DC Metrocentric

The Gales School building on Mass Ave NW may look a little empty right now, but it’s only temporary! What you see is the complete preservation of the entire brick exterior of the building, something that doesn’t happen often. 

Originally built in 1881 by Edward Clark, who also happen to have designed the Capital Building, it servered as a school till 1944. The building was named after the 8th Mayor of DC and recently had been used as a homeless shelter. It was put on the District’s Inventory of Historic sites in 2002.

In an area of town that seems to have been swallowed by giant glass monstrosities, it’s nice to see a little red brick still!

Following in Mount Pleasents lead for solar powered homes in the District, is a development calling itself Capital Solar Condos. The building is a renovated row home that’s only 2 blocks from the Columbia Heights Metro, so the owners can really have a small carbon footprint.

The builders website does an interesting calculation to show that the home owner would save on average almost $5,300 a year from all the energy saving features. We are a little sceptical of the calculation, but are all for living sustainably.

The homes obviously come at a premium since it is being billed as a solar home, the prices go up to $650,000 for the three bed room.

The thing though about this house is that most of the “energy efficient highlights” are just things any home owner can go down to the Home Depot and buy them-self. Energy Star appliances, window treatments, low flow showerheads… these are all relatively inexpensive ways to reduce energy use and reduce your homes environmental impact. Also many area developments already feature almost all these technologies and don’t go around promoting the green angle.

So what do you guys think, worth the price, or are they relying on green technologies that are already fairly prevalent and not that big of a deal? Is Environmental Green being hijacked for $$$$ Green?

There is wisdom in numbers and following the trend of the massive rush to NoMA comes the our favorite area traveling art exhibit Artomatic!

The exhibit typically seeks out local warehouses and unfinished spaces and the Capitol Plaza building at 1st and M streets NE will serve as the perfect location for the next show!

Taking place on May 9th through June 15th the exhibits will be spread over 8 full floors making this the largest iteration of the yearly show ever. Previous shows have been held in the old patent a trade Office building in Crystal City as well as the old Children’s Museum, now turned condos in Northeast. We are looking forward to seeing some interesting art, and Artomatic never disappoints!

We told you a few weeks ago about the DoJs future big move to NoMa and now we just got word on our tipline about what that development is going to look like! HOK architect’s design for Constitution Square features 340,000 sf of office space, a residential building with 440 apartment units, and 80,000 sf of retail space including the hotly anticipated Harris Teeter. Eventually the development will include over 2 million sf of space.

As you can see, the seven acre complex is an entire city block bounded by M Street, N Street, 1st Street, and the New York Avenue Metro Station. Since the government will be one of the primary leasers of the property they are requiring LEED certification which is great. Apparently the developers want to break ground next month and have the entire project finished by 2011.

Check out the 7th floor pool, no views but maybe that means it won’t be as windy as typical rooftop pools! It’s hard to find a good pool downtown!

Got any good tips, gossip, or a question you just have to get off your chest? Send us email! We love to hear from you! DCMetrocentric@gmail.com

Even on a cloudy day like this there are always some bright spots! Sometimes though it takes a little visual trickery like this cool HDR shot by flickr user buttersg88 that gives DC an almost coloring book brightness. The shot is taken from one of the tallest building in DC (other than the Capitol and Monument of course).

The demolition down at 1725 K street is progressing nicely considering how precarious it is to bring an entire building down in the middle of a bustling city directly adjacent to other buildings.

Right now it looks like Godzilla took a big bite out of the corner of the building…

Or maybe it was just a big PAC!

This building and the one next door at 1000 Connecticut will be replaced by 395,000 sqft of office space at the northwest corner of Connecticut and K Street. So soon enough there will be even more space for all those lobbyists and special interests!

Can you imagine what it would be like to have your office in the building right next door? It must look like the crane is about to come crashing through the window all day long! Scary![Photo: Daniel Macy]

A rendering of what the new building by SK&G will look like after the jump…

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Anyone who had walked around downtown DC over the last few years can’t help but notice the huge empty plot that once was home to the Old Convention Center. One would expect a development project of this size to take some time to finalize details, but each month that goes by is another missed opportunity to bring new life to the area.

Well the details of what will shape the design are starting to take final form and are about to be presented to the public. The old rendering pictured is from Foster and Partners but we look forward to seeing the new ones when they are released next month!

