins, an attorney representing the developer.

Plans also include extending Executive Boulevard from its end at Woodglen Drive to intersect with Rockville Pike — a road improvement that was recommended in the 1992 North Bethesda⁄Garrett Park Master Plan.

Facing the new road will be a seven-story building housing Whole Foods Market, which is expected to relocate from Congressional Plaza. Restaurants, shopping, condominiums and a rooftop courtyard will also be part of the building.

Along Rockville Pike, a two-story retail building will form ‘‘an urban edge” and ‘‘start to allow Rockville Pike within this district to be thought of a little more like Wisconsin Avenue as an urban corridor,” said architect Michael Nicolaus, of Silver Spring-based Torti Gallas and Partners Inc.

A private ‘‘festival street,” or paseo, will cut through the center of the development, serving as space for farmer’s markets and events. And at the ‘‘heart of the project” will be a public plaza featuring sculptures and artwork by Washington, D.C., artist Jim Sanborn, Nicolaus said.

Still, some questioned the effects of so much new development on an already congested Rockville Pike.

Stephen J. Orens, representing Fitzgerald Auto Mall companies, raised concerns that the project could cause traffic hazards for customers.

If a traffic signal is installed where the extended Executive Boulevard intersects with Rockville Pike, the Fitzgerald property will have to relocate its driveway, Orens said. This would ‘‘interfere with the safe and efficient operation of the business,” he said.

Orens also took issue with the project’s traffic study, saying that peak-time traffic was undercounted.

Natalie Goldberg, representing the Garrett Park⁄White Flint Park Citizens Association, also raised concerns about the traffic study because it reduced counts for residents living within the development.

‘‘This development is going to have a Whole Foods, which is extremely popular,” she said. ‘‘We’re talking about [an evening] rush hour period and I don’t think you’re going to have a 25 percent reduction because people live there. Those aren’t the people that are going to stop at Whole Foods.”


24-Stories; taller by 13ft than Washingtonian.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/whiteflintcrossing.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/whiteflintcrossing02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/whiteflintcrossing03.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/whiteflintcrossing04.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/areamap.jpg

Doesn't Montgomery County have enuff

"man out of all the projects, i can't wait till the tysons line is built! it will definetely be interesting to see how "urban" tysons is going to get."

I agree! It's probably the largest scale development going on outside of the National Harbor and is arguably the most important, which says a lot. I'm optimistic. Urbanity wise, it'll be a lot better than it is, but a far cry from ideal, but I'm thinking the skyline will become a lot better along with the area itself establishing a more significant identity and become much more bustling than it is already.

"Doesn't Montgomery County have enuff"

I don't know what enuff is, but there's sure a lot going on in MoCo and the entire region as a whole. I hope the larger urban centers outside of the city like Arlington, Bethesda, Silver Spring, someday Tysons continue to grow well. I'm waiting on more developments for Rosslyn, there's already some nice things they got, but I'm hoping we get even more developments soon.

Yes well I dont care about anything other than the projects happening in PG, since they have absolutely nothing except expensive homes.

Yeah, I just didn't understand the perspective you were coming from. PG has some great projects in the pipeline obviously, it's going to take time, luckily, PG does have some good things going for it, and it's not really too late for it to get a lot better in the relative near future.

It just struck me that Midtown Bethesda North is actually in Rockville. I think they may have gone a little too far with pushing the North Bethesda name this time, especially since Twinbrook would be so much more appropriate.

It just struck me that Midtown Bethesda North is actually in Rockville. I think they may have gone a little too far with pushing the North Bethesda name this time, especially since Twinbrook would be so much more appropriate.

For sale, it sounds a little better to some people to live in Bethesda than Rockville. Just a sales pitch.

D.C. waterfront could soon resemble the Inner Harbor
Baltimore Business Journal - July 7, 2006by Sean MadiganContributor

Except for the waitress who calls you "hon," just about every attraction at Baltimore's Inner Harbor is being floated for Washington's Southwest waterfront.

A giant new aquarium, tall ships, water taxis, a maritime museum -- plans for all are being entertained by five teams of developers vying for the right to redevelop 47 unspectacular acres along the Washington Channel.



