In Other London Property News

The British property tabs are abuzz with whispers and reports that American movie star and notorious man-eater Kate Hudson bought a £4,000,000 in North London where she plans to settle down with Muse frontman Matt Bellamy and the child they're soon to bring into the world out of wedlock. Scandale!

Anyhoo, details are pretty damn slim and at this point we're not even sure there's a shred of veracity to this particular bit real estate gossip but the story goes that the happy couple will move into the mews-style house after a renovation that's to include a nursery–natch–games room and guest bedrooms for Miss Hudson's super star mother Goldie Hawn and still quite fetching stepfather Kurt Russell.

Some reports indicate that couple also poked around Cornwall for a holiday home. Your Mama happens to to have heard through the celebrity real estate gossip grapevine that Miss Hudson and Mister Bellamy toured at least one house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles several weeks back. However, we'd would bet our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly that Miss Hudson has no real plans to sell or move from her longtime home in the upscale enclave of Pacific Palisades, CA.

Miss Hudson and Mister Bellamy–who wore the most amazing sparkly silver suit at the 2011 Grammy Awards a few weeks ago–have been dating less than a year after they reportedly met at Coachella, the music and art festival that goes down in the desert about 20 miles south of Palm Springs, CA.

We're skeptical about this one puppies but we'll just have to wait and see how this real estate story plays itself out.

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Petworth Library Reopens Today

The Petworth Library reopened today at 4200 Kansas Avenue NW, a 1939 Revival-style building that had been gutted and renovated to accommodate the changing needs of the neighborhood. Designed by Franck & Lohsen Architects, the renovations cost $12.4 million and were built by GCS/Sigal, LLC.

DC Public Library Chief Librarian Ginnie Cooper says improvement to the branch includes new web-based tutorials and a doubling of computers to 48 Dells and Macs for teens. On opening day, the branch offers 50,000 books with space for 80,000.
The library is one of thirteen of the 24 in the city that will have been built or renovated over the course of the past two years. During Mayor Anthony Williams' administration, and through Mayor Adrian Fenty's tenure, a re-distribution of funds has translated to beefier collections, more targeted programming, and updated technology in all branches. Over the past five years, she says, community library attendance has doubled.

"There are a lot of little ones in this community," says Cooper of the Petworth neighborhood. "We look at the demographics and shape our plans accordingly." A whole wing of the second floor is dedicated to children's books and reading space.

Ironically, "this library used to have a side entrance for kids so no one would see them and they wouldn't disturb people working," said Cooper. "Libraries are no longer hushed rooms unwelcome for children and families." Officials also emphasized the library as a hub for job searches and for securing help with resumes.

The ground floor level offers wide open spaces with plenty of light as well as lounge seating around the non-working fireplace.

The second floor houses the children's level, an expansion to accommodate more kids in the neighborhood.

The cork floors are new, yet "historically accurate" said DCPL spokesperson George Williams.

Two private study rooms flank a corner of the building on the second floor, with seating for up to ten people. On the lowest level, residents can reserve one of two conference rooms: one that seats twelve and a larger room for up to 100 people.

The second floor also offers space for travel guides and teens (who like the magazine section, apparently).

Washington, D.C. Real Estate News

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AvalonBay Plans Apartment Building Near H Street Corridor

AvalonBay, a Ballston based corporation that as been augmenting its apartment portfolio throughout the greater Washington DC area, is under contract to purchase and develop nearly a full block just off the H Street corridor. Jonathan B. Cox, Senior Vice President of Development of AvalonBay, confirms that 318 I Street, NE, is currently under contract with the plan of building 140 rental apartments, with ambitions to break ground by the year's end. The site is just one block north of the spot where Steuart Investment Co. has announced plans to build a Giant grocery store and 215 apartments.
Although the size is modest, paired with Steuart's building the added density could help develop viable retail for H Street's western end, which has been stagnant compared to the Atlast District at the opposite end. "We really like the H Street Market," said Cox. "We are investing in it because we think its unique enough to separate from NoMa." The space will only house residential space. "We don't believe retail is viable in this location on I Street," said Cox.

The developer has chosen an architect but remains mum about the plans for now. What we do know: "It's not a typical D.C. architect," said Cox. "I think it'll be more contemporary and a more unique architectural style than what's now on the market." AvalonBay has also been buying and building, including the Avalon Park Crest, a 354-unit building planned for Tysons with construction to start later this year.

318 I Street NE, which AvalonBay will acquire by a lender sale, had been owned by Broadway Development, but had gone into foreclosure in 2009, around the same time Broadway lost Senate Square next door. The lender acquired the property in July of 2009 for $1.69 million. The space currently houses the vacant site of Uptown Baker, eight underground gasoline storage tanks were removed from the property in 2005.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

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Billionaire Bernie Ecclestone Wants to Unload in Chelsea

SELLER: Bernie Ecclestone
LOCATION: London, U.K.
PRICE: £14,000,000
SIZE: 4,175 square feet 3-4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Itty-bitty British billionaire Bernie Ecclestone may indeed be a controversial character with an Andy Warhol style hair-don't he's also a real estate baller. Once upon a time, in the not so distant real estate past, the bantam billionaire paid a panty-knotting and eye-popping £50,000,000 for an immense pile in Central London that overlooks London's Kensington Palace and previously served as both the Russian and Egyptian embassies.

