Big Plans for $100M Renovation of Charlotte Convention Center

The 21-year-old Charlotte Convention Center will get a $100 million renovation over the coming years, according to Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority.

Under the plan, the convention center’s footprint would not expand onto new property, at least not in the short term. But the center’s meeting space would grow by about 34,000 square feet, mostly by rebuilding the center’s facade facing Stonewall Street.

Tom Murray, CEO of the visitors authority, told council that a combination of changes in the convention business and the age of the building make the changes necessary.

The convention center, bounded by Brevard, Stonewall and College streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., opened in 1995 and cost $150 million to build.

An 18-month study by Jones Lang LaSalle Destination Planning Services and architect TVS Design led to the initial concepts introduced in late September. Murray told the council that the Visitors Authority will next refine the nine recommendations and sharpen the construction budget.

The $100 million figure is a rough estimate, Murray said.

The convention center today is focused on large exhibit space. Those are the large, unfinished rooms in the center’s lower floor, with 30 foot ceilings.

Only 18 percent of the Charlotte center is for smaller meeting space. Murray said newer convention centers have as much as half of their space dedicated for meeting space.

“Our market has changed,” Murray said. “It’s less exhibit focused. It’s more meeting focused. In the past meeting planners wanted four white walls and keep everyone out. Now they want an authentic feeling about Charlotte.”

Council members responded with enthusiasm to the plans, which include a pedestrian bridge and so called linear park to be built on both sides of the existing light rail bridge across Stonewall St., a project that would provide better access for convention attendees staying at The Westin.

A park style pedestrian space on each side of the light rail bridge would also provide direct access to the Whole Foods anchored development — Crescent Stonewall Station — opening next year.

The Visitors Authority envisions those projects as a likely first phase that would begin as soon as next summer, the start of fiscal year 2018.

Additional work would be completed in stages as part of a five-year renovation, including the conversion of an outdoor terrace into a flexible, enclosed, atrium style space along MLK Blvd., an event space above the light rail stop and dividing a ballroom into multiple meeting rooms.

Because the Charlotte economy has been booming, uptown hotels have found they can make more money on regular business travelers. That has created a conundrum for the CRVA, whose mission is to put “heads in beds.” How much should the city invest in conventions when the hotel industry is doing well, mostly on its own?

But there are a number of new hotels under construction, and Murray said an increased supply of hotel rooms should increase demand for conventions.

“We have 1,000 hotel rooms under construction,” Murray said. “We think those things are correcting themselves.”

Conventions and conferences have become lighter on exhibits and instead emphasize technology and flexible meeting space as well as an overall experience that connects attendees to the host city. In the latter sense, Charlotte benefits from the convention center being located uptown, within walking distance of museums, restaurants and sports venues.

$400M Mission Hospital Tower Largest in Asheville’s History

A massive $400 million medical tower that will soon be built at 509 Biltmore Avenue will be the largest construction project in Asheville’s history.

The new tower will allow to Mission Health to shutter its aging St. Joseph’s campus and consolidate all operations on the newer Mission campus side of the operation.

Last year, the City Council voted its approval to Mission Health to build a new 12-story, 681,000 square foot tower, which will include new operating rooms and an emergency services department.

The project’s architect is HDR and the general contractor is Turner Construction.

The project’s large size meant it required a Level III review under the city’s Unified Development Ordinance and a council vote.

The tower would have frontage on Hospital Drive and Victoria Road, replacing the St. Joseph’s hospital campus, which is on the opposite side of Biltmore from most of Mission Health’s facilities.

That has meant at times patients are transported by ambulance across the busy road.

The hospital began seriously looking at changes four years ago. The facilities at the St. Joseph’s facility were aging out, and there was a need for a new emergency department.

The St. Joseph’s facility is outdated, cannot accommodate new technology, and would be too costly to renovate.

The tower project on the Memorial Campus achieve cost savings by eliminating the duplication of services required to maintain facilities on both sides of the street, as well as to improve patients’ experience and safety by eliminating the need to transport them back and forth.

Construction on the tower, which will have two floors underground, is set to be completed in November 2018.

City planning director Tod Okolinchany said it will be the biggest project Asheville has ever seen. “The Asheville Mall exceeds 900,000 square feet but was completed in phases over several years,” he said.

The tower will have 216 beds, and services such as a heart catheter lab and endoscopy, intensive care unit and medical-surgery recovery floor, along with a cafeteria, an 84-bed emergency room, and support offices.

The project calls for retaining walls as high as 28 feet in some places. To soften their effect, the hospital plans to use plants and design elements.

There are also plans for a small park area at the corner of Hospital Drive and Biltmore.

The former St. Joe’s site will later be redeveloped to provide needed affordable housing, as well as commercial use and retail shops.

Three Big Developments to Get Underway in Alexandria

Everyone knows that suburban D.C. is undergoing dramatic changes, in part, because of a plethora of long-awaited development.  For several years, developers have been planning to construct massive projects in the Alexandria area to escape the higher building costs in D.C., and soon, these three new developments will get underway to welcome even more new residents to the neighborhood...

North Potomac Yard

The JBG Cos recently announced that it will construct a 1.2 million square foot mixed-use complex in the first phase of its enormous redevelopment of North Potomac Yard.

JBG is shooting to have a portion of it open in 2020, when the nearby Metro station comes online.

The plan for first phase includes 732 residential units, nearly 300,000 square feet of retail, more than 115,000 square feet of office space, and a 120-room hotel.

Streetsense is architecture firm designing these spaces, which will replace the existing multiplex and surrounding parking lots.

Ultimately, JBG aims for 7.5 million square feet of total development upon completion of the final phase.

