Design Changes for Peninsula 88 Condos

Developers filed with the Zoning Commission last month a request to review and approve a “Modification of Significance” for the planned condo project at 1st and V streets on Buzzard Point, formerly known as Marina Place condos. Since Capital City Real Estate purchased the land for this project, located just north of the shuttered Buzzard Point Marina, plans changed for the design of the building and the condominium project is now called Peninsula 88. The previous design resulted in pie-shaped units, creating awkward floor plans that would be difficult to furnish. In addition, there were fewer two bedroom units and the 1 bedroom units were larger. 

The revised design will incorporate 97 condo units in an eight-story building with the flexibility to have between 75 and 110 units. This includes five 2-story “rowhouse” units along V Street with direct access from the street. Ground floor units will have terraces and the upper floors will have balconies. Some units on the top floor will have private rooftop decks. A communal rooftop deck also will be available for residents with a fire pit, outdoor grill, dining table, and various seating including chaise lounges, dining chairs, and benches. 

Unit sizes range between 1,300 and 1,500 SF. The project is designed by Eric Colbert & Associates and will seek LEED-Silver certification. Some of the green features include an extensive green roof and bio-retention tree pits. Building materials, include precast concrete wall panels, aluminum vertical fins, and glass railings on the balconies. There will also be 1,800 SF of retail along 1st Street. Parking will be provided in a garage with 70 spaces (an additional 44 “vault” spaces will be provided if approved by the Zoning Commission since they would be located in public space) and 38 bike parking spaces. 

Previous design of Marina Place

A hearing is scheduled in February to review the proposed design changes and construction is expected to begin later in 2017. On a related note, a meeting will be held by the National Park Service on December 13 where design concepts will be revealed for the adjacent Buzzard Point Marina site. The meeting will take place at the SW Branch Library (901 Wesley Place) King-Greenleaf Recreation Center (201 N Street) from 6:30 – 8:30 pm. Following the meeting there will be a 30-day comment period, which will close on January 12. Comments and feedback can be sent via http://parkplanning.nps.gov/BuzzardPointParkDCP or mailed to: 

Tammy Stidham 

National Park Service National Capital Region 

ATTN: Buzzard Point Park Development Concept Plan 

1100 Ohio Drive SW 

Washington, DC 20242 

Renderings courtesy of Eric Colbert & Associates

Buzzard Point Will be Buzzing with Construction Activity in 2016

2016 will be a big year for Buzzard Point as a multitude of projects both large and small are expected to get underway on the peninsula. The most high-profile project is construction of a new soccer stadium for DC United, which is scheduled to start by September. Raze permits were filed last month for the parcels the city purchased in the stadium footprint, including Super Salvage which is now closed. Meanwhile, eminent domain proceedings are underway for a two-acre parcel in the stadium footprint previously owned by Akridge. The city still needs to remediate the stadium site before construction can begin, which is filled with containments due to the area’s former heavy industrial use. The 20,000 seat stadium will be located at 2nd and R streets and is scheduled to open in time for the beginning of the 2018 MLS season. 

Pepco has already cleared land across R Street from the stadium site to build a new substation in order to handle all of the new development occurring in Southwest and Navy Yard/Near SE/Capitol Riverfront. The new Waterfront substation has been designed to blend in with the area and will replace the unsightly exposed substation that currently exists a couple blocks to the southeast. On the southeastern side of the new substation where R Street, 1st Street and Potomac Avenue intersect, the area will complement the public plaza planned as a part of the new DC United stadium. Aside from the substation, transmission lines will be installed along several nearby streets. The new Waterfront substation will be open by June 2017. 

Five years after Marina Place was approved and more than a decade after it was first proposed, the condo and retail project may finally move forward this year. Capital City Real Estate purchased the lot fronting the recently shuttered Buzzard Point Marina at 1st and V streets from Duane Deason in December for $9.8 million, according to the Washington Business Journal. The new owners are planning a 90-107-unit condominium project, which will have sweeping views of the Anacostia and Potomac rivers due to its location near the tip of Buzzard Point. Construction is expected to wrap up by early 2018. 

A raze permit was filed last month for 69 Q Street, a row house dating to the late 1800’s recently purchased for $599,000 according to Zillow. No details yet on what will replace it, but it is a block east of where a new hotel and hostel by Carr Hospitality is supposed to be built. 

Construction of a new Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge and traffic oval by DDOT is also expected to begin by the end of 2016 or early 2017. The two-phase project involves building a new, six-lane bridge across the Anacostia River with pedestrian and bike paths, as well as new traffic ovals on either side of the bridge, the transformation of South Capitol Street into a grand urban boulevard with interchange improvements including an at-grade intersection at M Street and new ramps to I-695. The interchange improvements are part of the second phase of construction.