The Anacostia Waterfront Corp., a city-sponsored development company tasked with revitalizing the entire waterfront, conducted detailed interviews with each development team in the past week.

What distinguishes this process from more typical city planning ventures is the fact that the talks are about actual plans, rather than daydreams.

AWC executives told the developers to save the money they would spend on architects and the obligatory watercolor renderings of race-neutral families with dogs and balloons in tow. The AWC wants to know how each team will approach the $500 million-plus task of transforming a series of blocky restaurants and dull concrete promenades into a vibrant maritime-themed, mixed-use destination -- the Inner Harbor, D.C.-style.

Plans must include some basics: about 800 units of housing, 400 to 500 hotel rooms, 230,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 85,000 square feet of office space, 14 acres of park land and 2,000 parking spaces.

The five development teams have shown the AWC they can put together a development program to accommodate as much. But the plan also calls for about 180,000 square feet of cultural space -- amenities that should draw hundreds of thousands of people a year to the area.

It's here that the teams are jockeying to set themselves apart.

One of the more ambitious attractions pitched is a $150 million maritime museum that would take elements from the nearby Navy Museum in Southeast and put them in a new 150,000-square-foot facility on the Southwest waterfront.

A joint project of the National Maritime Heritage Foundation and the Navy itself, the proposed Washington Maritime Center would also have a replica of the tall ship Spirit of Enterprize, which was commissioned by George Washington.

Kevin Traver, the foundation's executive director, said he has partnered with two of the finalist teams -- Madison Marquette/KSI Waterfront Partners and PN Hoffman/Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse of Baltimore -- and is also working to get commitments from other finalists, EastBanc-LNR Waterfront Partners and the John Buck Co.

Madison/KSI executives say they're willing to save a 50,000-square-foot space in their design for Traver's project, which would include 20,000 square feet of retail and is expected to generate revenue to help fund the rest of the project.

"We don't expect the developers to pay for this," Traver said. Even though the foundation will need support from the developer, it will pay for the center by launching a capital campaign and seeking government funds.

In addition to considering the proposed museum, PN Hoffman-Struever Bros. executives are talking with the Living Planet Aquarium, a for-profit aquarium operator based in Salt Lake City. Shawn Seaman, a vice president at PN Hoffman, said the company is interested in building a 50,000- to 100,000-square-foot facility on the waterfront.



The Living Classrooms Foundation, which has become a successful fixture on Baltimore's waterfront over the past 20 years, also is partnering with PN Hoffman and Struever.

The Living Classroom's D.C.-area arm would provide job training and youth programs and lead an effort to build a replica of the Pearl, a 100-foot schooner commandeered by nearly 80 slaves during a failed escape attempt from the Seventh Street Wharf in Southwest in 1848.

EastBanc's Anthony Lanier said picking the right cultural partnership is critical to the success of the entire project because the user must be able to attract people who will also go to restaurants and shops in the area.

"What if the Corcoran was your linchpin?" Lanier said, referring to the possible disaster of partnering with a lackluster cultural facility. The Corcoran Gallery of Art has struggled to attract visitors and junked a $200 million Frank Gehry-designed expansion last year.

Benjamin Jacobs, a founder and managing partner of the JBG Cos., another finalist for the waterfront project, said his team has been contacted by cultural organizations interested in becoming a partner on the waterfront. JBG controls a significant portion of the land along the waterfront.

Fast Facts
D.C. planners hope to redevelop some of the city's southwest waterfront property.

Five development teams have shown interest in turning the waterfront into a tourist destination.

Plans call for new homes, hotel rooms, and retail, restaurant and office space.
__________________

I always like coming Bethesda it's a city with in it's self!

True, but I prefer Silver Spring (Even though I'm from Bethesda :) )

Beltway projects to cause delays through next summer
PDF | Email
Mike Rupert, The Examiner
Jul 19, 2006 5:00 AM (15 hrs ago)
Current rank: # 452 of 8,186 articles

Prince George’s County - Road crews will begin setting up work zones along a five-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway in Prince George’s County next week as part of a project that likely will bring delays in the corridor for the next year, officials said Tuesday.