Oakville Triangle

On a 16-acre tract of industrial park opposite Potomac Yard on Route 1, Stonebridge-Carras is planning an ambitious 1.5 million square foot mixed-use development.

The first phase is slated to be complete in summer 2019.

For Phase 1, the developer looks to deliver a 130,000 square feet office building, 132,000 square feet of retail space, a 190-room hotel, 400 apartments and 130 condominium units.

Cooper Carry Architects is designing the project.

The development site is part of a planned 20-acre industrial park known as Oakville Triangle - which sits across the street from another huge mixed-use project, Potomac Yard.

Oakville will be roughly a quarter of a mile away from the future Potomac Yard Metro station, which is expected to bring an influx of new residents and development.

As part of the plan recently approved by the Alexandria City Council, Stonebridge has also committed to $2,000,000 in improvements for Mount Jefferson Park, $7.8 million in on-site affordable housing, and $1.6 million to upgrade the intersection of Route 1 and Glebe Road.

The Gateway at King and Beauregard

The Gateway at King and Beauregard, will soon be constructed at the intersection of the similarly-named streets.

Abramson Properties plans to construct a 72,000 square foot Harris Teeter Supermarket,  two residential buildings totaling 348 units (70 of them affordable), a combined 94,000 square feet of office space in two buildings, over 40,000 square feet of additional retail space, and 822 parking spaces.

Additionally, the Gateway project will include a 25,000 square feet office building over the retail space, 278 residential units over the Harris Teeter Supermarket, and an interior pedestrian plaza.

The Gateway will be marketed as transit-accessible because it is on the alignment of the future West End Transitway: the $140 million bus rapid transit system that will link the Van Dorn Street Metro station with the Mark Center, Shirlington, the Pentagon, and everywhere in between.

Tysons Corner Tower Will Be Taller Than Washington Monument

In Tysons Corner, Virginia, by the Spring Hill Metro stop, a developer plans to construct a 2.8 million-square-foot mixed-use development that will feature a 615-foot-tall tower.  

Iconic Tower

With this height, it will be the tallest building in the D.C. region, 60 feet taller than the Washington Monument, the region's tallest structure.

The developer, Clemente Development, has branded the $1.3 billion project as The View at Tysons.

The building, called Iconic Tower, will rise up 48 stories and become the tallest structure in the Washington, D. C area.

The building would be 145 feet taller than the Capital One HQ building, currently under construction in Tysons Corner, and 228 feet taller than the  nearly completed Central Place in Rosslyn, which will be the region's tallest tower for a short time.

Iconic Tower will have 840,000 square feet of condos, 412,000 square feet of hotel space, and 44,000 square feet of retail space.

The project will also encompass a large, open-air shopping plaza.

The View at Tysons will also include two office buildings with ground-floor retail as well as two residential buildings with retail and an urban park.

Capital One Global Headquarters

Massive Ivy City Project Plans 1.5M Sq Ft of Development

Washington, D.C developer Douglas Development is known for having created the Hecht Warehouse District, an approximately 465,000-square-foot mixed-use project that redeveloped the Hecht Company Department Stores for residential space, retail space, and a grocery store.

Now, the developer has eyes set on a 15-acre triangle in Ivy City just down the road from the Hecht Warehouse, bordered by New York Avenue, Bladensburg Road NE, and Montana Avenue NE.

The project will include 422 apartments, 18 townhomes, 550,000 square feet of retail space, 156 hotel rooms, and 2,900 parking spaces.

The site plan includes a 130,000-square-foot grocery store, a separate 100,000-square-foot retailer, a five-story hotel, a host of restaurants and junior anchors and a movie theater.

The developer has spent nearly $75 million to acquire the land in order to construct NewCityDC, a 1.5 million-square-foot mixed-use project set to make waves in the neighborhood.

Douglas Development first acquired a section of the land in 2014 for $8.25 million.

An affiliate of Douglas, Jemal's Schaeffer LLC, just paid $66 million for nine separate parcels controlled by the Schaeffer family — a major player in D.C.'s taxicab industry.

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.

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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.
 

Plans to Build Two of Region's Tallest Residential Towers

JM Zell Partners and Hines Ltd. are planning to construct the first building within the 6-acre Carlyle Plaza Two, a long-planned four-tower office and residential complex south of Eisenhower Avenue in Alexandria, Virginia.

A 382-unit apartment building, designed by Bernardo Fort-Brescia of Miami-based Arquitectonica International, will rise to 34 stories and 375 feet, offering virtually unobstructed views of Mount Vernon, MGM National Harbor and the Washington Monument.

The second residential tower in Carlyle Plaza Two, the closest building to the Capital Beltway to the south, may rise to 354 feet.

Both towers will be among the region’s five tallest residential buildings, rivaling those planned for Rosslyn.

The developers expect to break ground on the four-tower office and residential complex in late spring 2017.
 
The design features three rectangular blocks of nearly equal height, with the middle block slipped roughly 25 feet to the south to create a cantilever effect.

The result of the cantilever is two large outdoor terraces, one on the 16th floor and another on the 26th. There will be a fifth-floor amenity terrace, with pool, as well.

The unit breakdown: 22 studios, 238 one-bedroom apartments and 122 two-bedroom units.

“They want an iconic building,” Jeffrey Zell, JM Zell president, said of Alexandria. “They now have an iconic building.”

The development site is immediately east of The Alexan apartment building and north of the Alexandria Renew Nutrient Management Facility.

Alexandria approved the development plan for Carlyle Plaza Two in 2012 — for 755,114 square feet of office in two towers and 632,056 square feet of residential in two more towers.

The plan was later amended to offer the option of converting 325,000 square feet of office space to hotel and residential use.