Capital One Proposes a Remake of Tysons Campus

Following on the heels of Fairfax County's plan to transform Tysons Corner from a beltway exit to a citified, walkable community, financial giant Capital One has filed new plans for its Tysons Corner development, embracing the shift by proposing to turn its planned office park into a mixed-use model of urban planning. Capital One ensured future value of the land when it donated 3 of its 29 acres for an upcoming Metrorail station expected to open in 2013, a move it now seems ready to take advantage of.
Capital One had been approved for a 4-building office park on the 26-acre site just inside the beltway that it bought in 2000, but has built only one tower; in its place the company has now designed a mix of offices, parks, retail, residential and public spaces for what might someday be a live-work-walk community. No definitive time frame has been established. Capital One acknowledges that the economic outlook doesn't yet justify much of the construction, saying it has "no immediate plans" to develop the site. But "should the need arise," the bank wants an approved model in place and has stretched out its implementation over years as the climate in both financial institutions and real estate world improve.

Consolidation of Capital One's headquarters began back in 2002, when it built a 14-story headquarters on its newly acquired site. But rather than build out the remaining 3 buildings with their combined 560,000 s.f. of space, despite finally nearing capacity with 1000 employees, McLean based Capital One proposes to build on the new Tysons redevelopment plan and take the campus "in an entirely different direction" with a daunting 5 million s.f. of development. If approved by the county, the "vibrant urban center" would hold 2.1m s.f. of office space rising up to 392 feet (though just 28 stories), 980 to 1230 residential units rising 20 stories, as well as hotels, parks, plazas and retail, all connected to the Tysons East Metro station.

Few others have opted to launch similar projects; Quadrangle Development delivered the only new office building in 2009 and has held back on its approved residential development. But Capital One may have at least something in their wallet, since it is proposing a 15-story office building adjacent to the current headquarters and connected by an elevated walkway. It calls the building "the most likely to be constructed in the near term." The streetscape will be entirely reconfigured in what it calls an "urban grid system." Because the site is within a quarter of a mile of the new Metro station, density limits are eliminated, giving the region perhaps its best chance at a building that sets a new record for the area's tallest, possibly exceeding, just barely, Rosslyn's planned 390-foot Central Place tower. Capital One's application to the county will shoot for the USGBC's green building certification on each of its buildings by using green or reflective roofs, rainwater retention systems, pervious pedestrian paths, and a preference of foot traffic over vehicular access. Despite the nod to sustainability, the development will extend Scotts Crossing Road over the beltway and connect to Jones Bridge Drive on the west side of I-495, better connecting the overly wide roads that criss-cross the area.
County officials would not estimate the time frame for evaluating the application, a process that would include public hearings and studies, and presumably a series concessions between the county and Capital One; officials say they have not yet given input on the development plan.

Architects and planners envisioning the urban context include Bonstra Haresign as Urban Planner and Architect and William H. Gordon Associates as Civil Engineer and Landscape Architect. David Haresign, then Principal and Director of Architecture for Ai, assisted Capital One with initial site selection and designed the original master plan and the headquarters building, now iconic to the beltway bound as a curving "billboard" facing Tysons with the financier's logo. Like its planned successors, the first tower employed infrastructural adaptations to environmentalism, such as water-reducing plumbing, underfloor air distribution systems, pervious paving and local sourcing of materials, features not yet common at its inception.

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Southwest's Big Day

Can anyone finance this?

District officials began demolition yesterday of Hogate's Restaurant on the Southwest waterfront, the first step of what will be a billion-dollar renovation of the area that will usher in a new neighborhood in a city-changing endeavor to connect DC to the river. Or, to the cynically inclined, it was a short-lived photo op for a project that has zero chance of starting soon.

Putting healthy skepticism aside, a completed project would be transformative, replacing careless architecture, mediocre food establishments and parking lots, all segregated by anti-pedestrian design, with an urban worthy mixed-use neighborhood featuring 14 acres of parks and "open space," 780,000 square feet of office and retail space, 3 new hotels, entertainment venues and 770 condos and apartments. Just picture throngs of happy pedestrians gazing over the marina while dropping Hamiltons like crazy at waterfront retailers. Add 3,000 new jobs and you have a minor stimulus plan in the works.