However and alas, his then wife, a much younger 6-foot 2-inch former Armani model from Croatia named Slavica , apparently didn't care much for the palatial pad and reportedly refused–or declined–to move into the house that includes 20-car underground parking and a private damn hair salon. Word to the wise: It's best to consult your spouse when spending 70 or eighty million smackers on a new house. In 2004, three years after buying but never occupying the 15-bedroom beast, the Formula One race car honcho sold the the place at a significant profit for £57,000,000 to steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal. Brace yourselves butter beans because according to our trusty currency conversion contraption that works itself out to a stratospheric $91,835,000 at today's rates, a figure that does not read as the price of a private residence but rather the GDP of an impoverished country.

Theirs was a cliché romance and marriage–she a striking young filly with a taste for the good life and he a petite billionaire old enough to be her father and with money to burn–but it endured an impressive 24 years and produced a pair of statuesque daughters. Mister and Missus Ecclestone publicly split in 2008 and the following year spun through the court of dee-vorce where Missus Ecclestone became ex-Missus Ecclestone and received a settlement rumored and widely reported to be in range of a billion bucks. Not such bad work if you can get it, no?
As far as Your Mama knows–and we really know so very little–Mister Ecclestone's primary residence in London remains the staid if somewhat mousy-looking mansion (above) that overlooks upscale Chelsea Square. Mister Ecclestone's mansion happens to be directly across the street from a converted art school building where he owns a lavish cond0-crib that recently reappeared on the market with an asking price of £14,000,000. That's $22,556,000 at today's rates for all us folks the good ol' U.S. of A.

The big-spending octogenarian billionaire reportedly paid £6,875,000 for the first-floor spread in June of 2006. A few quick calculations shows that comes to 11,076,600 U.S. bucks at today's rates. The apartment was previously reported to have been occasionally used by ex-Missus Ecclestone and the former couple's towering twenty-something year daughters Petra and Tamara. A little more on the real estate shenanigans of those globe-trotting glamazons to come.

Listing information and marketing materials for the Mister Ecclestone's contemporary condo show it measures a mini-mansion-sized 4,175 square feet and includes 3-4 bedrooms and 4.5 poopers. Although the apartment is only on the first floor–that's the second floor for all us posies across the pond–two elevators open directly into a gracious but far from grand entrance hall.

The main living spaces include an oddly-shaped but quite commodious reception room that stretches 37-feet at its widest point and has dark hardwood floors, built-in bookshelves, a fireplace and a series of floor to-ceiling windows and French doors that open to a terrace at the back of the building. The adjacent formal dining room was done-up by the nice, gay decorator in what we think of as a South Beach boo-teek hotel-style. The walls are painted with the identical shade of dusty-blush as the floor to ceiling draperies that help but do not completely disguise the wonky shape of the room.

The clean-lined eat-in kitchen has plenty of room for a private chef to whip up a gourmet meal for 20 and includes integrated appliances, a separate utility room and pantry and a television mounted between the two large windows that overlook Manresa Road. The muted palette of gray counter tops and striated chocolate and caramel colored cabinetry gets anemically enlivened with a trio of baby-blue stools pulled up to the large work island lit by a couple of chandeliers that look a little like jellyfish or, perhaps, space ships beaming cones of light down on earth.

Two modest-size guest rooms with windows on the street-side of the building each have well-appointed but, unfortunately, windowless en suite facilities. The sizable master suite contains a long entrance hall off of which are a large bedroom, custom-fitted closet and dressing room plus additional closets and storage space, a pair of über-luxe but windowless bathrooms and an adjacent room that could be used as an office, sitting room, gym, Pilates studio, or as a small-ish.

The swanky condo is fitted with all the high-tech hoo-has and doo-dads one can expect in a recently renovated London residence that costs twenty-something million bucks. These features include, according to listing information, an integrated music/television system, electronically controlled curtains and blinds, air conditioning and filtration systems, and radiant heat throughout. The condo comes complete with two private parking spots and the fancy building offers large communal gardens and 24-hour porterage, which means wealthy residents of the building need never carry groceries or baggage from their car to their condo. The yearly fees associated with the unit amount to a reported £60,000 per year. That's nearly eight U.S. smackers per month. Lawhd, people, it makes Your Mama's weak heart skip a damn beat to think of coughing up eight grand a month just so we didn't have to open up the door to the damn building or carry our own groceries.

Both Mister Ecclestone's Chelsea Square mansion and his condominium across the street are mere real estate child's play when it comes to the residential circumstances of his young socialite daughters Petra and Tamara. The elder Ecclestone off-spring, 26-year old Tamara, is reported to be on the precipice of the purchase of a £45,000,000 property in Kensington Palace Gardens, the same swish and super-secure enclave in Central London as the above mentioned monster-manse that Lakshmi Mittal bought from Poppa Ecclestone a few years back. That's a heart-stopping $72,501,300 for all us Americanos. Young Miss Ecclestone–who already owns a behemoth bachelorette pad in hoity-toity Belgravia, and her live-in stockbroker man-beau–will soon be hosting backyard barbecues for the slew of neighboring billionaires who include a Saudiroyal or two, Russian-American business tycoonLeonard Blavatnik and British real estate mogul Jonathan Hunt.

When Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter moved into our far more modest Hollywood Hills abode the neighbors were all very sweet and brought over welcoming gestures such as a tin of home made cookies or a bottle of wine. What, pray tell, does one bring over as a housewarming gift to a 26-year old girl with a 70+ million dollar house? A Mercedes? An Hermès Birkin bag? A minimum-wage worker whose salary is paid up for a year?
In December of 2010 word slipped down the international real estate gossip grapevine that the younger Ecclestone daughter, 22-year old Petra, shelled out a knee-buckling and equilibrium-upsetting £66,000,000 to acquire Sloane House, a monumental Grade II-listed mansion near London's natty and nabobish Sloane Square. That, chickdereeos, amounts to well over $100,000,000 at today's currency conversion rates. When she completes renovations and moves into the mall-sized her new neighbors will reportedly include Mick Jagger, Jemima Khan and Elizabeth Hurley.

Believe it or not, hunnies, Mister Ecclestone has publicly insisted that his daughters, neither of whom appear to have jobs, are not spoiled. Bitch, pleeze. It's your money to spend as you wish Mister Ecclestone, but we beg to differ. Any 22-year old gal with a seventy million dollar house the size of a tsarist-palace paid for by mumsy and daddy is unquestionably and irretrievably spoiled. There really are not two ways about that Mister Ecclestone. There just isn't.

There are scads of reports that suggest that in addition to his London property holdings Mister Ecclestone also owns the so-called Chalet Le Lion in Switzerland's glittery aprés-ski resort of Gstaad. We would be shocked clean out of our Chelsea boots if that was the extent of his personal property portfolio.

exterior photo: Knight Harwood
interior listing photos: Aylesford
photo (Sloane House): Beauchamp Estates

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The Psychological Tactics That Supermarkets Use On Customers

More than 50% of supermarket purchases are "impulse buys". You may not have known that, but the supermarkets do. And they've built their stores accordingly. A fool and his grocery cart are soon filled to the brim.

In this 6-minute video from NBC's The Today Show, you'll learn how supermarkets use everything from packaging to placement so that customers spend more of their money with each store visit.

Among the supermarkets' tricks:

• Placing flowers and bakery at the front of the store to "make you salivate"
• Specific "deal wording" (e.g. Buy 5 for $5.00) meant to entice larger purchases
• Placing staples on top and bottom shelves, leaving middle shelves for impulse products

The piece also recommends shopping a supermarket in a clockwise-fashion. It helps you spend less time in the store.

We're all mindful of our household budgets. Watch this video to save more money on your next trip for groceries.

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Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

Located in up-and-coming Bloomingdale, this spacious Victorian is a genuine steal at just under $780K. The house has been completely renovated, and is now a gleaming masterwork of polished hardwood, stainless steel, and exposed brick. 'Spacious' is probably an overused word in real estate descriptions - I've seen it applied to properties where you could've opened the front door while seated on the toilet - but this house genuinely qualified.

It had none of the narrowness one often finds in this sort of property, thanks to plenty of windows and a sound floor plan, and felt wide open. There's a theater-like living room, a wide gourmet kitchen with obligatory granite and stainless steel, and the master bedroom, with high ceilings and an accordioned wall of windows, has to be seen to be believed. There's also parking for two, and a sizable roof deck with Monument views; on a clear day it almost seems like you could chuck a water-filled balloon all the way to the Capitol. Ah, democracy in action! The house also includes a (totally legal) separately-metered 2-bedroom apartment. I was extremely tempted to buy the house on the spot, and immediately rent out the apartment for twice the amount of my mortgage. Fortunately, if there's one thing the “Great Recession” has taught us, it's that life is not actually a game of Monopoly, and treating it as such will only lead to ruin (or a
multi- billion-dollar bailout).

62 T St., NW
Washington, D.C.
5 Bedrooms, 3.5 Baths Parking

$779,900

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Harris Teeter To Open in Old Town in 2014

Old Town, Alexandria is preparing for an addition to the neighborhood: a 51,500 s.f. Harris Teeter, on the north end of Old Town, one block east of Washington Street. Buchanan Partners of Gaithersburg will team with The Pinkard Group LLC of Bethesda to develop the project, which will also include 175 rental apartments.

"Harris Teeter has been working on finding an Old Town location for years, said Kingsley McAdam Project Manager for Buchanan Partners. "Everyone is very excited about this." Developers are hoping to break ground in 2012 with a 2014 completion. Three condemned buildings reside in the space presently as well as a dry cleaner whose lease will be up by the time the project breaks ground.

The lead architect for the project is John Rust of Rust Orling Architecture, based in Alexandria. Buvermo Properties, Inc. of Bethesda is an equity partner in the $74 million mixed-use development.

Alexandria, Virginia real estate development news

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The Affordability of Housing Reaches a 20-Year Peak

We all know that the housing market has had some challenges in the last couple of years. As the real estate market starts to even out, housing affordability is higher than recorded in over twenty years. This means middle income families can comfortably afford to purchase their own home.

