Photo Tour Part Three: Museums

There are currently two museums under construction in Southwest. Construction on The Museum of the Bible at 4th and D streets started in 2015. The 430,000 square-foot Museum of the Bible will include three exhibit floors that will tell the impact, narrative, and history of the Bible. Construction is expected to be completed by the fall of 2017.

Over on 10th Street at L'Enfant Plaza, construction began this summer on the site of the relocated International Spy Museum. The new International Spy Museum will occupy 140,000 SF, much larger than the current facility in Penn Quarter and will allow for three levels of permanent exhibition space in addition to event space. It's scheduled to open in the spring of 2018.

Renderings courtesy of SmithGroupJJR and Rogers Stirk Harbor + Partners

MOTB Construction Permit Issued

A building permit was recently issued for construction of the Museum of the Bible, located at 4th and D streets at the former Washington Design Center. There was a demolition ceremony for the project back in February and since then a 1980s addition has been demolished. It will be replaced with a new structure made of thin brick made to look like stacks of manuscripts. The 430,000 square-foot Museum of the Bible, which is scheduled to open in 2017, will include three exhibit floors that will tell the impact, narrative, and history of the Bible. A construction webcam has been set up looking towards the Virginia Avenue side of the site. 

Construction photo from early May.

Rendering courtesy of SmithGroupJJR

Museum of the Bible Demolition

Museum officials, architects, contractors, and the media gathered today in a tent on Virginia Avenue to mark the start of demolition to make way for Museum of the Bible at 300 D Street. Although demolition has been underway at the site since the last tenants moved out in December, today’s ceremonial event included demolition of a portion of the building. 

According to Cary Summers, president of Museum of the Bible there are currently about 100 workers on-site, but over the coming months of demolition, that number will increase to 500-600 workers. Clark Construction will build the museum and SmithGroupJJR is the lead architect.

The 430,000 square-foot Museum of the Bible will include three exhibit floors that will tell the impact, narrative, and history of the Bible. C&G Partners, BRC Imagination Arts, and The PRD Group will be designing each of these floors, respectively, while Jonathan Martin Creative will recreate a replica of a first-century Nazareth village. There will also be exhibit space for affiliated museums and libraries as well as space for a traveling exhibit gallery. The $400 million museum project also includes a one-story addition to the adjacent Washington Office Center, adding space for the museum’s research program, which include a reference library, research labs, and an academic conference center. 

SmithGroupJJR’s design for the museum calls for the restoration of the historic building which once served as a refrigeration warehouse (and most recently as the Washington Design Center). The 1980’s-era addition to the historic building will be demolished and replaced with a new structure made of thin brick made to look like stacks of manuscripts. The front entrance to the museum will be on 4th Street and will be flanked by large bronze panels and stained glass depicting abstract biblical manuscripts. Former loading bays along D Street will be converted into large windows where passersby can see inside the museum. On the ground level, the grand lobby will have a 200-foot LED ceiling that can display a variety of images. A two-level glass enclosed rooftop gallery addition will offer views to the north of the National Mall and the Capitol. A biblical garden and restaurant will also be located here, as well as a 500-seat performing arts theater and a 500-seat ballroom. Topping off the building will be a large green roof – the museum will seek LEED certification. 

There will be two dining areas in the museum – one will be an industrial style café on the mezzanine level overlooking the lobby that pays homage to the origins of the building’s former use as a warehouse and the second will be a restaurant offering foods of the Bible in a biblical garden setting on the rooftop gallery.

Museum of the Bible will include over 40,000 artifacts from the Green Collection, which has been collected by the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby retail chain.

The museum is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017. 

Renderings courtesy of SmithGroupJJR

Former Washington Design Center Up for Historic Nomination

The Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) will evaluate plans for a new, private Museum of the Bible planned in the former Washington Design Center building at 4th and D streets on July 10. The museum is applying for historic designation for the building, hence the involvement of HPRB. According to the landmark application, 300 D Street is an eight-story building that was originally built in 1923 in the Neo-Classical Revival style (an addition to the east was built in 1983 when it became the Washington Design Center) for the Terminal Refrigerating & Warehousing Company for use as housing cold and dry storage warehouses, an ice manufacturing plant, and the company’s offices. Trains used to enter the building on the 4th Street side on a spur line to deliver goods and loading docks were located on the D Street and Virginia Avenue sides. An interesting note about the shape of the original building – a notch was created on the southeast corner along Virginia Avenue because row houses were there when it was originally built. 300 D Street is the only large, Neo-Classical-style warehouse still standing in the District.