So just how close is the team, comprised of PN Hoffman, Madison Marquette, Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, McCormack Baron Salazar, ER Bacon Development, Triden Development, Paramount Development, Gotham Development and City Partners, to getting real progress? The ambitious project, first approved by the DC Council back in 2003, was never on fast-track. But despite the development team having been selected in September of 2006, the District's approval of $198m in revenue bonds supported by tax increment financing (TIF) in July of 2008, and ratification of the land agreement in December of 2008, numerous obstacles remain. District officials say that a master plan will be submitted in October, and though they acknowledge there has been no major headway on financing, actual construction is now estimated for a comfortably distant 2012. But in January of 2008 developer Monty Hoffman predicted that "District residents can see a shovel in the ground by 2010;" not a surprising miscalculation given, well, everything, but one that gives pause in relying on current estimates. PN Hoffman would not comment on the significance of the groundbreaking. It seems that for the near future it will remain simply a good spot to get cheap fish.

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Marbury Plaza: 1500 Tenants End Two-Year Rent Strike

Real trouble began about five years ago. A young girl and her mother were killed by an explosion at Marbury Plaza in Southeast Washington, DC, and several people were injured. Investigators believed that thieves had tampered with natural gas lines leading to laundry equipment inside one of the two highrises in the otherwise garden-style residential complex. In response, the management company, The Lightstone Group, put all laundry off limits to residents, who reacted by forming a tenants' association to respond to the crisis, prevent future recurrences and improve quality of life at the apartment building. Then in October of 2008, they staged a rent strike, placing their rent money in an escrow account in the city's charge. Now, five years later, a new management company is taking over, and a $5 million capital budget will be available to restore the complex to normalcy with rent checks once again rolling in.

Despite the agreement announced yesterday, April Goggans, President of the MPCTA (Marbury Plaza Concerned Citizens - Tenants Association) is only vaguely optimistic. In her four year struggle to bring tenants to the forefront of concern, she has been disappointed repeatedly. Now that Urban Investment Partners (UIP) has reached an agreement with the MPCTA to manage the 672 rental units and their 1500 disgruntled residents, Ms. Goggans remains skeptical and more than slightly on the defense. "Just give it 6 months. When UIP attempts to purchase the building again, the Association will be 110% ready to exercise their TOPA [Tenant Opportunity of Purchase Act] rights," she wrote in a November 2009 letter published on the MPCTA's blog. In her letter she cites previous attempts by UIP to buy the property, which affords views of downtown Washington and spacious floor plans. At the same time, according to East River Magazine, Ms. Goggans noticed that the property really began to deteriorate when the owner, A&A Marbury, LLC , stopped trying to sell it in 2007.

In her testimony against A&A Marbury and the Lightstone Group, Cassandra Payne, a Marbury Plaza tenant as of 2004 stated that when she first moved into her apartment "(1) The hot water was sporadic and would often be turned off without any notice to the tenants. (2) Her apartment had holes in the walls. (3) The 'plumbing was bad.' (4) There were roaches and 'rodents' in the hallways. (5) When she moved into the apartment there was no carpet on the floor and a stink that provoked an allergy attack. (6) The building had holes in the hallway walls." After a 17% rent increase, she sued the company under a claim of a violation of the The Rental Housing Act of 1985 but failed to bring documentation of the reported issues to the hearing. The Act places nearly all rental units built before 1975 in the District of Columbia under rent control regulations, which do not allow spikes of more than 10% in annual rent in most cases.

The Office of Administrative Hearings (OHA) ruled in favor of the housing provider because the rental ceiling adjustment corresponded to the CPI-W (Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers), and Payne failed to provide sufficient evidence to support her claims. Tenants were not the only ones suing; the owner also unsuccessfully sued tenants when they refused to pay rent.

"I've sacrificed tremendously. It can be a 24-hour a day job advocating for justice. Tenants will start seeing some relief, and the Attorney General will oversee the whole process. We have worked so hard to get here, and the outlook is finally promising." Goggans talked to reporters, community agencies, and even bought law books to navigate the complexities of housing advocacy. "It's been a learning experience," she reflected. Voicing concerns about elderly, disabled or single parent members of the Marbury community, she said she is glad she has had the energy to pursue solutions to the problems that have been plaguing the residential complex over the past four years.