The National Association of Home Builder/Wells Fargo records a Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) every year. This index compares the median income of families in a specified area compared to the income needed to comfortably afford a home purchase. This year they report, “73.9 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the fourth quarter of 2010 were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,400.” This statistic is significant because it is the highest percentage on record since they started collecting this data in 1991.

How does this compare to the Tampa Bay market? The HOI in Tampa is 78.2% in the fourth quarter of 2010, with a median income of $59,400. The Tampa real estate market is opening opportunities for more people to become homeowners.

Housing affordability is not the only good news. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, “Mortgage applications increased 13.2 percent from one week earlier” Interest rates are still very low, and buyer confidence is increasing. Buyers are looking for their next property and sellers are should be ready to help.

SI Real Estate is in the mix of all the Real Estate Market’s changes. We work with buyers, sellers, relocations, and investors to learn what trends are taking place in the Tampa real estate market. If you would like advice from Tampa Bay real estate experts call us today at (813)631-5144.

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Real Estate Round Up: Courtney Love

We probably should just leave this alone but we just can't resist ourselves a wee bit of Courtney Love's special brand of I'm-a-rock-star-crazy, especially when it comes to her peripatetic real estate ways.

In late 1997 Miss Love reportedly bought a house in Beverly Hills, CA for about $3,000,000 from the then recently out-of-the-closet comedienne Ellen Degeneres. In 2001, having already bought a condo in New York City, Miss Love sold the Bev Hills house to British superstar Sir Paul McCartney. It was here at this house that Mister McCartney's former Beatle band mate George Harrison died in 2001.

Miss Love subsequently settled into her fourth floor loft in a newly converted and super-luxe warehouse building 0n cobble stoned Crosby Street in New York City's SoHo 'hood. She paid $2,647,500 for the 4,123 square foot sprawler located in the same swank boutique building where fashion-forward high-heel wearing musician Lenny Kravitz recently sold his duplex penthouse for $12,750,000 to multiple Grammy winner Alicia Keys and her music producer baby daddy and huzband Swizz Beatz.

Anyhoo, as is often the case wherever Miss Love goes, hilarity and chaos reigned supreme during her tenure on Crosby. There are scads of stories and scandalicious reports of antics and bizarre behavior that included a bewildered Miss Love peering into car windows and cadging cigarettes from pedestrians on the street in front of the building. One tenant told the press a story about nearly tripping over an obviously panty-less Miss Love who had, ironically, spilled panties out of her suitcase and all over the floor of the building's attended lobby.

The irrepressibly lubricious Miss Love sold the 4,123 square foot loft, according to Streeteasy, in March of 2006 for an even-steven five million big ones. New Your City über-agent Wilbur Gonzalez told Jennifer Gould Keil at the NY Post in late December 2010 that when Miss Love vacated the premises she left scrawlings on one of the walls in the kitchen that included the telephone numbers of Elton John and Michael Jackson. She may be as batty as three bees in a tornado and sometimes get so drunk she can't pull up her own socks but, chickens, this Miss Love is still a goddam celebrity with a little black book that would make even the most jaded star fucker swoon with envy and self-loathing.

Miss Love landed back in Los Angeles in the mid-naughts. For some time she's said to have lived on Alpine Drive in the flats of Beverly Hills, in the Hollywood Hills house once owned by Natalie Imbruglia and for a some time she lived near the Sunset Strip in a rented Mediterranean-style mansion on a gated street just below the recently rehabbed Beverly Hills residence of t.v. and movie actress Jennifer Aniston who, the real estate children surely know by now, has (allegedly) engaged Platinum Triangle super-broker Jade Mills to shop her 9,000+ square foot extravaganza off-market for more than forty million bucks.

During an impromptu August 2009 interview with a reporter from New York magazine conducted in a public toilet at NYC's Sunshine Cinemas, Miss Love revealed that she and her teenage daughter Frances Bean Cobain were fixin' to decamp Tinseltown for The Big Apple. This was just months before the legendarily mercurial mommy lost legal custody of young Miss Cobain who inherited a substantial fortune from her famously deceased rock star father Kurt Cobain.

We don't claim to know of all of the unlucky locations where Miss Love has bivouacked since heading east to New York City in late 2009 but we do know that she shacked up for a short time in a posh parlor-floor pad in the Chelsea Mansion, a Greek Revival-style townhouse on West 20th Street where the five modestly-sized but well-serviced apartments rent for $15,000 per month or more.

After leaving the Chelsea Mansion, Miss Love and her recently suspended twitter account alighted in the tourist swamped shopping mecca of SoHo where she set up house rockstar-style in a suite at the chic and celebrity-friendly Mercer Hotel. At least once she's appeared in all her boozy glory in the hotel's chi-chi lobby and given an extemporaneous concert, behavior that some speculated would not have been tolerated had she not been (allegedly) shtupping handsome Andre Balazs, the hotel's jet-setting owner and former man-friend of Uma Thurman.