Maryland’s State Highway Administration is beginning a $12 million project to resurface a portion of the Outer Loop between the Greenbelt Road Overpass and the Montgomery County line. Highway crews also will begin resurfacing seven miles of ramps at the I-95/I-495, Baltimore Avenue and Kenilworth Avenue interchanges.

More than 230,000 vehicles travel along I-95/I-495 in the corridor each day, officials said. State officials said they will do their best to avoid major delays, keeping work zones up only during evening hours, but warned some weekday single-lane closures will be necessary.

“Anytime we do anything on the Beltway it’s a big deal,” said SHA spokesman David Buck. “It’s not an easy place to work on without causing some frustration.”

Buck said nearly 80 percent of all work on state highway projects is done at night, except for the Beltway, where more than 95 percent of the work is done at night.

Because of the limited hours available for construction crews, the project is expected to last through late next summer.

Buck said most of the work to begin next week is landscaping, patching holes, fixing or replacing guardrails and other small projects, with the major resurfacing projects to begin next spring.

Evening closures will begin around 8 p.m. and end by 5 a.m., officials said. Weekday closures, which Buck said “will be few and far between,” will run 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

During the closures, motorists should expect major delays and seek alternate routes such as East-West Highway or University Boulevard, officials said.

Officials said they also are beginning a sound wall and lighting project on the Inner Loop between Baltimore Avenue and the Greenbelt Metro station that could require lane closures between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on weekdays. Officials said they are trying to coordinate closures to ease the expected congestion.

Well this can't be good.

Rendering of Clarendon Center, it's gonna replacesome old office space, and retail.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a253/JAB323/5457Clarendon20Center20Rendering.jpg

i hear they are wanting the tysons rail line to go underground now..?

Yeah, I think that's what's going to happen. Long story short, it's a better choice for the long term and the people renting property in the area would be paying for the extra costs opposed to above ground. With underground, there's limited disruption, around the clock working, etc.

Congressional guys are saying that it's too risky and could put the problem at risk. I don't get it b/c the money for it is already being accounted for and the extra time it would take to do environmental studies is worth it. So I'll be looking forward to it being below ground.

It's about time we got some more movement in this thread. At least it isn't as slow as Providence. BTW, I'm 99.9% sure it's going underground. I'm still waiting for the ill-fated Purple Line, though. :(

Which proposed line is it where the people in Mo County were complaining about if they built it on top of the old railroad, it would destroy there "greenway" because it ran directly behind there backyards.

I don't know for sure, but I believe it was one part of the purple line. I believe that's why a road, the ICC was chosen as opposed to rail.

I think the purple line is needed, especially if we are to link Natl. Harbor with something.

I also look forward to seeing how well street cars in Northern VA and DC are implemented. It'll bring more good development to southeast and northern va. Hopefully the nova suburbs start to link the suburbs that can link up better. I could see a street car being used in so many places in DC, so it's especially exciting to see it in Anacostia.

don't know if you guys saw it but this project, Park Place, just started construction

http://www.dkdevelopment.com/images/stories/PetworthRenderings.gif

This particular development could be a good boost to the Petworth area. It's being built around the metro stop and is the first large scale mixed use development on Georgia Ave. in a long time.

Which proposed line is it where the people in Mo County were complaining about if they built it on top of the old railroad, it would destroy there "greenway" because it ran directly behind there backyards.

Well, the Purple line was controversial, but it was the ICC (InterCounty-Connector) that disgruntled many. The ICC begins construction soon, and who knows if the Purple Line will ever get built.

This particular development could be a good boost to the Petworth area. It's being built around the metro stop and is the first large scale mixed use development on Georgia Ave. in a long time.

Having been at the Georgia Ave./Petworth metro stop only last week, I can attest that this project will be a shot in the arm for this area. I thought it was interesting that a government building was initially proposed to spark revitalization of the area, and that's what jump started U Street's revitalization.

Having been at the Georgia Ave./Petworth metro stop only last week, I can attest that this project will be a shot in the arm for this area. I thought it was interesting that a government building was initially proposed to spark revitalization of the area, and that's what jump started U Street's revitalization.
What gov't building are you thinking about at U Street? The District building at 14th and U Street?

If that, I can't agree. The corridor didn't really improve at all. If anything, it became worse.