But with the support of Peter Nickles, DC Attorney General, Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander, as well as Councilmembers Muriel Bowser and Kwame Brown, Chief Tenant Advocate Johanna Shreve and Bread for the City Legal Clinic Director, Vytas Vergeer, the tenants are finally being vindicated.

The Lightstone Group lost ownership over Marbury Plaza when it defaulted on a $41.1 million loan from New York Community Bank in 2004. Since then it has not been making mortgage payments on the property and has been generating operating losses. A refinancing of the property took place in 2005, generating $14.1 million in revenue. A sizable chunk - $10.2 million - went to investors. Overall the company has been operating at a loss averaging approximately $2 million per year on Marbury with additional losses in the millions on its other residential and commercial properties and coming close to foreclosure.

"We are committed to working with them" stated April Goggans about UIP's new management in a recent interview. "They came into a hard situation, but ultimately, the owner holds the purse straps." Negotiations between the MPCTA and A&A Marbury have yielded an agreement, announced on Tuesday, of $5 million in capital improvements to the property, which consists of two apartment towers and seven garden-style buildings. In an August 17th press release, Wout Coster of UIP said "We could not accept the assignment until we were assured that the owner was prepared to provide the funds necessary to improve the property." For now, at least, life will get a little better for everyone involved.

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Costco Tantalizing DC's Gateway

Twenty years in the making, and plans to develop Washington DC's first Costco at Dakota Crossing are still trudging along. The stage set is a remote patch of forested land in the Fort Lincoln neighborhood, better recognized as the land opposite the Washington Times on Route 50. The players are likely to be Costco and Target, potentially Shoppers Food Warehouse and Staples, even Walmart was once in the lineup. The director is Fort Lincoln New Town Corporation, which brought in Peterson Companies to develop retail as part of a mixed-use, suburban-style shopping center with housing, offices, retail and acres of parking lots. When Peterson bowed out in 2007, Trammell Crow Companies stepped in to oversee its stock and store - big box power centers. All that is missing is the financing and wetland remediation plan approval from the city. And, of course, final commitment from at least one of the big retailers.

The site seems a developer's dream: 42 empty, contiguous acres, flanking one of DC's main migratory routes. Because it is situated in the residential Fort Lincoln neighborhood and nearby industrial uses are mostly defunct, residents pine for a major retail center somewhere, anywhere, in their quadrant. The plan shows 430,000 s.f. of retail served by 2500 surface parking spaces, connected to a 362-acre housing development planned across the street - The Village at Dakota Crossing, with 537 townhouses, 30 affordable workforce units, 500 more parking spaces and a pedestrian-friendly layout with wide sidewalks, tot-lots and community spaces. The land is a stone's throw away from the National Arboretum and within a 5-minute walk of the Anacostia River

But development has hit two main obstacles. The first is getting retailers to commit to a large project in a suburban setting, which tests current financing models, although Costco has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent to occupy the property. The other is the dated nature of the plans: 20 years ago, paving over a large, unused plot in the city to build a regional shopping center would have easily passed city government hurdles, whatever the environmental or historic implications. But the contentious, yet sought-after site is now entirely forested and home to wetlands, filtering nearby industrial waste and acting as a natural barrier against flooding.

"Our plans call for creating new, high quality wetlands near the retail center as mitigation for taking away the existing wetlands, which have been documented as very low quality, marginally functioning wetlands. These plans are currently being reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA, and will be reviewed by D.C. DOE once the federal regulators finish," said Cel Bernardino of Fort Lincoln New Town Corp. He also noted that the current plan "envisions a model 'green' shopping center with cisterns, green roofs, green walls, and other LID (Low Impact Development) measures."

Costco has been eying this site for the past ten years. Target and Shoppers do not lag far behind in enthusiasm. They might all benefit from TIF (tax increment financing) subsidies from the District, which has supported the development as a neighborhood improvement initiative. Costco alone expects $15 million in TIF financing. But the District must mediate between the environment, small business owners who have fought the behemoth onslaught of all-in-one-for-a-portion-of-the-price big boxes, and competing revitalization projects throughout the city.

