DC Metrocentric

Ever since we reported back in June that the long stalled O Street Market project (pictured) was finally back on, we have been excitedly waiting for work to get started… and as of today Roadside Development has broken ground on the CityMarket at O!

The city’s finest including the Council Members, the Mayor and Congresswomen Holmes Norton were out in full force today to welcome the one million sq-ft mixed-use development, which will include the City’s largest Giant Food supermarket, apartments, condominiums, affordable senior housing, a hotel and retail shops.

The developer won’t be wasting any time with work commencing immediate around the preservation and securing of the historic market structure.  This will be succeeded by the closing of the Giant Food store in January 2011 and the razing of the store and excavation beginning in February 2011.  The Giant will reopen twenty-four months after closing with hotel and housing opening a year later. Hooray for historic preservation!

As of today, ground is officially broken in Silver Spring on the huge new Lukmire Partnership designed library. The interesting massive glass design is intended to in the words of the architect “glow like a lantern” and preserves a light rail station passing “under” the building.

In addition to multiple floors of library space there will also be meeting rooms and a community arts center. We have repeatedly been reassured that the orange creamsicle color scheme in all the renderings we have seen so far will not remain, but now that ground has broken, we’re not so sure we believe them anymore!

[Rendering: Lukmire Partnership]

For the past few months we have been noticing the construction underway along 10th Street NW in the Penn Quarter and from the looks of it, the thin little ten story building is now getting completely gutted. The building looks old, and tearing down and rebuilding such a narrow and tall building probably didn’t make economic sense.

The work is being done by Davis Construction and given that the rest of the block is mostly three story buildings, the views must be great from all sides. Actually we wouldn’t mind moving in once work is complete!

More photos after the jump…

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When touting the merits of new construction office buildings we have heard a lot of things, but we don’t recall ever hearing anything about how great the color of the building was. Well times have changed because back when office construction was just getting started in Dupont Circle, this vintage post card for a new building was really playing up its blueness.

The caption reads “The Capital’s newest, largest, and finest BLUE building”. We can’t imagine there were that many other blue buildings to begin with so we guess that narrow of a field makes it fairly easy to be the biggest and best.

[Credit: Dan_DC]

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This week the Arlington Retail Task Force will be meeting with the County Board to make recommendation based on a two year study of the county. Apparently one major element of the recommendation centers around loosening the current requirements around zoning and site plans for street retail.

If adopted by the board, the change would have a major effect on an area that owes a lot of its success and responsible development to these very rules.  We understand that retail doesn’t work in all areas but the rule has allowed developers to be creative in their use of the first floor, and things like art galleries and public spaces have been successful too.

Clearly there is a happy medium between the right amount of retail and being flexible with the specifics of the location, but we will have to wait and see where the County Board falls on that divide. We will keep you posted!

[Photo: Smart Growth]

Now that the new owners of the project at 10th and G street NW are back to work, we’ve seen a lot of progress lately including the installation of the main site crane and now the concrete is officially flowing as they work on the foundation. What we are really interested to see though, is once the construction starts going vertical so we can judge how this monstrosity is going to actually look compared to the renderings!

[Photo: DCMetrocentric]

It has been a while since we heard any updates on the Dakota Crossing project planned for the Fort Lincoln neighborhood in NE. The main issue delaying the project has always been getting retailers to commit to the project so the developers can secure additional financing, and even the involvement of Costco is still only a non-binding letter of intent. However recently, we have started to see some significant progress!

The latest site plan was approved for the site earlier this Summer and once the wetland remediation plan is approved by the District (as you can see on the left the entire site is wetland right now), we have heard from multiple sources that the developer wants to break ground this time next year on the retail. Big news on a project that has been in the works in some form or another for 20 years!

[Photo: Pictometry]

Big news today about the large mixed-use development planned for the Catholic University property across from the Brookland Metro Station. The first venture of the newly-formed Bozzuto Group/Pritzker Realty Group is going to be the Jim Abdo lead Catholic University project. As part of the deal, Bozzuto Construction will serve as builder and Bozzuto Development will serve as co-developer.

The Districts Zoning Commission gave the go ahead last November and with this update, the development is scheduled to break ground by the end of next year.

[Rendering: Abdo Development]

Remember the Park Morton project along Georgia Ave that is one of  the corner stones of the Districts long term affordable housing initiative? Well the first phase of the project has been approved and the DC council is putting their money where their mouth is by throwing in a nice $16 million loan to jump start construction.

The overall plan includes the replacement of Park Morton’s eight, three-story buildings to eventually build at least 500 units of mixed-use housing surrounded by a public park. Great step in the right direction, and the design isn’t that bad either. They will break ground at the begining of next year. [Rendering: Wiencek & Associates]

With the demolition for the site of the new DC Forensics Crime Lab in SW finished up earlier this year, lots of progress has been made and as you can see below, the three story deep foundation is ready for the vertical construction to commence.  

Once complete, the space will combine many government offices into one facility including police and health labs, as well as chief medical examiner. The new building will be over 240,000 sq-ft and is still on schedule to be completed by 2011.

[Photo: DCMetrocentric]

The site of the long abandoned “Club at Quincy” in Arlington officially has a new owner and a big set of new plans. The original 120 unit condo project (site pictured below) was scrapped after the developer WCI filed for bankruptcy, but now the prime property in Ballston has new life.

The best part of the news is that locally based Crimson Development plans to keep the community amenities from the original design, including a public theater space… though we will have to wait a while as the plan is to not break ground till Spring 2012.

After over a year of construction, the beautiful new home of the Arena Stage in Southwest is ready to open this October! We have been fans of the the Bing Thom designed structure ever since we saw the first rendering, and we think the reality truly lives up to the design. What do you think of the structure and form now that it’s complete?

We just love the innovative way the new flowing structure surrounds the original old concrete brutalist style structure.

[Photos: DCMetrocentric]

It sure didn’t take long for the folks at Skanska to get things started back up on the 1015 Half St development in Southeast. The project was sold at auction at the beginning of the year after the original developer Opus East went bankrupt.

As you can see, construction is well underway and they expect to finish up by year end. The Sweedish based Skanska has been scooping up unfinished projects all over town lately, we wonder if they are on to something?

[Photo: DCMetrocentric]

With all the prep work done back in June, the Hay-Adams hotel is now officially shut down and under the first full fledged renovation in 60 years. As you can see a crane has been assembled on the site, which will help with the addition of a new top floor (which you can just make out in the photo) as well as new direct access high speed elevators.

The plan is to be finished up this fall, with a grand reopening party on the new roof in October. [Photo: DCMetrocentric]