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* Informational meeting held Aug. 30 re: the proposed development at 601-645 H Street NE, held at the Calvary Baptist Church, 820 6th Street NE.
* Project Presenters were:
Norman M. Glasgow, Jr. with Holland + Knight (www.hklaw.com)
Robert Atkinson with Davis Carter Scott (www.dcsdesign.com)
*Overview site plan for the 600 block of H Street NE. H Street is to the north (bottom), 7th Street is to the east (left), G Street is to the south (top) and 6th Street is to the west (right).
The existing five-story buildings are in the lower-left and lower right corner of the block.
The dark-gray shading--which fronts H Street--indicates the nine-story condo/retail/office section. The medium gray shading represents five-story condo section. Row houses on 7th,
G, and 6th Streets abut the project on the east, south, and west.
* Several other views. You can see the five story condo section that would face the alley
behind the rowhouses on G Street.
* It’s a two-year project; best-case scenario, construction could start in about a year.
* Market project, which means no public finance incentives, hence no low-income housing requirements.
* They look forward to contributing toward the funding of a BID (business improvement district—friendly people in uniform who provide directions and keep the streets and
sidewalks clean): Photo of front of H Street.
* The 234 residential units could be sold as condos or rented as apartments. The developers won’t decide to sell or rent until they can gauge the market closer to the project’s completion.
* The project will be addressed during the ANC6C Zoning meeting on Sept. 6, and then again
at the full ANC6C meeting on Sept. 13. Both meetings start at 7 p.m. at the Mt. Carmel
Church, 901 3rd St NW in Washington (www.anc6c.org).
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Also see Richard's related post.
25 comments:
Thanks so much david-and elise for posting this. I really wanted to get to that meeting but couldn't and was wondering how I was going to find out what the plans looked like.
Thanks for this!
The building is definitely better than the current one, but.....
I dunno. I'm not too keen on the design and the way it fits into the street. Although I could be convinced otherwise...
A few notes: The lawyer noted that they need an exception because - if I remember correctly - the ground coverage of the total development was above the limit. However, the height is within zoning limits.
The retail would cover around 2/3 of the H St frontage, but only go about 1/3 of the depth of the current building. The architect said it would be 55-60 feet deep, but it seemed smaller to me from the drawings. So most of the first floor space on H St would be offices, as would all of the higher floors of the existing buildings, all of the 2nd floor of the front (H St) half of the new building, and perhaps the 3rd floor as well. Seems to me like there is potential for more retail space - e.g., restaurant rather than just a cafe.
They said they were required to have 240 spaces, but planned 500. There would be only a entrance and single curb cut from H St into the garage; there would also be alley access.
Most if not all of the attendees said they would like the construction to use H St rather than 6th or 7th; the lawyer who presented said they would have to work with DDOT on that and that resident pressure would help.
On net, I think it would be a good addition to the neighborhood, but it would be better if it were smaller - sloping down more to meet the existing houses - and had more retail.
I agree I think the side facing H street should slope downward to 5 stories. I suggested this to the architect and he said that would cut into how many units they could put in the building. So they really don't care what it looks like or what it does to the community as long as they get their total number of units.
The side facing H street is a horrible design. It will be flanked by two existing red buildings. They have conviently not produced any pictures of all three buildings side by side. Because it will look really bad.
Why can't we get good architecture here in the NE? Has anyone seen the architecture on Mass Ave NW? The new condos are beautiful. We don't have to make a new condo look old, but we shouldn't have neo-ghetto architure shoved down our throats either.
The architect said the main entrance will be asian inspired. What neighborhood is he designing for?
They gave little thought to how much retail should go there. Why can't they design for a corner wrap around restuarant? The architect said that the 6th and 7th street neighbors probably don't want that. Does he even know anyone who lives in DC? People don't live in the city to get away from places like restuarants and businesses, we live in the city to be near they.
The proposed garage access off H St. is an abomination. That's a great way to make the block pedestrian-unfriendly.
Funny. I have no idea what to think.
I just checked out their site (www.dcsdesign.com) and it looks like they've been very active within DC over the years - with a few projects that actually look ok.