"The Office of Planning has worked very closely with the development team to ensure the project is green and pedestrian friendly," reported Victoria Leonard, Director of Policy and Strategic Communications in the office of Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. The District likes it so much it plans on paying $3 million upfront to build retention ponds to offset the 3000 new parking spaces. The funding would come out of the D.C. libraries capital budget, an initiative spearheaded by Council Member Thomas, who noted that "the Shops at Dakota Crossing have been in the books for a decade" back in April of 2009. The funds are being transferred from a Ward 7 libraries project, which should begin to see repayment in 2011. Ward 5 library services will remain unaffected.

According to data on the Deputy Mayor's website, Dakota Crossing envisions that residents would walk to the shops from the Villages, suspending disbelief that shoppers at Costco and Target could buy anything that could be carried by hand. An additional wrinkle is that HUD approved an Urban Renewal version of the Fort Lincoln Redevelopment Plan in 1972; amended in 1990, the plan requires 3000 units of housing, 2463 units more than Fort Lincoln New Town's current proposal.

Cel Bernardino recounted the various phases of housing that have already been built under the 1970s Urban Renewal Plan for the Dakota Crossing site. About 1370 residential units, including condos and rentals were built at Fort Lincoln New Town during the 1980’s and 1990’s, with most of the rental units built for senior citizens. The 127-unit Wesley House seniors apartments opened early last summer, and 209 "Dakota Crossing" town homes were completed last month. "We have two additional planned residential developments (town homes and condos) that construction hasn’t started on yet – the 334-unit 'Village at Dakota Crossing' across from the shopping center, and the 50-unit 'City Homes' development at the corner of Bladensburg Road and Eastern Ave."

Robert King, Commissioner on ANC 5A12 (Advisory Neighborhood Commission), has been involved in planning Dakota Crossing since the 1970's. He's seen developers come and go, and has remained a reliable supporter of the plan, representing the leading voice of the commission he heads: "The project is finally on track. Some of the first residential units to break ground will be dedicated to firefighters and school teachers, and I am happy about that. The neighborhood is bracing itself for the development of Costco, which is expected to bring jobs, but also increase traffic."

He believes the 1970's plan calling for 3000 units of housing was too ambitious and needed to be scaled back in a neighborhood of just 4000. "There is a significant retirement community in Fort Lincoln, and I am concerned about access to the retail site." Mr. King said he has been trying to organize a bus service to transport seniors across Fort Lincoln Dr. and 33rd Place.

Although a contender for a Dakota Crossing spot a few years ago, Walmart is out. The city refuses to provide subsidies to the union-shunning employer. Nevertheless, word on the street is that Walmart may yet settle into the neighborhood, but now on triangular site bounded by New York Ave., Blandensburg Road and Montana Ave., the site of the Abdo project that fell apart earlier this year. From a traffic perspective, the development of two big box retail sites in such proximity could produce a tangle at what is already a busy thoroughfare. In an area that lacks Metrorail, the arrival of the big boxers and all the parking infrastructure that comes with them does not foreshadow a favorable future for TODs (transit oriented developments).

The architects of the proposed retail development at Dakota Crossing, Bignell Watkins Hasser, with offices in Annapolis, MD and Vienna, VA, have built several local retail centers at both the neighborhood and regional scales. The big box retailers would create what is estimated at 800 new jobs by establishing what developers hope becomes a regional destination, capturing incoming and outgoing DC traffic at the entrance of the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

"I want everybody to know from here to Timbuktu that Fort Lincoln is getting ready to complete plans for Costco. We want to make sure we can tap into every dollar for the city and create as many construction and other jobs as possible" said King, who echoed concerns about the wetlands and retention ponds on the new development site. Area residents seem enthused. "I think its hard to argue against development in one of the last development holdouts in DC" said Hans Posey, who moved to the neighborhood recently. "Its a very established neighborhood, but everybody, everybody, in the neighborhood is gunning for something bigger, something more than the kind of stores that are there now."