Renderings courtesy of DC United, Pepco, Eric Colbert & Associates PC, and DDOT

Buzzard Point Development Potential

(This post will appear in the South by West article in November's Hill Rag.)

With news that a new stadium may be built for DC United in Buzzard Point (or “The Point” as Capitol Riverfront BID President Michael Stevens is now calling it), reporters and bloggers alike have been in a frenzy over whether the stadium deal is a good one for the city and if the area near the proposed site will benefit. Currently, Buzzard Point contains mainly industrial uses, but there are a few sites that are either planned for development or are candidates for redevelopment. A new soccer stadium nearby may accelerate plans for the following properties: 

(1) 100 V Street

Akridge owns a two-acre portion of the stadium footprint as well as the remaining seven acres of 100 V Street located to the south of the stadium site. 100 V Street was originally planned as an office complex targeted for a secure federal tenant; however, the site was not able to attract a tenant. With the potential development of the stadium on the northern section of the property, the southern portion is now being reevaluated as a mixed use project.

(2) Transpoint Building

The U.S. Coast Guard has moved out of the Transpoint Building at 2100 2nd Street located just to the south of 100 V Street, to a new headquarters complex at St. Elizabeths in Congress Heights. GSA has found a temporary replacement for the Coast Guard with the Navy taking space at the Transpoint Building. Meanwhile, owner Monday Properties has no plans to redevelop the building, which sits near the confluence of the Anacostia River & the Washington Channel and currently blocks public access to the water. With GSA cutting back on leasing new space and a new soccer stadium planned up the street, would redevelopment of this building make sense?

(3) Marina Place

Rendering courtesy of Eric Colbert Associates

A 99-unit condo project called Marina Place with about 2,000 square feet of ground floor retail is planned for a parcel to the east of the Transpoint Building and adjacent to the Buzzard Point Marina at First and V streets. The Eric Colbert-designed building was approved by the Zoning Commission in 2011 and since then, the owner has been looking for a developer partner for the project.

(4) Pepco Power Plant

The art-deco Buzzard Point Plant building, located to the southeast from the stadium footprint, was decommissioned last year by Pepco, although the substation to the north is still in use.  Recently, the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly has applied for historic status for the building, which could be a candidate for an adaptive reuse akin to Tate Modern art gallery in the Southwark section of London.

(5) 1900 Half Street

Douglas Development owns an office building at 1900 Half Street along the Anacostia River that blocks public access to the river and is occupied by the U.S. Coast Guard.

(6) Ziegfields/Secrets

One of the gay nightclubs displaced from Near Southeast when Nationals Park was built moved to Buzzard Point and is located just to the east of the soccer stadium footprint. According to an article from The Blade, the proprietors of Ziegfields/Secrets lease the building from Denver businessman Marty Chernoff. The article speculates that the club may have to move yet again once the stadium is built, even though it is located outside of the stadium footprint. It is too early to know what would be built in its place if the nightclub is moved again.

(7) Florida Rock

Florida Rock moved its operations across South Capitol Street in 2012 to make way for the eventual development of their riverfront parcel just to the south of Nationals Park. Their new operation along Half Street is now across the street from the new stadium site.

(8) C Hostel and Hotel

Rendering courtesy of JP2 Architects.

Carr Hospitality submitted plans for a 109-room hostel and hotel with 489 beds in 2010 at 129 Q Street, one block north of the stadium site.  According to the zoning application, half of the hostel/hotel will be comprised of rooms with single and double beds and in-room bathrooms. The other half of the hostel/hotel will be comprised of dormitory styled rooms and shared female and male showers on each floor. Shared guest amenities will include: a hip lifestyle lounge, game areas for children and adults, a bean bag movie theatre, self-service kitchen, guest laundry, lounge lockers, a cyber lounge, complimentary breakfast and a shuttle bus service to the Waterfront Metro station. The Zoning Commission approved the project, but afterwards, a principal from Carr who spearheaded the project passed away and the site has been tied up in probate ever since. A 2-year extension was recently granted for the project due to probate and the difficulty in obtaining financing for a hospitality project during the Great Recession. It is estimated that probate will be settled sometime in 2013, so theoretically, the project will be able to move forward. Currently, the site is home to a taxi cab service and repair garage.

(9) James C. Dent House

Pepco owns the James C. Dent House at 156 Q Street, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2010. It was built in 1906 by William James Palmer for James C. Dent, a former slave who moved to Buzzard Point as a laborer and eventually helped found the Mount Moriah Baptist Church and became its pastor. The home was more recently used as the headquarters of the now defunct Southwest Community House, a non-profit organization that vacated the property in 2004. It has remained vacant ever since.

(10) Lyon Bakery

Lyon Bakery is a wholesale baker located just to the north of the stadium footprint at 135 R Street. This site has redevelopment potential once the stadium is built, or at least will have a new customer across the street.

