Arlington Mill Ready to Build

Demolition of the community center on Arlington's Columbia Pike is slated in the next two weeks to make way for Arlington Mill, a community center, garage and a low-rise affordable housing complex. "We're just waiting for our electricity to be rewired and then we can get started," said George May, Construction Bureau Chief of Arlington County.

The first phase of the project has a projected cost of 24 to 25 million dollars to build a new community center with a gym, learning center, public plaza and garage, designed by Davis Carter Scott. Residences on the north side developed by Arlington Partnership for Affordable Housing (APAH) and designed by Kishimoto Gordon Dalaya Architecture (KGD) are scheduled to go under construction in 2012 with a targeted completion date of May 2013.

APAH will be applying for the Low Incoming Housing Tax Credit March 11th. The group is slated to build 122 subsidized residences in the second phase of the project, which starts after completion of the community center. In the original plans, 192 residences were to have been built, with 61 slated for affordable housing. Public Private Alliance was unable to secure financing for the market-rate apartments so the county went back to the drawing board in the planning stages, said Maureen Markham, Arlington County Development Specialist. "We had a couple of rough years for the housing market and funding, but things are looking up," she said.
Arlington, Virginia real estate development news

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Axumite Village to Break Ground in Spring

Although not exactly equaling the golden-clad grandiosity of the great Axumite Kingdom in ancient Ethiopia, the four-story, 36-unit "Axumite Village" set for 1100 S. Highland St. in Arlington will be a proud accomplishment for the Ethiopian Community Development Council (ECDC) nonetheless. The Arlington County Board approved the Columbia Pike project plans in the summer of 2009, but the developers have been slow to secure financing and move forward with construction. That patience is soon to be rewarded with progress according to project manager and President of the ECDC Dr. Tsehaye Teferra.

Developers are now polishing off the last of the many necessary construction documents due to the County before building can began. "Financing is finalized, and now we must wait for our construction documents to be approved and permits issued," says Teferra. Drafted by local firm KGP Design Studio, the structure, dressed in red brick and accented with sleek black-metal framed industrial windows, will see 12 new townhouses divided into three stacked apartments. The $12 million project also features detailed landscaping as well as 41 parking spaces. Nearly a quarter of the development site is being forked over to the County for public access, as officials propose to extend 11th Street through the northern end of the property.

The Columbia Pike Form Based Code helped guide the development's planning and design, expediting the often lengthy approval process; unfortunately there is no such mechanism to accelerate construction, estimated to last 12 to 18 months. Dr. Teferra says his team hopes to begin that countdown to delivery with a groundbreaking celebration in late May or early June.

ECDC is a local nonprofit that works to "resettle refugees and promote cultural, educational, and socioeconomic development in the refugee and immigrant community in the United States."

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Arlington Mill In Process of Selecting Newest Suitor

Plans for a mixed use development set for 4975 Columbia Pike that couples the construction of a new Arlington Mill Community Center with a large mixed-income residential project have been brewing for several years now. Originally devised as a three story multipurpose center with several levels of residential units stacked on top, the now 5-story Community Center stands solo and starkly modern in its newest configuration; the residential building will be constructed separately on the adjacent land. In its inception the development was billed as a large public/private partnership, packaged as a singular entity. But fed up with the roller-coaster-like search for development partners, and having lost their most recent teammate in Edgemoor Real Estate (a subsidiary of Clark Construction) to the slow economy, Arlington County officials decided to press on with their publicly funded side of the development (the community center) while they issued yet another request for proposals for the residential half of the project.

The County steering committee and involved public officials held an open meeting last night at Walter Reed Community Center to unveil the latest redevelopment plans for the Community Center. Looking to make up for lost time, planners are moving forward aggressively with the intention of demolishing the current building in October, breaking ground in early 2011, and opening the doors of the new center in the spring of 2013. The public development team will meet with the Transportation Commission, the Planning Commission, then wrap up proceedings with a final Board hearing on September 28th. With plans finalized, a request for general contracting bids will soon follow.

One of the earlier site plans.

Although a construction team won't be selected until winter, architects at DCS Design (Davis Carter Scott) have already supplied the updated schematics. The boxy, glassy building brings a bold, urban flare to the Columbia Pike thoroughfare, but an aquatic inspired color scheme of light blues and greens give a calming sensibility to the imposing structure. The five stories will be stacked on top of two tiers of underground parking (140 spaces) and feature a full gymnasium (8,700 s.f.), an entire floor's worth of fitness center, a game room, visual arts studio, mini libraries, a career center, computer labs, and a variety of multipurpose classrooms, study rooms, and meeting rooms.

A County spokesperson explained that their strategy for the updated programing line-up was to create "one stop shopping for County services." The plethora (10) of multipurpose rooms, as well as several fixed classrooms and conference rooms, will provide flexibility for programing, especially as new relationships are built with nearby schools and libraries that may utilize the new space. The Community Center will be financed with general obligation bonds already sanctioned by County voters, most recently a $26 million bond authorized in November of 2006. Community members seemed supportive, but anxious about the dearth of details for the accompanying residential plan.

The Starry Night version

Arlington County issued a request for proposals earlier this summer, receiving several official plans before the early August deadline. When asked about the proportion of affordable housing going forward, Arlington Mill Steering Committee Chairwoman Linda LeDuc explained that "all six of the received proposals would at least meet the originally stipulated 61 units at 60% AMI. We accepted both mixed income plans," she clarified, "and entirely affordable housing propositions. But it's all kind of up in the air right now." For those who've been tuned in since the beginning, the project has come together at a snail's pace, but once a new developer is decided upon, the process should move more quickly. Officials are expecting the new development team to be poised and ready to apply for HUD's Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) by spring of next year.