Cel Bernardino estimates an August 2011 groundbreaking for the retail part of the development. "I’d say Spring 2011 would be the soonest we are likely to break ground on the shopping center. We have 'solid' commitments from our anchor tenants. No leases signed yet." The current site plan/design for the shopping center received concept design approval from NCPC on June 3, 2010.

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JBG Announces Partner, Groundbreaking on 14th Street

JBG announced on Friday that it will partner with Grosvenor, an international real estate firm, to develop its condominium project in the Logan Circle neighborhood of DC, with site work to start as early as next month. It was unclear what role London-based Grosvenor would play in the joint venture on a site JBG has controlled since 2008, but JBG described Grosvenor as a "capital partner." The project will offer 125 condominium units available in early 2012 and a full level of retail.

The 14th Street site, home to the Whitman-Walker Clinic, is among DC's more vibrant retail scenes, but has not scored the start of a new residential project in four years since Citta 50 was built, which only recently sold out. JBG will incorporate the century-old, 4-story clinic into the 7 story building, but had previously been only tentative that construction would be underway this year. It now says demolition will begin "within the next month," with construction to follow in October. DC-based Shalom Baranes is the architect, and JBG announced earlier this year that Toronto-based Cecconi Simone would design the interiors (a revised rendering just released is above).

Developers described the new building as a "five-story projecting glazed bays on a terra cotta and brick façade" and have promised a "highly-amenitized" condominium.

This is the first project in the area for Grosvenor, unlike JBG, which is based out of Chevy Chase and has extensive residential development experience. "We wanted to bring our expertise and vision for vibrant mixed-use urban development to Washington, D.C., part of Grosvenor’s focus for future development projects," said Mark Darley, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Grosvenor. Local developers have shied away from starting projects in the neighborhood; developer Scott Pannick of Metropolis Development backed out of the Whitman-Walker site in 2007 over concerns of a market gone south, and others projects like UDR's Nehemiah Center project and Georgetown Strategic Capital's apartment building one block north have been stalled indeterminately.

Update: In response to a request for comment on this article, JBG submitted the following statement:

JBG has a breadth of experience developing projects in the DC area, including other luxury residential projects. However, the 14th & S project will be somewhat unique for JBG in that it will be more of a boutique building with a more modern European design aesthetic and smaller, more efficient units. The project is now fully entitled and designed, but JBG believes it can still learn a great deal from Grosvenor’s extensive worldwide experience investing in and designing similar urban luxury projects.

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Library From the Future Set to Land in Southeast

At first look, it's fair to wonder if the ghost of an argyle-sweater-totting Payne Stewart or a checker-clad circus clown helped design the soon-to-be-built Francis Gregory Library at 3660 Alabama Avenue SE. But like the progressively designed Washington Highlands Library, London-based David Adjaye is responsible for the ultramodern architecture that is slowly giving a hip new face to the District's libraries. Construction for the two-story, 22,500 s.f. building is set to get under way within the next two weeks, becoming Adjaye's second attempt to pass a glass box off as public library, after his "Idea Store" in Whitechapel, England put his atypical architectural acumen on the style map.

When designing the Washington Highlands Library, the size of the plot gave architects ample room to play with. Houses in the surrounding neighborhoods and on-site land elevation changes dictated many of the design decisions, but in the case of the Gregory Francis Library, architects were still expected to provide space for the same program requirements, and gifted much less area to perform on. This forced planners to push the building to the edges of the lot, leaving little room for landscaping or parking. Fortunately the site is surrounded on three sides by tree-filled parkland, so Adjaye and his design team were inspired to create a pavilion-like structure, blurring the boundary between outside and in. The glass walls are endowed with a checkerboard pattern, alternating squares of translucent glass and mirror to provide the ability to see in and out, while also reflecting the surrounding nature. This theme of open sight lines extends to the interior, as colored, transparent glass boxes help delineate program elements within, such as the children or teen sections of the library. Other interior boxes take on a wood grain finish to evoke the natural setting just steps outside the library walls.