Since at least the beginning of August 2010 (see item #3), Miss Love began to twitter and tell press people about her burning desire to acquire the four-floor West Village townhouse that model turned actress Mila Jovovich then had on the market for $7,500,000. There was a lot of noise made on the matter, mostly by by Miss Love, including a tweet in late November that stated that she'd finally secured the lease to the townhouse. But alas, it was not meant to be if it ever was at all. Just two short weeks after Miss Love's tweet of real estate delight, news broke that Ms. Jovovich's townhouse had actually been sold to IMAX Corp. CEO Rich Gelfond.

Miss Love reportedly left for London, tail tucked between her real estate legs, in late 2010 and speedily fell into the arms and home of contemporary art dealer and gallery owner Henry Allsopp who, in her own words, "saved" her from her own damn self and to whom she has, reportedly and shockingly, signed over power of attorney of her assets.
All of this brings us to the latest news on Miss Love's ongoing, ever-present and always entertaining real estate whirlwind. Either Mister Allsopp and Miss Love have parted ways personally (and professionally) or Mister Allsopp has approved the reported (and alleged) lease by Miss Love of a four-story townhouse in New York City's West Village (above). A tipster recently told the fine folks at Curbed that Miss Love has finally settled on a townhouse and signed a lease for a quaint, quirky, sophisticated and fully-renovated 25-foot wide 4-story townhouse on West 10th Street. No word on what's she's actually paying but the house was last on the market fully furnished with a $28,000 per month price tag.

The house had been for sale on and off since May of 2009 with an asking price as high as $8,800,000. Property records shows the sellers were a couple of gentlemen, one of them a former banker and the other the much lauded and applauded nice gay, decorator Steven Gambrel. In all seriousness and with all due respect, Miss Gambrel really knows how to work a room over and as such the townhouse was featured in the January 2009 issue of Elle Decor. The buyer, who records reveal paid $7,640,000 for the totally turned out townhouse in early October 2010, is listed as a business entity that connects to an address in Chicago as well as to at a ritzy residence in Coconut Grove, FL that happens to be currently on the market with an asking price of $9,800,000. Make of that what you will.
The glossy black front door of the Greek Revival-style townhouse from the early 1800s opens into a wide entrance hall with a sexy curved staircase straight ahead and, immediately to the right, a small reception room with lusciously lacquered steel-blue walls and smartly over-scaled and unvarnished herringbone-patterned antique wood floors. The fireplace in the intimate reception room is the first of six in the house. Up half a flight from the entrance all and concealed door hides a service and guest wing that includes laundry facilities, three-quarter bath and an itty-bitty bedroom papered in an over-sized and beyond bold red, blue and yellow ikat pattern.

The curving staircase sweeps up another half flight to a 25-foot wide living room that has Tiffany blue walls, heavy moldings and fireplaces at each end. Off the short hall that connects the stairs to the living room are a study/bedroom, wet bar, stereo cabinet and powder pooper.

On the top level a petite guest room has a fireplace and private hall bathroom and the master bedroom has another fireplace and attached facilities. Closet space is slim but there's a large custom-fitted and windowed dressing room that helps to make up for that shortcoming. Any guest of Miss Love's who stays in the upper level guest room will surely be treated to seeing their 40-something year old train wreck hostess parade back and fourth between the bedroom and the dressing room.

Half way down the stairs from the entrance level to the basement kitchen glass doors open to a tiny but charming terrace. The unfortunately all-but-windowless lower level has a massive fireplace flanked by a cozy sitting area and an eat-in kitchen outfitted in a sophisticated style that marries contemporary cabinetry and high-tech appliances with original architectural details like the exposed (and painted) brick walls that act as a bumpy back splash and give the room some historical gravitas.

We really haven't any idea if Miss Love has leased this townhouse or not but for a woman who herself often cries poverty to the press, she sure does manage to scrape together the do-re-mi to live in pretty pricey and damn luxe circumstances, don't she?

More mouth-watering photos of the townhouse can be found on the website of the quite accomplished designer Steven Gambrel.

photos: Corcoran
floor plan: Halstead via Curbed

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Neighborhood Report: Georgia Avenue

Much has been promised of Georgia Avenue, without fulfillment. Some developers, like Chris Donatelli at the Petworth Metro, have made an impact, while miles of underutilized land changed little on one of Washington DC's major corridors. At last, investment on the avenue has arrived. Below is a summary of the improvement now underway.

The Great Streets Project, a centerpiece of the revitalization of middle Georgia Avenue, is in full swing with single lane closures tying up Taylor to Upshur Streets for much of the month. Plans include better lighting at intersections and at pedestrian level, more trees, and repaved sidewalks.

The Heights, at 3232 Georgia Avenue, will offer 69 units and 10,000 s.f. of ground floor retail, is behind schedule. The Neighborhood Development Community (NDC) project had been slated for completion for early 2011, but has been pushed to a third quarter opening. Half the units will be offered as affordable housing.

The Vue is a smaller, privately financed project at Georgia Avenue and Morton Street; 7,000 s.f. of retail space and 112 market rate apartments. Also an NDC project, the completion date is farther on the horizon since the zoning hearing was rescheduled for late this month.

3813 - 3829 Georgia Ave: This Donatelli project on a neglected strip will provide 5000 s.f. of retail and 5000 s.f. of restaurant space. It also includes Chez Billy, formerly Billy Simpson's House of Seafood, at 3815 Georgia Ave. The restaurant, to be run by Thievery Corporation's Eric Hilton and brother Ian Hilton, had been designated for the National Register of Historic Places for its role in the social and political culture of D.C.'s African American community.