Because previous plans have already been approved for a 2-5 story residential building, and because the site is to be developed to Form Based Code as part of the Columbia Pike Special Revitalization District, the normally grueling planning process should be quicker and less painful. Financing and other details will of course remain obstacles, and so no time line has been issued. Vetting of submitted proposals will take place throughout the fall, and additional information will likely be provided as the County irons out their more immediately plans for the Community Center.

Arlington Real Estate Development News

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Penrose Square Town Center in Arlington is Under Way

Carbon Thompson Development, the Herndon- and Dallas-based developer, has donated a parcel equal to approximately half the area of the Penrose Square open space plaza as part of an agreement with Arlington County to emphasize the creation of usable public space along what is being conceived as three miles of pedestrian-friendly commercial boulevard. When finished, the $80 million, 4-acre Penrose Square mixed-use development at Columbia Pike and S. Barton St. will include 299 rental units, 30,000 SF of retail, including restaurants and retail, a new 47,000 s.f. "flagship" Giant grocery store, and 700 parking spaces, mostly underground. Site owner B.M. Smith chose Carbon Thompson, which started construction in June when it demolished Adams Square and began the two-year construction project. with financing from Wachovia Bank, RBS Citizens. Foulger-Pratt Construction of Rockville is the general contractor and Heffner Architects PC of Alexandria the designer of the buildings. "We went through the form-based code process with two architects. One focused on residential and the other on the retail portion of the design. Ultimately, we went with Heffner Architects because they have experience in both types of development," reported Jim Mertz of Carbon Thompson.

The project took advantage of the Columbia Pike Form Based Code, which is optional to developers, but significantly reduces the public review process for getting projects approved. An appointed citizen group and county officials drafted the code collaboratively. They outlined measures for regulating the location of the building site; architectural standards, including building materials, facade design, placement and appearance of windows, doors and parapets; building envelope standards, which specify building height by stories rather than floor-to-floor height; and streetscape standards, which regulate public right-of-way elements like sidewalk width, treescape, civic plazas and open space. There were no stylistic specifications in the code. Although the project conforms to the form-based code, because there was no provision for a grocery store in the zoning regulation, Penrose Square had to resubmit for approval as a 4.1 site plan project. A minor detour, the site plan submittal process ensures that the development is mindful of its neighbors during the construction process and allows for the demolition of existing structures, foundation setting, ground-level garage permitting and building construction approvals in stages.

"Form-based codes allow for greater development density. The point of this development was to spur economic growth and activity along Columbia Pike. The county spent four years meeting with citizens determining what they wanted it to be," said Mertz.

Penrose Square is located within walking distance of the already completed Halstead and Sienna Park developments. The town center at Penrose will be easily accessible to both drivers and those who prefer to walk, but overall, the area will function like a walkable community.

Penrose Square: The Open Space Plan

When Penrose Square is complete, you will be able to experience monolithic radio communication in the heart of Arlington County's Columbia Pike revitalization corridor. Last July, DC Mud wrote a story on The Virginia Department of Transportation's plans to link key locations along the Columbia Pike zoning district via streetcar. Zeroing in on Columbia Pike between South Cleveland St. and South Barton St., imagine two sculptures carved out of white granite and about 100 feet apart oriented on a NW to SE diagonal. Each slab is poised upward and has rough, irregular edges, and each faces the hollow elliptical paraboloid concavity of the other. Designed by California sculptor Richard Deutsch in collaboration with the DC-based landscape designer OCULUS, Echo will mimic the way sound travels across radio waves. The shape and orientation of the concavities of the sculptures will be orchestrated to convey even very low amplitude sound (like a whisper) from one granite station to the other. From 1913 until 1941, a nearby site on Columbia Pike was home to three radio-communication towers - the "Three Sisters," which sent some of the first radio signals to the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 1915. Deutsch's sculpture refers to this local history at the request of the 12-member, citizen-run Working Group that the Arlington County Board put together to help conceive of the design for Penrose Square.

Less means more planning

The two-piece interactive sculpture will be set on a quadrangle with a paved central plaza, buffered with a bosque terrace feature with outdoor seating to the northeast, a bermed lawn buttressed with retaining walls to the south, a zero-depth water feature to the southeast and another smaller lawn with tree canopy and retaining walls to the west.

"We envision that people using the grocery store and adjacent buildings will be coming to the park to relax and take a break. We have designed custom, movable seating for the bosque and a fountain with 27 jets at different heights that people will be able to walk up to and touch. The space is designed to accommodate large-scale events and large crowds, as well," remarked Marjorie Salcedo, a landscape architect and project manager on Penrose.

According to the meeting minutes of a July 2008 meeting of the citizen Working Group, "The Group aimed to pursue a square that would: be scaled to relate to the adjacent buildings; form a synergy with adjacent retail shops; be flexible enough to address daily needs as well as host special events; be inclusive and welcoming to people of all ages and abilities; be oriented toward transit; provide strong visual and physical connections to Columbia Pike; offer a variety of seating opportunities; and adhere to the design guidelines for civic squares contained in the Columbia Pike Form Based Code."

The future Super Stop station, designed by Arlington County for buses, will run parallel to Columbia Pike south of the 33,000 SF plaza, which will be build in two phases. Phase I is estimated to break ground in Spring of 2011.

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