We do have some really exciting details already though, the most interesting of which is the central plaza which will sit in the middle of the four residential buildings, with fountains and landscaping, connecting to the street with paved pedestrian alleyways. We just love the pedestrian only walkways that are typical of other large cities that DC has always seemed to be lacking!

They expect to break ground in January 2009, with a planned 35 month construction period, we can expect completion by July 2011.

The Corcoran College of Art and Design has been working on developing the Randall School property in SW for some time now and the final roadblocks seem to be cleared to begin the development.

Back in January the zoning commission voted unanimously in favor of the project and now the final plan by Monument Realty and CORE architecture are ready to be built. The unique site includes three designated historic buildings incorporated with new buildings to accommodate the program.

The goal was to create a mixed-use residential, cultural and retail project that respects the original structures while adding income-generating residential units. Two new nine-story towers accommodate 420 residential units, and enclose a daylit center courtyard.

The project should be finished in time for the Class of 2011 to use the facilities which will include classrooms for ceramics, sculpture and other equipment-intensive arts, as well as additional rooms for student exhibition display. It looks like it is going to be some very cool space than combines the old and the new! We likey! [PhotoRendering: CORE/Monument]

Your weekly chance to take a stab at real estate appraisal.

Well all the results are in, and this 8 bedroom row-house in Columbia Heights that we showed you last week is on the market for a cool $1.1 Million.

Clearly the real estate agents are having trouble pricing homes in this neighborhood because your guesses as well as the recent listings are all over the board. The guesses ranged from 650k all the way up to $2.3 million, which just goes to show it only takes one person to set the price on a home. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder right?

Props to Anne who hit the price right on the head! 

This view couldn’t look more different today than it did over one hundred years ago. The photo is looking down F street from 7th street. Though the interesting part of this photo, and others like it from the same time period, is that the pedestrian sidewalks of DC were for the most part covered. How many times have you been caught in the rain downtown and wished the streets were lined like they were back in 1900? 

Though it’s possible to get around DC without going outside (ie the Metro) it would still be cool if there were more covered walkways, at least when it’s raining like it was this weekend! Could this be a new proposal for the city council?

By the way, this photo is just one of a plethora of old timey shots just uploaded by Flickr user hjunkman, check em’ out cause there are a bunch of interesting ones!

Dupont Circle- New DC Bill would give more Church’s the right to convert property to higher density development projects. Hasn’t this already been happening all over town for years? [WashingtonBizJournal]

Petworth- Second Taqueria Distrito Federal has found a location! Makes us hungry! [PrinceofPetworth]

Anacostia - Apparently the tangled mess of overhead power and telephone lines is not a new issue to the District! It’s been a problem for over a hundred year! [AnacostiaNow]

Penn Quarter- NPR leaves Penn Quarter behind for NoMa. But really, who isn’t these days? [PQLiving]

Remember how DC’s old mayor Anthony Williams never bought a house in DC and preferred to rent during his entire 2 terms in office? Well it’s time to offer up a big congratulation to old Tony because it seems that now he has finally gotten around to buying his first place ever! Look how jaunty he is in his new digs (pictured below)!

The former mayor has purchased a luxury loft condominium unit in NE in the H Street area. Last month, he signed a contract for a two-bedroom, 2.5 bathroom unit with a den at Landmark Lofts, the renovated site of the old Capital Children’s Museum. 

A source we spoke with at the Developer said that the unit on the second floor went for over $1 million dollars and Williams and his wife will move in next month.

Another interesting connection that is fairly well know is that Williams officiated at the marriage of the buildings developer Jim Abdo and his wife. But don’t think that just because they are friends that Abdo gave Williams a discount, the Washington Post reported that Williams will pay full price, though since the building is not yet fully for sale, it may be less than similar units sold later on.   [Photo: Lois Raimondo - The Washington Post]

Some of the most prime real estate in DC is right around the National Mall and the National Gallery of Art has one of the best spots!

However since the NGA has over 500,000 pieces of art, they could always use additional space to display their collection. 

Well some folks in Congress are trying to give the NGA a little more room by forcing the Federal Trade Commission to vacate the building it has called home since 1938 and hand it over to the National Gallery of Art, its neighbor across the street. The FTC would move it’s headquarters to a new location.

We are conflicted over the proposal, clearly other areas of town like NoMA and near Southeast have benefited greatly from relocating government agencies. However, there is some history in the building and you can’t move all the Federal Agencies out of the area, this is the Capital city for a reason and the Agencies give the area just as much character as the museums. [FlickrPhoto: Guy Flaneur]