Opening has been delayed because of the owners' focus on other projects, namely American Ice Company and the soon to open Blackbyrd Warehouse next to the Hilton-owned Marvin at 2005 14th Street. Projected opening date for Chez Billy is June.

At the southern end of that strip is 3801 Georgia Avenue: Donatelli's seven-story multifamily - The Griffin - is near completion, slated for July or August, 49 units for sale or lease (not yet decided). Designed by Eric Colbert and Associates, the building is residential only, no retail.

6925-6529 Georgia Ave: Blue Skye Construction has been chosen by the city to build 24 mixed income units in this fenced off, undeveloped lot on upper Georgia Avenue. The District bid the project out in 2009 and chose Blue Sky in early 2010, but the District is still grinding through the approval process.

Howard Town Center: In negotiations for an anchor grocer, Howard Town Center is seeing delays that bump the completion date to 2013 or beyond. Ongoing negotiations to obtain a grocer for what would be Georgia Avenue's largest mixed-use project have been inconclusive, and CastleRock Partners, Howard University's chosen developer for the site, has yet to move forward. CastleRock was selected in early 2009 to build up to 450 apartments, a grocery store, and a large retail component.

Georgia Ave Safeway: According to Duball LLC, groundbreaking for what will become the second largest Safeway in the city at 3830 Georgia Avenue won't occur until a year to a year and a half from now. Duball said at this month's ANC meeting that they will focus on permitting and securing approval for the Planned Unit Development. Expect completion in two to three years, at best.

Park Morton: Though Hamel Builders is on site to break ground in the joint venture between the Warrenton Group and Landex Companies on the $130 million dollar, 500 unit housing project, they're still waiting for permits says Tom McManus, Studio Director of Wiencek Associates Architects and Planners, the firm responsible for the project's design.

Dubbed "The Avenue," the development located on the southwest corner of Newton Place and Georgia Avenue includes public housing. DCMud reported that the project was to take 14 months to build, but it has to start first.

2910 Georgia Avenue: The construction of this 22 unit, all-residential development is well underway. Developed by Art Linde of ASL International, the designer is Eric Colbert and Associates. Linde bought the property from Howard University in 2009 for $560,000.

Washington, D.C. real estate development news

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A Big Deal Goes Down at NYC's Lordly 834 Fifth Avenue

In the late 80s, Columbus, OH-based billionaire businessman Leslie Wexner bought a palatial 21,000 square foot townhouse on the Upper East Side of New York City. In 1996 or '07 he sold the East 71st Street townhouse, complete with a secret lead-lined bathroom with closed-circuit television, to the lavish living prostie lovin' financier and philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein whose prurient affinity for very young woman landed him in the clink in 2008.

About the time he was selling his titanic townhouse to Jeffrey Epstein, Mister Wexner reportedly paid a wealthy Italian lady somewhere in the neighborhood of nine million clams for a 16-room fixer-upper duplex at the high-nosed 834 Fifth Avenue. The apartment, with only two rooms that face Central Park, was previously owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch who hauled his heiny up a few flights when he famously paid a heart-stopping $44,000,000 for the triplex penthouse at 834. Your Mama has been told a number of times by a number of Upper East Side types who tend to know about these things that Mister Wexner and his wife Abigail had their five bedroom crib at 834 worked over by autocratic French architect Thierry Despont.

Shortly after news broke in late December 2009 that the Wexner's had snatched up a 3,480 square foot condo at 15 Central Park West for $13,100,000, the folks at the New York Observer snitched that Mister and Missus Wexner had quietly floated their duplex at 834 Fifth Avenue on the market with a mind-numbing $60,000,000 asking price. In early December of 2010 it was revealed, also in the New York Observer, that the asking price had dropped dramatically to $34,000,000 and sold to an unknown buyer.

A couple weeks late the buyer was identified in the NY Post as commercial real estate magnate Lazarus "Larry" Heyman who, it may surprise the children to know, is not yet forty years old.

This week The Real Deal announced that the Wexner actually sold his duplex digs at 834 for $36,000,000, a number that would indicate that there may have been a second interested party that drove the final sale price up to two million above the reported asking price.

Mister Heyman and his wife Kim, formerly of Sutton Place, now have uppity neighbors who include Bing Crosby's son Harry, philanthropist, haute couture queen and high society doyenne Carroll McDaniel Portago Carey-Hughes Pistell Petrie who once lived on the 5th floor and now lives in Pauline Pitt designed digs on the 10th floor and famously fat living former "King of Wall Street" John Gutfreund and his very social wife Susan whose live primarily in a plush Parisian apartment they put up for sale in 2010 but still maintain an opulent Henri Samuel designed 16-room apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue that measures in at a hefty hefty hefty 12,000 square feet.

photos: The Office of Thierry Despont

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New Home Sales Crater In January, Opening The Door For Deals With Builders

Not all housing reports are sunny, it seems.

In its monthly New Home Sales release, the U.S. Department of Commerce showed a 13 percent drop-off in annualized new construction sales between the months of December and January.

