DC Metrocentric

Our good buddy Perez Hilton was in town this past weekend for the Washington Correspondents dinner, and in addition to commenting on all the celebs in attendance he managed to say this, about the buildings in our fine town.

And you know what? We really agree with Perez! There are not enough of the beautiful historic buildings around anymore! Oh and Union Station is definitely nicer than NYC’s Penn Station! [Perez on DC’s Architecture]

The former site of the Safeway on Columbia Pike is ready for some action! Ground has been broken and plans are already approved by the Arlington board and include 188 rental apartment plus about 34,000 square feet of retail. The project is being developed by Woodfield Investments of Chevy Chase, MD.

We have to say that the architectural elevations look nice (if not fairly plain), but we do really like the trend of using different color bricks to break up larger building into smaller segments.

We wish more designs used this segmentation technique, especially for the larger block-wide projects to make the street scape look a little more varied!

[Rendering: WDG]

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

Well done with the guesses…

All the results are in and counted, and the listed price for the ultra modern gem of a penthouse on Thomas Circle is $575,000.

We still don’t know what the deal with the kitchen layout is though…

Apparently many of the units in the building are set up in the same strange way! Maybe they figure most of the residents don’t do much cooking anyway, so it doesn’t matter! Oh yeah and the realtor still has it listed as a short sell, though it’s been on the market for a while… so that tactic doesn’t seem to be working to move the property.

If you have been down 16th St NW in Dupont recently, you may have noticed the massive yellow banners announcing the court order sale of the famous Toutorsky mansion and former bed and breakfast. The gorgeous neo-Belgian style mansion was originally built in 1893 and is one of the largest remaining building of this style in the District.

The building was originally built for Supreme Court justice, Henry Billings Brown, famous for his writing the majority opinion in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case which justified racial segregation.

Word is that the sale is due to the current owner filing chapter 11 bankruptcy, but it is not exactly clear. So if you’re interested and have around 7 million bucks to drop, sealed bids on the 17,000-sq ft historic mansion are due by this Wednesday April 30th.

[Photo Credit: Joanne Lawton-WBJ]

 Districts Affordable Housing - The District will provide $25 Million for new affordable housing to projects throughout the city, this is in addition to several other prominent District-sponsored projects already in the works. The Mayor announced the District will make available $25 million in local and federal funding that will be used to build up to 710 units of affordable housing throughout the District. It’s good to see the District is keeping on top of these funding opportunities, and not letting them expire like the previous administration. [DCBiz]

Now that the demolition at the old Waterfront Mall is almost finished, we’re ready for some new buildings to rise, and now we finally know what the new development is going to look like! These renderings arrived in our inbox today and show a nice re-imagined pedestrian plaza with plenty of room for new retail and restaurants.

As you can see from the rendering, the metro exit on the left will open into the pedestrian mall, and the stop will have better accessibility because the reopening of 4th street SW. There will also be three times as much residential with an eventual 1.2 million sq-ft. So the area might have enough critical mass for the place to not be abandoned at night!

Despite the recent controversy in the area, this project is still on schedule for phase one to be complete by late 2009. Follow the jump for another rendering of an overhead view of what all the buildings will look like…

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Built in 1887 to house the Pension Bureau and transformed into a museum by an act of congress, the National Building Museum is truly DCMetrocentric’s museum mecca!

The reason should be obvious considering the museum celebrates architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning. This cool shot is of the buildings distinctive columns being built over one hundred year ago!

The National Building Museum’s huge Corinthian Columns (some of the largest in the world) really provide a stunning setting for the interior of the building and often serves as a great backdrop for many of our towns grand charity galas. The photo really shows the scale of the columns!