(11) Fort McNair

While there is no development potential here, Fort Lesley J. McNair would be the stadium’s neighbor to the west across 2nd Street and pre-dates any other development at Buzzard Point since the Army post has been at this site for over 200 years. The fort is the headquarters of the Army’s Military District of Washington and includes the National Defense University.

A Few Quick Items: Stadium Speculation Continues, Marina Place Profiled, "Melting Pot" Museum, Cast of You, Nero Announced

- Speculation continues on the DC United stadium front, and according to the Soccer Insider at The Washington Post, the 100 V Street site in Buzzard Point is still on top of the list. However, it's debatable how interested city leaders are about keeping the team in the District. From the article:

D.C. government contacts tell my Post colleagues that United officials, realizing the city has no money to help finance a sports venue, suggested to the mayor’s office that they would build a stadium themselves if they received a tax abatement. Other city sources say DCU President Kevin Payne recently met with council members about the general stadium prospects and the discussion "fell flat.”

Talk of putting a jail at the Buzzard Point site seems to have died down.

Above rendering courtesy of Akridge

- Also in The Washington Post, there was an article about how plans for the multifamily project planned in Buzzard Point next to the marina have evolved. The Eric Colbert-designed Marina Place was approved by the Zoning Commission over the summer and the owner is looking for a pioneering developer to partner with him on the project. Duane Deason has owned the site since 2004 and has gone through the ups and downs related to speculation about development of Buzzard Point. With the Coast Guard moving to St. Elizabeths and the possibility of DC United building a stadium nearby, Buzzard Point could look a lot different in a few years.

Rendering courtesy of Buzzards Point LLC

- There's a proposal to build a new museum off the National Mall at Banneker Overlook, according to an article in the Lifestyle section of The Washington Post. This proposed museum is still a long ways off though.  From the article:

Rep. James P. Moran (D-Va.) is sponsoring the legislation that would create a presidential committee to study the Museum of the American People proposal and has rounded up about 20 co-sponsors. He realizes that the museum could be a long way off, but he likes the idea of drawing a line now, “before we have any proliferation of additional ethnic museums.”

- Arena Stage has announced the cast of You, Nero, which will run from November 25 to January 1, 2012 at the Fichlander Stage. A partial list of cast members and a description of the show from the press release follows:

Danny Scheie returns to the role of Nero after starring in both the South Coast Repertory and Berkeley Repertory Theatre productions of You, Nero. Also reprising their roles are Susannah Schulman as Poppaea and Kasey Mahaffy as Fabiolo. Marc Vietor (Kennedy Center’s Company, Broadway’s Present Laughter directed by Martin) joins the cast as Scribonius.

Returning Arena favorites include Helen Hayes Award winner Nancy Robinette as Agrippina (Arena’s Death of a Salesman, Shakespeare Theatre Company’s The Heir Apparent), Laurence O’Dwyer as Burrus (Arena’s Trouble in Mind, Helen Hayes Award winner for Arena’s The Fantasticks) and John C. Vennema as Seneca (Arena’s A Time to Kill). Additional casting for supplemental actors will be announced at a later date.

As Rome collapses beneath Nero’s outrageous narcissism, a forgotten playwright tries to restore order through the art of theater in this “gloriously funny” (New York Times) farce. Amid the chaos of crime, lust and politics, convincing the world’s most famous debaucher to choose virtue over vice proves to be a Herculean task. Amy Freed’s wild romp questions whether well-crafted drama and intellect are any match for decadence and good old-fashioned bloodshed.

Performances will take place on Sunday, Tuesday & Wednesday at 7:30 pm; Thursday, Friday & Saturday at 8:00 pm.; and Saturday & Sunday at 2:00 pm.

What a DC United Stadium *Could* Mean for Buzzard Point Development

Over the past week (which happens from time to time), there have been several reports about DC United looking for sites to build a soccer stadium in the District. This time around, one of the leading sites under consideration is in Buzzard Point, specifically Akridge’s 100 V Street. Currently, 100 V Street is planned as a secure federal campus, but there have been no tenants lined up so far. Due to the size of the sites under consideration, the Greater Greater Washington blog contends that a stadium would be “urban” with few surface parking spaces and would fit within the current street grid (except for the possible closure of T Street between 1st and 2nd Streets).

This site is located three blocks southwest of Nationals Park and if the soccer stadium is located there, the area would become a stadium district of sorts, akin to the Meadowlands (before the Nets and Devils left Izod Arena) or Philadelphia. Linking the stadiums would be Potomac Avenue, which currently is lined mostly with industrial operations west of South Capitol Street. With a soccer stadium on one end and a ballpark on the other, Potomac Avenue could become an entertainment district with retail stores, bars and restaurants to cater to fans, as well as for neighborhood residents and employees at Fort McNair. The DC streetcar is planned to have a couple lines come down to Buzzard Point and possibly run along Potomac Avenue, which is a wide boulevard that would have room for a streetcar. Perhaps ferry service can be introduced on game days via James Creek Marina, located just to the southwest of the stadium site.