It's the biggest one-month drop in New Home Sales since May 2010.

In addition, the supply of new homes for sale spiked higher to 7.9 months last month.  "Home supply" is defined as the amount of time it would take to sell the complete "for sale" inventory at the current pace of sales.

In December, the supply measured just 7.0 months,

Don't fret the news, however. For buyers of new construction in Seattle , falling New Home Sales figures can be terrific. Weaker markets put pressure on the nation's home builders to sell their respective homes more quickly. To reach that goal, builders often discount prices and/or offer free upgrades to buyers. 

Some of that action may already be in effect.

Despite falling volume, the New Home Sales report showed that new homes are selling faster than in recent months. The median time required to sell a newly-built home dropped to 7.8 months in January -- a figure well below January 2010's reading of 13.9 months.

It suggests that builders are getting better at locating buyers, and moving property.

Therefore, if you're shopping for a new construction and see one worth buying, get to it. Not only will the home likely sell soon if it's priced right, but an increase in mortgage rates will make the home more expensive to finance.

Every 0.250% increase to rates adds $15 monthly per $100,000 borrowed.

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McCaffery and Douglas Pick Up Chinatown Corner Site

The last undeveloped corner in one of the most high-traffic areas of Washington has just been acquired by McCaffery Interests Inc. and Douglas Development, at 675 H Street N.W., encompassing the iconic corner building, long since boarded up, and the vacant lot behind it.

"This is the best intersection in metro D.C." said Juan Cameron, Managing Director of McCaffery, comparing it to Georgetown's Wisconsin Avenue and M Street hub. "It is a central location with a lot of pulse, narrow streets, tons of foot traffic, a heavy daytime population, tremendous residential presence, plus the energy of the Verizon Center. In our eyes, its the closest thing Washington has to Times Square."

Though "everyone has their ideas for how the property will take shape," said Cameron, in these early stages the venture is dubbed as a state of the art, mixed use development. "Step one is looking for a marquee tenant," said Cameron.

General partners for the venture Douglas Development and McCaffery Interests acquired the property yesterday at auction. The property had gone into foreclosure thirty days ago, after Yeni Wong of Riverdale International had been unable to secure financing for the building. This past month was the last of many times the building had fallen into foreclosure; in 2009, Wong was given a notice for this property as well as 801 7th Street for $13,491,471 plus attorney's fees. Wong bought the two properties in 2006 for $10 million dollars.

This isn't the just the first or second try at developing this corner. DRI, a Transwestern Company, had slated 675 H Street as a two-building project: one that would restore the corner space and rise nine stories over the arch, the other a Class A office building behind the main storefronts. The total project would have yielded 110,000 s.f. of office space and 50,000 s.f. of retail. McCaffrey owns Georgetown Centre, leased by Barnes & Noble, and Mazza Gallery, which it bought in 1997. Douglas owns pretty much everything else.

Update: Alex Cooper Auctioneers states that the lot was purchased for $9.1 million.

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Anyone up for...

...a little Charlie Sheen real estate crazy?

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Col. Gaddafi's Second Son Lets London Pad

OWNER: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
LOCATION: London, U.K.
PRICE: £9,750/week
SIZE: 7,757 square feet, 7-8 bedrooms, 8 full and 2 half bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Anyone who's even remotely conscious ought to know by now that things are really gettin' down and goin' plum nutty in northern Africa and the Middle East. An angry but peaceful grass roots revolution have already sent Egypt's long-time president Hosni Mubarak packing and in Yemen anti-government protests going on right this very second have the government shaking in their beaded slippers. Even though he's publicly declared he'll die a martyr before leaving, Libya's despotic dictator Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi may not have a choice. A brave and roiling revolt that rages in Libya wants him gone and an obviously rattled Gaddafi has already lost control of much of the eastern part of the country he's ruled since taking over in a 1969 coup. If things continue the way they're already going Mister al-Gaddafi may soon be on the lam.

Many recent reports suggest that Misters Mubarak and al-Gaddafi siphoned and squirreled away vast sums of ill-gotten gains. Well, duh! Some reports suggest Mister Mubarak's riches may add up to between forty and seventy billion bucks and additional news stories suggest that Mister al-Gaddafi may have amassed a slightly smaller but still obscenely monumental fortune of around $60,000,000,000. So, you know, children, neither Evita Perón nor Argentina itself will cry for these two tyrants or their families as they sadly whittle away the rest of their lives in lavishly-appointed exile in whatever country (or countries) will harbor them.

Quirky and unpredictable Mister al-Gaddafi has a long-standing and complicated but quite cozy relationship with, among others, the government of the United Kingdom. Over the years Mister al-Gaddafi invested large sums of money into British concerns and real estate. These lucrative investments include a substantial stake in Pearson Group, the company that owns the venerable and influential U.K.-based newspaper the Financial Times. On a smaller scale, a business entity registered in the British Virgin Islands reportedly paid £10,000,000 for a mansion in the upscale Hampstead Garden Suburb in North London in December of 2009. The company and the house are believed and reported to be owned by The Colonel's son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Despite having a despot for a father, young Saif managed to live an open and glamorous life in London and other chic and sophisticated cities around the world. He's legend among the global glitterati for hosting parties in glitzy locales like St. Tropez and Monaco. In 2009 he celebrated his 37th birthday in Montenegro at a party reportedly attended by international movers and shakers such as Albert II–that would be the Prince of Monaco, natch–London-based steel tycoon Laskmi Mittal, Canadian gold-mining magnate Peter Munk, Austrian billionaire businessman Martin Schlaff and Russian uber-billionaire Oleg Derispaska.