The arrival of a Metro station along with the current wave of "gentrification" and urban yuppies has changed the area. The booming economy forced many east from the traditional gay DuPont-17th Street corridor, those who couldn't afford the expensive real estate.

While I'm glad to see the area change from a depressed ghetto, the "gentrification" element bothers me a bit because someone else was forced out of the area; someone else needed to move because they could no longer afford to live there...

^^ I totally agree.

What gov't building are you thinking about at U Street? The District building at 14th and U Street?

If that, I can't agree. The corridor didn't really improve at all. If anything, it became worse.

I got that info from an article in the Washington Post discussing the development.

While I'm glad to see the area change from a depressed ghetto, the "gentrification" element bothers me a bit because someone else was forced out of the area; someone else needed to move because they could no longer afford to live there...

How will this development force people out? Will it actually displace current residents or are you referring to increasing rent/property taxes?

^^ I think he just means it will make the cost of living higher for working families, and virtually "force" them out.

Surprisingly, it seems as though most residents were approving of the project--at least that's how the Post portrayed it. I think about 20% or 30% of the units will be set-asides.

Surprisingly, it seems as though most residents were approving of the project--at least that's how the Post portrayed it. I think about 20% or 30% of the units will be set-asides.
I was referring to the area in general. But I'm sure most are for the development and the improved state of their community.

I was mostly referring to the general demographic change. Folks who lived through the 60s riots and made a commitment to stay in the neighborhood are now aging, and often seniors on fixed incomes. The increases in real estate taxes for those who own homes, or the increases in rent, have made it too expensive for the older generation to stay. They’re sort of being kicked out and displaced.

Of course the pro’s far outweigh the con’s, everything from those who can make a killing in capital gains when selling a house, the general renewal of the neighborhood, etc. Yet in some ways it’s a shame, since you’re taking one-step forward, yet one-step backwards.

I understand. Impending gentrification is a peculiar thing. I guess we'll just have to see how it all pans out. It's going on all over the District, so I guess it was only a matter of time until it got to the Georgia Ave. neighborhood.

I understand. Impending gentrification is a peculiar thing. I guess we'll just have to see how it all pans out. It's going on all over the District, so I guess it was only a matter of time until it got to the Georgia Ave. neighborhood.


i heard the population of DC is finally starting to edge back up. anyone have anymore info?

^^ Yeah, it's now at about 582,000 I believe.

Well I know the population will continue to climb thanks to EYA's new project dubbed Capitol Quarter.

Here's the link: http://www.eya.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=neighborhoods.postcards&neighborhoodid=390B1CD5-96B6-175C-95D06031216C458B

^^ Yeah, I saw this before I am looking forward to it. I love anything by EYA. I'm looking forward to the arts District in Hyattsville.

The Petworth project looks good. It will be interesting to see where this neighborhood goes.

I dont know if the neighborhood itself will change that much...I mean downtown SS is right down the street.

:deadthrea

For sure because DC Metro development is incredibly lame. I've never lived in a more boring city than DC. How many people who live in the DC area actually care about the DC area? I certainly don't and I've lived here a pretty long time.

I think the real estate market in Washington just leveled off and developers are waiting a little bit for demand to catch up with supply (which won't take more than a year given how fast we're growing). Construction will start heating up again soon.
There are a ton of projects just beginning and ending in Bethesda, North Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Rockville. When I'm home over Thanksgiving I should be able to take some pictures and post them. I can't wait for White Flint Crossing to be built. Does anyone know if it's taller than anything in NOVA outside of Arlington and Alexandria?

For sure because DC Metro development is incredibly lame. I've never lived in a more boring city than DC. How many people who live in the DC area actually care about the DC area? I certainly don't and I've lived here a pretty long time.

A lot of people care about DC. I don't know if you're a hipster or someone just working for a law firm or what, but there are a lot of people who have lived here for a long time and while they mostly have their biases for MD, VA or DC, they care about the city and want it to do well. The city has had its ups and downs like many others, the city has a very inefficient gov't, which does discourage a lot of people. But there are a lot of people, particularly the lower class, that love DC and could care less about the transplants and yuppies coming in and leaving and then spouting off like they know everything. Keep your ignorant comments to DCist.