A large overhanging canopy extends above the main glass structure to further conjure the image and feeling of a pavilion, and provide shade and protection from rain, snow, and ice. The roof is equipped with a louver system, enabling staff to adjust fan blades to allow more or less natural sunlight to penetrate through the ceiling, depending on the preferred temperature and time of year, much like the roof of the Verizon Center. Given the incredible amount of precipitation dumped on the Metro area last winter, engineers were forced to tweak the angle of the roof to make sure accumulated snow and ice loads could slide safely off. Thick, insulated, high performance glass forms the main structure of the building, coated with "low e" to reduce soar gain. Impressively, architects say the limited temperature transfer is comparable to a brick building.

Developers had hoped to incorporate walkways and design elements that more directly connect the library with the elementary school to the west and the park to the east, but the design team received little cooperation from either entity. What little room there is between the library walls and the property lines is landscaped to mirror the checkerboard pattern of the building frontage, hexagon cement pavers alternating with grass planters.

Although there was some complaint that these designs had been stealthily rushed through the ANC and community forum process without adequate public announcement, Zoning eventually approved building plans, and the Southeast is now set to receive a truly unique public building, set to open next summer at a cost of $13.5 million. Appreciated or not, Adjaye's postmodernist architectural vision will not end with the conclusion of the District Library's construction and renovation projects, as his firm is one of several firms involved in bringing another unusual design to life with the building of the Smithsonian's new Museum of African American Culture.

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Carr Hospitality Gets Hostel In Southwest

In an unlikely chain of events, Carr Hospitality has outsourced their design process to a futuristic parallel universe where Ridley Scott is devising hotel schematics for architectural firms instead of directing movies. And although sources for these facts remain unconfirmed, the early renderings of a proposed hostel in Southwest DC bare out these claims. Indeed, the half hostel, half hotel "officially" designed by Gordon Godat and his team at Baltimore-based JP2 Architects would be more at home on the set of Blade Runner than in DC's Buzzard Point. The preliminary plans for the Carr-developed 110 room hostel were presented to the Zoning Commission on July 29th under the guise of "Tiber Creek Associates, LLC"; and although a new hearing date was not set down, the Commission agreed to entertain the applicant's proposal as a contested case, as long as several minor conditions are met prior to the next meeting. More detailed plans are likely to be hashed out and presented later this fall.

Located at 129 Q Street SW, the six story, 73,975 s.f. "C Hostel & Hotel," rising sixty plus feet, will house nearly 500 beds for "youth travelers, families, and budget-minded groups." Half the rooms will be outfitted with a single queen or twin beds and blessed with private bathrooms, while the other half will be filled with dormitory-style bunk beds. With families as an exception, floors and communal showers will be segregated by gender. Hotel amenities will include an open air rooftop courtyard; a large communal dining area and complimentary continental breakfast will be provided, but guests will be encouraged to bring and prepare their own food for lunch and dinner using the hotel facilities. The dining area will also host evening social hours for travelers in search of friendly conversation and newly forged companionship. A library, cyber lounge, and game lounge are all also included in the early stages of planning. The building will rest atop a single level of below grade parking, offering twenty-seven spaces for travelers arriving by automobile. Upon completion, developers are ambitiously predicting a LEED Platinum Certification.

The mostly concrete building will take on a c-shape to allow for a central cutout that gives the building a more interesting look, as the change in depth breaks up the typical flat rectangle frontage. The landscaped rooftop courtyard is situated in the setback, amidst

the surrounding hotel walls. A subsection of each half of the building, making up the walls of the courtyard, is layered with "fiber cement panels" that take on a faux-wood grain pattern, contrasting with the largely gray color scheme. Colorful and oddly shaped windows, abstractly strewn across the building, give the building an ultramodern and artsy flavor. The ground floor facade is accentuated by aluminum framed glass store fronts that stretch nearly the entire block. The pattern of the building is asymmetrical, but very geometric and rigid in its strict adherence to the use of rectangles and right angles. Taking the place of a dirty, dilapidated auto shop, this unique design will be a bold addition to this otherwise neglected and under-appreciated part of the city.

Developers have admitted that the estimated $28 million project faces steep challenges before it will break ground, the main problem being the "need to overcome lenders' perceptions of the neighborhood." But the team remains confident that upon secured financing, the building will be delivered within 24 months.

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