Like the rich and famous who live in relative peace and freedom in democratic countries, the children of north African autocrats also have a propensity to catching a case of The Real Estate Fickle. Apparently and despite a very recent gut-renovation of the four-floor house, Mister al-Gaddafi the Younger has decided he no longer wants to live there and–we learned from the always informative London property blog The Rat and Mouse–has put it up for lease at a pricey £9,750 per week. A quick consult with our trusty currency conversion contraption shows that works out to a very high-fallutin' $15,792 per week for all us Americanos.

Listing information for the Hampstead Garden Suburb house generously provided to us by a fine informant we'll call LaToya Lettin'yaknow shows the house spans 7,757 square feet and includes 7 or 8 bedrooms and 8 full and 2 half bathrooms.

The stately and traditional brick-built exterior belies the minimalist modern architecture and day-core on the inside. The glam grips you right inside the front door that opens into a triple-height sky-lit reception hall where a glass-railed stair wraps dramatically around the room. To one side a small sitting room and straight ahead a giant drawing room with white stone floors (that may or may not be marble), contempo fireplace and a semi-circular bay window lined floor to ceiling with glass. Frosted glass panels fold back and join the drawing room to an L-shaped dining room/family room/kitchen combo. French doors in the dining area open out to a terrace that overlooks the substantial landscaped rear garden.

Upstairs, three bedrooms, each with en suite facilities, surround a master suite complete with dressing area, built in entertainment systems and private bath that includes two sinks, a terlit and a bidet, a soaking tub for two and, somewhat oddly, two glass enclosed shower stalls. The top floor contains two more bathrooms and a jumble of flexi-use rooms that could easily accommodate two to four more bedrooms.

In addition to a staff room with attached bath, storage space and utility room, the lower ground floor–which marketing materials calls the "leisure level" and Americans call a finished basement–includes a chocolate-colored suede-lined cinema room and a mirrored exercise/yoga/massage/relax room flanked by a bathroom, steam room and sauna. Floor to ceiling glass panels separate the room from the blue Bizazza-tiled indoor swimming pool and spa.

Naturally, young and flashy Mister al-Gaddafi's sybaritic residence comes fully equipped with a state-of-the-art home automation system that control the fireplaces and curtains as well as the the lighting, heating and cooling, audio-visual and hardcore security apparatus that includes cameras that record on to a hard drive.

As luxe and impressive as a house like this may be to whomever can afford the fifteen grand a week rent, what sort of person would feel comfortable with the all-but-unhinged and kinda freaky Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi for a landlord? Especially right now when he's probably in a very sour and bombastic mood.

Anyone? Hello? Is anyone there?

listing photos and floor plan: Glentree International

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Existing Home Supply Down 40% In Last 6 Months

Home resales rose another 2.7 percent last month, according to the National Association of REALTORS® monthly Existing Home Sales report.

An "existing home" is a home that's been previously occupied and is not considered new construction.

The number of existing homes sold on a rolling 12-month basis is now at its highest point since May 2010, the month before the federal homebuyer tax credit ended. It's also up some 40% since July 2010, the month after the tax credit ended.

But that's not the biggest story in the Existing Home Sales report. The precipitous decline in home inventory deserves more attention.

At the current pace of sales, the complete, national home resale inventory will be sold in 7.6 months. This is close to 5 months faster as compared to last year's peak, and well below the 2-year home supply average of 9.0 months. There more buyers in the market, it seems, and fewer homes from which they can choose.

Total home resale inventory is down to just 3.38 million homes nationwide -- the fewest in 12 months.

There were other interesting statistics in the official Existing Home Sales report, including a break-down of purchases by buyer-type.

• First-time buyers accounted for 29% of purchases, down from 33% in January
• Repeat homebuyers accounted for 48% of purchases, up from 47% in January
• Investors accounted for 23% of of purchases, up from 20% in January

In addition, distressed sales -- foreclosures and short sales -- made up 37 percent of the market.

Over the next few days, more housing data will hit the wires and it's expected to show similar strength to January's Existing Home Sales report. With falling supplies and a growing base of move-up buyers, home prices in Renton and around the country are expected to rise in the coming months ahead.

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Rosslyn Office Project Breaks Ground Today

This morning marks groundbreaking at 1776 Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, a self-financed Skanska development of a five-story office building with 108,000 s.f. of rentable space and 26,000 s.f. of retail. Skanska is shooting for completion in a year and a half.

Skanska purchased the site for $10 million in 2010 from George Contis, whose property had housed Medical Service Corporation International. Skanska will build out the RTKL-designed plans, having stepped into the shoes of this and several stalled DC area projects like the PN Hoffman office project at 10th & G and Opus's southeast office project at M and Half Streets.

The ground breaking ceremony begins on site at 11:30 A.M.

Arlington, Virginia Real Estate development news

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