View from corner of 4th and D streets.

SmithGroupJJR has designed the museum to restore some elements of the building that were lost when it was converted to the Washington Design Center and create a new addition to replace the 1983 version, as well as build a large glass atrium above the existing building with a green roof. The museum will be approximately 400,000 square feet, about 30,000 SF larger than the existing building and addition. The main entrance will be located on 4th Street where the train used to enter the building and the loading dock bays that were on D Street will be retrofitted with windows and an open framed canopy above. The new addition will be made of oversized handmade bricks and have been designed to look like stacked bibles. 

On the first floor of the museum, there will be a lobby, museum shop, orientation desk, media wall, and security station. A grand staircase in the new addition will lead to the other floors. Above the first floor is a mezzanine level that will have a coffee shop and multipurpose room. The second through fourth floors will contain permanent exhibit space, while the fifth floor will contain an affiliated museum and performance hall. The sixth floor will have conference space, restaurant, lounge, and biblical garden. Special exhibits and museum support will be in the first basement level and space will be carved out in a second basement level for storage and staff support. The adjacent office building will also receive a one-story addition for an institute with a conference hall, offices, library, education center, and housing units for visiting scholars. 

Planned addition on office building at 3rd and D streets.

If approved, the museum is looking to open in 2017. 

Renderings courtesy of SmithGroupJJR

A Few Quick Items: DC United Stadium Buzz, Bible Museum Coming to SW, Constitution Center Sale Pending, Equity Stake at L’Enfant Plaza for Sale, Veterans Memorial Financed

 - There was an article last week in Sporting News that gave an update on the prospects for DC United’s push for a new stadium.  The new ownership group is starting to have conversations with the city to get them on board with funding infrastructure improvements and assembling land for a soccer stadium. Buzzard Point remains the likely site in the District for the new stadium, although DC United is also in talks with Baltimore officials to possibly relocate to that city. The Buzzard Point site is only a few blocks southwest of Nationals Park and the two facilities would be linked together by Potomac Avenue.

- Vornado is selling two office buildings it owns near the Federal Center SW Metro and one of them – The Washington Design Center at 300 D Street – will most likely be the new home of a bible museum, according to the Washington Business Journal (subscribers only).  From the article:

An affiliate of The Museum of the Bible, a nonprofit organization, has a contract to buy the design center to display its multimillion-dollar collection of sacred texts, artifacts and other items known as the Green Collection, according to sources familiar with the deal…It could take four or five years to open the museum because a large portion of the items to be displayed are now part of a traveling exhibition and will not be available for display immediately.

- Constitution Center, the massive 1.4 million SF office building on top of the L’Enfant Plaza Metro that went up for sale last year is close to finding a buyer. According to citybizlist, MetLife is nearing a deal to purchase the building for somewhere in the vicinity of $750 million.

- According to an article in Capital Business, an equity stake in L’Enfant Plaza is up for sale by JBG, the owner of most of the complex. The equity stake for sale is only for the existing office buildings, not the improvements underway and planned. Those improvements include a new Homewood Suites extended-stay hotel planned for the southeast corner of 9th & D Street, an expansion of the existing retail center, as well as an office building planned on the southeast side of the complex. Eventually, another office building is planned for the plaza area.

- The proposed American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial has received over $6 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Public Lands Highway Discretionary Program according to the BeyondDC blog. The 2.4-acre memorial is planned for the triangle formed by Washington Avenue, 2nd Street, and C Street. Back in 2010, the National Capital Planning Commission approved the design of the memorial, but infrastructure funding was still needed. With funding now in place, construction will begin next year with dedication planned in early 2014.

Rendering courtesy of the National Capital Planning Commission