Speaking of museums, Penn Quarter Living reported on a new one going in on the corner of 14th & G St NW. The historic building is being fully restored  for the Armenian Genocide Museum of America. The current Hahn shoe store facade will be completely removed and the building will be restored based on period photos of the original look. [Flickr Photo: iandavid]

Silver Spring - Folks from Tennessee seem to love Silver Spring and they want Nashville to emulate the Downtown? [Silver Spring Scene]

Columbia Heights - The Meridian Hill Park is still under construction… after only five years of work! [Columbia Heights News]

Bloomingdale- Could speed bumps be coming soon to the neighborhood? Yes but it looks like DDOT half-assed it! [bloomingdale for now]

Logan Circle- The saga of the 14th Street Transportation and Streetscape Study continued with an open house this week. [Logan Circle News]

The folks at JBG had the opportunity to present updates to their U Street hotel/residential/retail development to the Cardozo Shaw Neighborhood Association this week and we got the low down for you.

The site is located at 1300 U Street, where the current (and fairly new) Rite Aid and other retail is located. The plan briefed to the community included the potential for ground floor retail, a boutique hotel above the retail, and four floors of residential above the hotel (10% of the residential would be affordable housing).

It’s interesting that they are trying to put so many different uses into the plan (talk about mixed development)… we suspect they just want the flexibility to go whichever way they choose at a later date and still be able to say they briefed the community of their intent! We shall see how things progress and mark our words, we will be sure to point out all the differences when the project is actually built!

 SW Waterfront Setbacks - When the District announced its choice to develop the new $1.5 billion Southwest Waterfront back in September 2006, the city lauded the team’s incorporation of small, local and disadvantaged businesses. Well the Washington Business Journal is reporting that most of those highly touted local businesses arn’t part of the project anymore, and this is understandably pissing off the council members who helped approve the original plans! [WBJ]

From the Press Release:

“The District will develop two city-owned properties behind U Street’s historic Lincoln Theatre and use a portion of the funds generated by the project to support the theater’s ongoing operations. 

“The Lincoln Theatre has an incredible history and great potential,” said Mayor Fenty. “This is a perfect example of what we can do when we leverage our assets to get better amenities for our neighborhoods.” 

The District has issued a solicitation seeking development partners to build on two city-owned properties and above an alley located behind the 88-year-old theater.

The District owns the Lincoln Theater as well as numerous other buildings and property around the city, and this is a very interesting way to leverage those resources to hopefully benefit the community. Potentially we could see the site developed into offices, a hotel or maybe even housing. Housing might be best for the area, especially considering the affordable housing stipulations with that type of development. [Flickr Photo: kleopatrjones ]

We always knew the DC Fire Department was on top of it’s game, and apparently their website befits their great reputation. The site is a frequently updated resource with information uploaded daily on the activities in the city. So when we were looking up some information about the fire on H street earlier this week… sure enough they already had photos up with a description of the fire and the rooftop rescue.

The fire caused one of the residents to be trapped on the roof and the home didn’t have a fire escape so the DCFD came to his aid. They even have youtube videos up, want to check them out yourself? visit DCFD.com [Photo Credit: DCFD]

Giants on Wisconsin - The long-awaited Giant grocery store and surrounding redevelopment, expected to bring life back to its location on Wisconsin Avenue near the National Cathedral, is a bit closer to becoming reality. DCMud reports on the project which aims to make the stretch more pedestrian friendly and we think it’s about time they replace the G.C. Murphy Co which has been vacant for years! [DCMUD]

Art Deco Teeter - The Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan celebrated its grand opening with a star studded (for DC) ribbon cutting ceremony for the store. The project which has been a long time coming was welcomed to the neighborhood by the Mayor as well as Ward 1 Council members. Do you think they will let us roller-skate down the aisles for old times sake? [DCist]

The Teeter Effect - I don’t know if any of these Tajma Teeters will ever be a routine grocery stop for me, but it’s exciting to have them in the city, and hopefully they will inspire other grocers (Safeway and Giant) to take a hard look at how they do business. With new Teeters coming to NoMa and Capitol Hill, it is going to be harder and harder to ignore (and avoid) the fact that they have the best salad bar… and pretty good soup too!  [RenewShaw]

[Rendering: Street Works]