There are are tons of projects going on, and it's very hard to be able to compile them, b/c there isn't a readily accessible and up to date database of that sort that I know of at least. The closest to it, doesn't seem to be very up to date.

Well, there are plenty of projects, but 99% of them are ugly midrises or the same old rowhouse rehabs. Does pasting junk on the outside of a building make it architecturally pleasing or significant? That seems to be SoP for the DC Metro. Look at these buildings 25 years from now and we may be wondering what the hell we were thinking. Some databases for the DC area that I'd imagine you've seen.

http://www.dclofts.com
http://www.arlingtoncondo.com
http://dcunderconstruction.blogspot.com/
http://www.dcrealestate.com/
http://www.dcgentrification.com

When a region such as Baltimore, long struggling economically compared to
DC and with a relatively stagnant population, has you beat 10 times over with innovative and attractive projects, it's just a bit disappointing. I guess that's just because Baltimore has always been a much more interesting city than DC. And their developments reflect that.

Another one that just tends to have more overview type listings in their development database is www.dcmarketingcenter.com.

DC has always been on the conservative side when it comes styles of construction. The DC gov't in general sucks ass. DC has tons of nimbys and most DC people don't really care about competing, but there is still a lot of construction nonetheless. If B'more needs to build highrises so people care about it, that's fine, but DC is appropriately working to get more business presence in the city.

I don't even think B'more is more interesting. DC is much more unique, and I can see if it's not your taste. Areas of B'more like Mt. Vernon and Fells Point are great, but I don't think they're better than some of the best to be had in DC. DC has a larger percentage of the city that's in good shape when compared to B'more, which has more dumpy areas. The Anacostia I guess helps in this sense. Both cities have plenty of offerings, but I don't think B'more is more interesting, there's just more to do in DC.

Hopefully DC gets even better, people already understand that DT needs more residential and they're starting to change that, along with not enough DT retail and fine dining, which I hope they start working on. Architecturally, there is staleness, but the demographics are changing, and I think this will change too as people become more involved. It'll be subtle, but better.

And don't even bring the AREA into it. Outside of B'more, you don't even have half as many high development corridors as DC and w/ all the traffic, at least they're starting to plan better. I think outside of a couple high profile projects in B'more, the development between the cities is equal, and in DC's favor when you factor in the region. DC's volume of projects has to factor in somewhere.

And DC, like B'more, has plenty in the pipeline too.

Another one that just tends to have more overview type listings in their development database is www.dcmarketingcenter.com.


And don't even bring the AREA into it. Outside of B'more, you don't even have half as many high development corridors as DC and w/ all the traffic, at least they're starting to plan better. I think outside of a couple high profile projects in B'more, the development between the cities is equal, and in DC's favor when you factor in the region. DC's volume of projects has to factor in somewhere.

And DC, like B'more, has plenty in the pipeline too.
Of course DC has more projects going up than Baltimore. Not only does Washington's section of the metroplex have twice as many people as Baltimore's, our economy has been booming for the past 5 years.

Of course DC has more projects going up than Baltimore. Not only does Washington's section of the metroplex have twice as many people as Baltimore's, our economy has been booming for the past 5 years.
i really don't understand the comparison in all of this. the bottom line is that b'more and d.c. is ONE region; however, they're TWO cities with TWO different characters. let's leave it at that. there's no need for the comparison.

^^I agree.

I thought I'd bump this thread with an update of the construction in Reston Town Center.

These are pictures of Boston Properties office buildings going in where there used to be ground level parking lots.

You can see the Midtown Reston Condos in the background which I believe are nearing completion. As far as I know the area taken up by the construction trailers is set to become three more condo buildings.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/100_0638.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/100_0636.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/100_0635.jpg

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/100_0632.jpg

Look at those cranes:

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g288/anansi8172/100_0633.jpg

Great stuff, this is a great foundation to start with. Hopefully the construction and infrastructure improvements continue.

I miss DC!!

^^ That looks like a great project. Are those towers already there that border the construction site new or are they not part of the project? Any final renderings available?

When I was back home from thanksgiving I was pleasantly surprised to see how the metropolitan project phase that's U/C in Pentagon City was progressing. Its presence on that block is amazing and I would like to take some pictures of it. That neighborhood could be drastically different in the next few yrs.