While there are differing opinions over the effect that stadiums have on development nearby, a DC United Stadium in Buzzard Point may cause other projects to get underway that otherwise would take several years or decades to get built, including development on Potomac Avenue. The introduction of retail to the neighborhood, coupled with a streetcar line could help spur residential development in the area, like Marina Place, a planned condo project catty corner to the stadium footprint at 1st & V Street. Just to the east of the stadium footprint is the Buzzard Point Power Plant, which Pepco plans to decommission by May 2012. The power plant itself will most likely be landmarked, but perhaps can be repurposed as a cultural amenity like a museum or art gallery space. With the planned departure of the U.S. Coast Guard from its headquarters at 2nd & V Street to St. Elizabeth's in SE by 2015, perhaps that site can be redeveloped as a mixed use project that embraces its location next to the river and provide public access to the waterfront. Some of these ideas for Buzzard Point stem from a neighborhood study done in 2009 by the American Planning Association’s Planning Assistance Team (PAT). For now, talk about DC United moving to Buzzard Point is just that...talk. Who knows whether they will choose Buzzard Point over other areas under consideration and if they can obtain financing to build a stadium. However, it's fun to talk about what possibilities exist for Buzzard Point, with or without a soccer stadium in the neighborhood.

Renderings courtesy of Akridge and Buzzards Point LLC.

Marina Place to Emerge in Buzzard Point

At Monday's ANC 6D meeting, there was supposed to be a presentation on Marina Place, a new condo project planned near the Anacostia River in Buzzard Point. However, the presentation has been postponed because there was a last minute change to the parking amount planned. As a result, the developer (Buzzards Point LLC) postponed the Zoning Commission meeting scheduled for November 4th - the new date will probably be sometime in January. There will be a total of 99 units (nine of them will be affordable units) and 2,047 SF of ground floor retail at Marina Place, located at 95 V Street. The developer anticipates a coffee shop may occupy the retail space.

Eric Colbert and Associates designed Marina Place to maximize river views. Angular glass walls will allow residents uninterrupted views of the Anacostia - the site has 345 feet of frontage along the Buzzard Point Marina. With only a handful of residential projects in the city near the water, Marina Place will offer one of the first opportunities for city dwellers to live next to a marina - that is until the Southwest Waterfront is redeveloped and housing is built in The Yards in SE. Currently, the site is located in an isolated stretch of Buzzard Point, near the Coast Guard headquarters (at least until they move to St. Elizabeths in SE) and the Buzzard Point Plant. However, there are plans to transform Buzzard Point from a primarily industrial neighborhood into a residential enclave along the waterfront. Last November, the American Planning Association, upon the request of Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells, put together a pro-bono Planning Assistance Team (PAT) to study the Buzzard Point neighborhood and make recommendations on how to improve the area. The final draft of the plan was supposed to be released in March, but it hasn't been completed yet. Construction won't begin at Marina Place until at least 2013, but this project may be one of the early adopters of the PAT's plan in this pioneering area of Southwest. (Rendering is courtesy of Buzzards Point LLC)

New Condo Project in the Works?

On the agenda for Monday's ANC 6D meeting is a new residential project called Marina Place. According to CondoAuthority.com, Marina Place is a planned condo building located in Buzzard Point at 95 V Street. Currently, the site is a vacant lot and is bounded by V Street, 1st Street, Half Street, and the Buzzard Point Marina. There will be a hearing with the Zoning Commission on Thursday, November 4th. The CondoAuthority.com website describes the project as:

A new condominium building with a modern design featuring angular glass walls. The site offers 345 feet of uninterrupted views of the Anacostia River and is located about 5 blocks southwest of Nationals Park. Developed by Buzzard Point LLC the project will contain 4,800 square feet of retail space. (Above is a view of the Buzzard Point Marina.)

During the condo boom in 2005, Walnut Street Development planned to purchase the same site from Duane R. Deason and build a 90-unit condo project, but those plans fell through and the condos were never built. Next door to Marina Place is the headquarters of the U.S. Coast Guard, who has a new headquarters building under construction at St. Elizabeths in Southeast. Across the street is the Buzzard Point Plant, which the American Planning Association's Planning Assistance Team (PAT) recommends becoming a future museum or gallery when it is decommissioned. Also in the vicinity is 100 V Street, a massive office complex planned by Akridge.

Other items on Monday's agenda include the temporary street closing of 6th Street for Saturday's Homecoming celebration at Arena Stage, the permanent closure of Water Street to make way for the redevelopment of the Southwest Waterfront, and a request to add Banneker Memorial to the L'Enfant Plaza Metro name.