Giant Waterfront Station II Redevelopment in Southwest D.C.

PN Hoffman, a developer of urban communities across the Washington Metropolitan Area, has been selected to develop Waterfront Station II, a 59,000-square-foot lot at 1000 Fourth Street, SW. The District-owned property is the last residential parcel to be developed at Waterfront Station.

The redevelopment plans for the parcel include a 400,000-square-foot, mixed-use community of 443 units, in addition to 22,500 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail space and a 10,000-square-foot black box theater.

The mixed-income housing will be comprised of 310 market-rate apartments and 133 affordable units - 30 percent of the total.


The development team is comprised of PN Hoffman, Paramount Development, ER Bacon Development, CityPartners and AHC Inc.

The entire project is designed to achieve LEED Gold certification.

Site Features:

•   One block from Waterfront Metro Station (Green Line)
•   Adjacent to CVS and one block from 55,000-sq-ft Safeway grocery store
•   Across from Southwest Branch Library and Amidon-Bowen Elementary School
•   Four blocks from I-395 on-ramp
•   Daily traffic volume on I-395: 163,800
•   Three blocks from newly expanded 1,400-seat Arena Stage
•   Less than half-mile to Southwest Waterfront
•   Less than one mile from Nationals Park

“The Southwest Waterfront is experiencing a renaissance unlike anything else in the District,” said PN Hoffman CEO, Monty Hoffman. "We are confident that our plan to revitalize a key portion of 4th Street SW will enhance the livability and allure of the neighborhood.”

“We are excited for the opportunity to continue our work in Southwest, and we look forward to providing significant new mixed-income housing, cultural space and retail to help complete the transformation of 4th Street SW,” said Shawn Seaman, senior vice president of development at PN Hoffman.

The overall Waterfront Station project includes twin office buildings at 1100 and 1101 Fourth St. SW, the Lex and Leo apartments (formerly Sky House East and West) at 1150 and 1151 Fourth St., a new mixed-use building from Forest City Washington at 1001 Fourth St., and future office buildings at 375 and 425 M St. SW.

The Capitol Vista site at Second and H streets NW will be redeveloped as affordable housing and 3,000 square feet of retail by Voltron Community Partners (Dantes Partners and Spectrum Management).

At Truxton Circle, 1520-1522 North Capitol St. NW., Urban Green and Flywheel Development will build a net-zero, mixed-use, all-affordable project with a ground-floor restaurant.

PN Hoffman is investing heavily in Southwest DC. They are developing The Wharf, a 3.2 million square foot neighborhood on one mile of Washington, DC’s southwest waterfront, as well as 525 Water, a luxury condominium building adjacent to The Wharf, and Riverside Baptist Church.
 

Massive 1,555 Unit Residential Project For Rhode Island Ave

As one of the largest redevelopment projects in Washington, D.C., developer MRP Realty is planning on razing a retail center near the Rhode Island Avenue Metro station to construct 1.56 million-square-feet of residential, 245,000-square-feet of retail, and 1,992 parking spaces. The retail center, known as Rhode Island Center, will be razed to construct seven buildings with ground-floor retail, covering roughly six blocks of space.

The development plan calls for 1,555 residential units with eight percent set aside for affordable housing. The units will range from studios to three-bedrooms.

The first of the six-phase project will redevelop two buildings along Rhode Island Avenue NE into 345 residential units. Construction is expected to begin in late 2016.

MRP, with B&R Associates LP and Sandrock LP, proposes to transform 13 acres encompassing the Rhode Island Center — anchored by Save-A-Lot, Big Lots and Foreman Mills — a self-storage warehouse and 13 single-story retailers into a mixed-use, transit-oriented community that promises to “ultimately establish this locale as a destination in and of itself.”

The project will replace a shopping center that was the “product of the times in which it was built: it is auto-centric, set back from the street and does not interact with the greater community; it does not facilitate connections within the community but rather isolates itself, creating a barrier between the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the pedestrian path to the Rhode Island Avenue-Brentwood Metrorail Station.”

The development proposal calls for six new blocks along an extended street grid, all consisting of residential over ground-floor retail and 1,992 parking spaces.

The development site is bounded by Fourth Street NE to the west, Rhode Island Avenue to the south, the Metrorail tracks and the Metropolitan Branch Trail to the east and the Edgewood Terrace apartments to the north.

The number of units: 1,555, in a mix of studio to three-bedroom. Eight percent of the gross floor area, or 124,612 square feet, will be set aside as affordable.

There will be seven buildings. The first phase will feature two buildings on the two blocks closest to the Metro, to Rhode Island Row and the Brentwood Shopping Center.

The design of the first two buildings, totaling 345 units, “will pay homage to the industrial area that helped shape this neighborhood while generating an architectural vocabulary unique to this project.



Northeast D.C., -- from Rhode Island Ave to Union Market, to NoMa Brookland to H Street, to New York Avenue -- is the epicenter of D.C.'s booming redevelopment pipeline.

