DC Metrocentric

Call it the curse of the PriceChecker, but another unit previously featured in our price guessing game has gone under the chopper. The almost 3000 sq-ft of luxury at the Watergate is now listed for only $3.5 million, which is exactly one MILLION dollars less than it was listed for this time last year (that’s six zeros)!

It’s a great looking unit with incredible views but we guess for only two bedrooms the unit wasn’t moving, what do you think of the new price? More reasonable?

For a little while there really was no where to go but up for area home prices, but it looks like there is still room to run with the latest Case Shiller survey showing 7.3% year over year growth in Washington Area home value. Not only are homes growing at a healthy pace, but we still continue to outpace most of the rest of the country.

Higher home values are of course a double edged sword, good for home owners who saw the value of their house decline for the last few years, and bad for home buyers who face an increasingly pricey market in most neighborhoods.

[Photo: Mr T in DC]

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When the Department of Transportation relocated to their cool looking new digs down by Nats Stadium, the owner of their old building at 400 Seventh St. SW undertook a missive renovation, but until now didn’t have any tenants to actually fill the new space back up. Well the developers and real estate agents can breath a sigh of relief, because the SEC has signed on for almost all of the over 1 million sq-ft of space.

The upgraded building included a full interior build out as well as a new glass curtain exterior and security upgrades.

If you remember, the building also got a nice makeover of its interior courtyard, which we spent some time drooling over last year.

The relatively new glassified building at 1225 Connecticut which we have been critical about in the past, has just this week been put on the market by owner Brookfield Properties. We have always had issues with how these buildings with floor to ceiling windows end up looking once occupied, but this one should fetch a nice price given the location.

The buildings main tenant is the World Bank and we estimate it goes for over $200 million. What do you think? [Photo: DCMetrocentric]

A bunch of stats came out today around the housing market and they paint a fairly nice picture of the direction things have been headed for a while… with a few exceptions of course. More people are putting their homes up for sale as the inventory rose in June, and the overall average sale price of homes last month also was on the rise. All this while residential foreclosures were down 5% for the first half of the year, however unfortunately this is attributed to an increase in short sales (not so good).

[Photo: Lani Barbitta]

What’s going to happen when the close to 13,000 workers occupying over 3 million sq-ft of office leave Crystal City next year as part of the Army Base Realignment and Closure program? The Washington Examiner files an interesting report on how Arlington officials plan to deal with the exodus and use the change as a catalyst to transform the area into more of a community.

The massive transformation includes doing something about the highway that bisects the area (see rendering above) as well as changing the mix of buildings to a more residential composition to keep people on the streets even in the evenings.

Areas with a high density of offices always suffer the weeknight exodus (see downtown’s Golden Triangle as a prime example), and bringing in a more healthy mix of retail and residential is certainly the first step in the right direction, though we think they may want to focus on refilling the current inventory of emptying offices, because a lot of business already in Crystal City depend on those office works, and a worse case scenario would be to lose them in the transition.

What do you think?

We just got word that a little slice of Pennsylvania Ave is up on the block, for sale for a cool $152 million. The Leo A Daly design glass tower at the corner of Pennsylvania and 19th Street, has 186,000 sq ft of prime class A office space.

The development of the property was finished in 2002, but the building was actually one of those refurbishments of an older shell (ie just add lots of glass). We shall see how much it actually goes for.

What’s a Million dollars among friends right? The 3,000 sq-ft condo in the Watergate that we featured on PriceChecker last August is still on the market, but for a cool million less than the $4.5 million it was originally asking. That’s over a 22% discount, but our question is, does $3.5 M bring it into the good deal range, or is $1,200 a sq-ft for Potomac views still a steep price to pay?

Well that was fast! In only eight days, the M Street Flats project is sold out. The project by Community Three Development is only ten units… but even still, people must have just been waiting to pounce on this property in Mt Vernon Square right by the Convention Center.

The combination of the location and the historic Victorian exterior with a modern interior, must have had something to do with it, but we suspect they also had many contracts lined up for a long time and the eight day sell out is a bit of a concoction. Irregardless, it is nice to see condo buildings starting to move again!

Unique Spaces: The Bank that Became a Home

In this installment of Unique Spaces, UrbanTurf heads to Capitol Hill to profile a house that was formerly a branch of the original City Bank. See photos of this one-of-a-kind home after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry on UrbanTurf.com »

Poor Bethesda Theater, you just can’t catch a break can you? The theater originally built back in 1938 has been struggling under a mountain of debt and after months of trying to work it out, is finally being auctioned off in a foreclosure.

Things looked good back in 2007 when Bozutto refurbished the theater as part of their development of The Whitney apartment buildings complex, but a weak economy and competitive theater scene made it hard for the Bethesda Theater to ever get back into being profitable.

Hopefully who ever gets a hold of the property will be able to successfully utilize the space!

[Photo: Craig Thoburn]

Sometimes the real estate sites will have old listings, or the information is sightly off, but is sounds like RedFin really got themselves an interesting listing this week for none other than the White House! The presidential home was listed for $10 M and the 55K sq-ft property is comically “for sale by owner” at a reasonable $182 per sq-ft.

This would have been a good PriceChecker don’t you think? [via NBC]

[Photo: Danny Mac]

Best New Listings: U Street Corridor, Dupont Circle and Takoma Park

In this week’s edition of Best New Listings, we feature a large two-bedroom in the U Street Corridor with 18-foot windows, a Dupont Circle condo with amenities necessary to live in the neighborhood and a renovated three-bedroom in Takoma Park.

Read the rest of this entry on UrbanTurf.com »

With the news this week that the downtown location of the ESPN zone will be closing up shop, we are already thinking about what should replace it in the prime corner space. The departure of the “Zone” reminds us of when Planet Hollywood left the area and was replaced by Fogo De Chao. Clearly we don’t need another Brazilian steakhouse, any ideas for the huge multi-floor space?

In some other parts of the country, the departure of the ESPN Zone is going to have a huge impact, especially in areas where it was a major anchor (Baltimore’s Inner Harbor comes to mind), however we suspect it isn’t going to have much, if any impact on this part of town in our city. As for what should replace it? We want to see something like this!

[Photo: Bob Stephenson]