Only last month, the JBG Cos. and the Boundary Companies proposed building 691 residential units over retail for the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue intersection.


Edens will break ground soon on multiple projects at Union Market, while LCOR recently picked up $30 million loan to build the 187-unit Edison at 340 Florida Ave. NE, and Level 2 Development has earned Zoning Commission approval for the 315-unit Highline at Union Market, 320 Florida Ave. NE.
 

Shakespeare Theatre Plans Mixed-Use Project in D.C.

Erkiletian Development and the Shakespeare Theatre Co. have filed plans to construct a 136-unit mixed-use project in Southwest Washington, D.C.. The seven-story project, known as The Bard, is planned to house everything from residential space to artist studios to non-profit office space to educational space. The development will also house the Shakespeare Theatre's costume fabrication studio.

The development site is located at 501 I Street SW, the former home to Southeastern University, which was razed last year.

The entire project will span 149,298 square feet with 131,273 square feet tailored for residential space.

Building heights will vary from 42 feet high to over 73 feet high.

The space for the Shakespeare Theatre Company would essentially consolidate the company’s operations in DC, and will include the costume studio, four rehearsal spaces, two classrooms and additional storage below grade, in addition to office space.

All of the residential units to be rental apartments, with 93 market-rate and nine inclusionary zoning. For the Shakespeare Theatre, 29 of the units will be set aside for actors and five will be for fellows.

The project will also include an underground parking garage with 36 spaces will be for residents, 16 spaces for non-profit office use, nine spaces for art use, and nine spaces for education use.

Despite the limited number of spaces for residents, the site, 501 I Street SW, is only a couple blocks from the Waterfront Metro station. There will also be 75 long-term and 10 short-term bicycle parking spaces on-site.

In the effort to appease residents' concerns, the developers reduced the height and the number of units planned.

Proposed benefits of the project include: free use of the assembly spaces/conference rooms for community meetings; annual donations to the multi-day festival, SW ArtsFest; and scholarships to sponsor up to 10 low-income children to attend the Shakespeare Theatre summer camp.

With this project, the developer hopes to further satisfy three goals in the D.C. Office of Planning's Southwest Neighborhood Plan.

These goals are to strengthen I Street as a cultural corridor, grow the presence of the arts throughout the Southwest neighborhood, and build on and market existing cultural assets and institutions to reinforce the concept of an arts and cultural destination.

The site of the development is the former home of Southeastern University. The area is currently vacant and consists of approximately 36,476 square feet of land area. Shalom Baranes Associates is the architect of the project.

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Agency Picks VA Site for $109M FBI Central Records Center

After nearly a decade, Congress has approved construction of a FBI records management complex in Frederick County, Virginia. Funding includes $108,853,000 for the General Services Administration that’s specifically identified to be spent on the FBI’s Central Records Complex.

The U.S. General Services Administration announced that it intends to buy a 60-acre parcel on U.S. 50 in Frederick County for the construction off the new records facility.

The agency named the property at 2117 Millwood Pike, known as Arcadia, as the preferred location for the facility over two other sites near Winchester that were under consideration.

Frederick County was selected in a comprehensive site search based on its merits largely because of its location.

It is far enough from Washington to be reasonably safe if the capital were attacked, but close enough to enable government officials to visit quickly whenever necessary.

The GSA had been considering three different parcels near Winchester on which to construct the new FBI records facility.

Frederick County fit its criteria for site selection, including its proximity to Washington, D.C., reliable transportation and communication networks, an educated work force and an absence of potential terrorist targets.

The GSA plans to buy the land this summer. The GSA will proceed with the facility’s design and begin construction in the early 2017.

When completed, the $109 million state-of-the-art facility will serve as the central repository for all FBI records and facilitate quick access to vital records and information.

It is projected that the new complex will employ approximately 1,200 people — including new positions and transfers from other FBI facilities.

These initiatives will significantly improve search and record-retrieval capabilities by increasing search accuracy; by decreasing search time; and by reducing lost files, missing serials, and the manual movement of files.

When complete, the overall impact will be to reduce even further the FBI’s pending Freedom of Information/Privacy Act numbers and processing times.

“This is good for national security, it’s good for the FBI, it’s good for the country and I think it’s good for Frederick County, too,” Rep. Frank Wolf, R-10th, said. “The FBI employs some of the finest people in the world, and you have a lot of people who work for the FBI already living out there.”

The bureau’s records center has been on the area’s list of the Ten Most Wanted economic development projects for years.

Presently, the bureau operates a records management center in leased space at 170 Marcel Drive — off Tasker Road just northwest of the Walmart Supercenter on Front Royal Pike. More than 500 people work at that site. The FBI’s 10-year lease expires in August 2016.

That GSA is recommending a 256,500 square foot facility — more than double the 106,296-square-feet it’s leasing— and 430-space parking lot. The complex would support the FBI’s current and future critical record management space needs.

Heery International has been awarded the contract to manage construction for the FBI's Central Records Complex, and assist the GSA in selection of the design/build contractor.