They've also been active in the burbs, with that cardboard, cookie cutter, suburban strip mall crap.
I just really don't know what to think.
ok- now that i've looked at them-I'm disappointed! I'm supporting development on H street-especially at this end. But this definitely needs design review!!!
Even if they allowed for a small amount of setback in that middle section on H street and provide a plaza-like area, I think it would do a lot visually so that the 9 story retail/office/condo section wouldn't seem to crowd/overpower the street so much. But I guess this company is not as interested in aesthetics as packing in offices and tiny retail spots with no interest in the actual neighborhood's needs.
And for a project that wouldn't be going up for 2 years at the earliest- I think the design looks dated and awkward and UGLY!
Richard's right that the buildings that went up in Chinatown/Penn quarter- as well as a number of projects in the U Street area are much higher quality. This is important in the long term.
Since H is not a historic district- and therefore does not require design review-what can we do to voice dissatisfaction with the plans, facilitate revisions to the proposal??
I too am wondering what we can do.
Not only would the H steet entrance kill a pedestrian friendly streetscape, but it would also be cruel and unusual punishment to the already harsh rush hour.
I remember that within the last year (?) we already have had one angry motorist shoot another one for driving too slow.
btw, I'm changing my username. The current one is too long. From now on, it's pingo. :o)
The above post was me. :op
opinions on design are like noses...
everyone has one...
Maybe someone with PhotoShop skills could play with their renderings, and produce a 'solution' instead of us all just griping about their design.
Just a thought.
Design is far more than merely a matter of opinion. Especially when considered in terms of a framework of urban design.
Aesthetics are maybe a matter of opinion when you are intellectually underdeveloped. See William Perry's _Forms of Ethical and Intellectual Development in the College Years_.
http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~rapaport/perry.positions.html
But it's unreasonable to foist your underdevelopment on the urban environment and the quality of life of hundreds of thousands of other people...
cf Thomas Hardy:
"The offhand decision of some commonplace mind in high office at a critical moment influences the course of events for a hundred years."
Or low office...
Take a look at www.dcsdesign.com. The Hawthorn building, that they designed, is not as ugly as what they are proposing for H street.
considering we, as human beings-particularly as city dwellers, spend the majority of our time in built environments, it is incredibly important that those environments be well thought out and planned to maximize our experience in them and around them.
while we don't all have to like the exact shape or style of the building-it really should look like it reflects some conscious thought about the space it's fitting into and the way that it will affect our experience of that place for many many years to come.
what is proposed here looks like it disrupt pedestrian and traffic patterns, does not seem like it will enrich the larger goal of the master plan for this end of H street.
If they have to request an exception to the zoning for area- is this an arena where we can push for changes to the size and various other aspects of the proposal??
I agree that it's a bad looking design. It looks dated and hasn't even been built yet. It's interesting that people will have balconies that give them a great view of the self-storage place :-).
Thanks for posting this info. Now I understand how they can be building condos at a time like this...they're leaving the door open to rent them as apartments if the market is still glutted.
As a resident of the 700 block of 6th street, I agree that a "wrap around" corner resturant is not ideal for the folks who live on the block. I'm also happy to see that the tallest part of the building, and the entrance to the garage are on H St and not in my backyard (ha ha). I'm all for a pedestrian friendly streetscape but after living for 6 years behind a commercial building there are a lot of headaches that come with cars entering and exiting the parking lots from 6th Street. I agree that the design could be much better but it is an improvement on the existing buildings which I look at every single day from my kitchen window!
dj, I can see why the alley off 6th St is a traffic problem (narrow, odd angles), but there's a better solution than putting a garage entrance on H.
The developer owns the parcel at the corner of H/7th, and could trivially widen the alley access off 7th using private land. (If that happens, you'd presumably want to revert that block of 7th -- currently one-way southbound, I think -- to two-way traffic in order to improve flow.)
The architect discussed the design of the garage door and said they would attempt to make it attractive. He mentioned - as an example, not a plan for this site - that in another project, a garage door had some built-in lighting so that at night it looked like a glowing screen.
The esthetics of the garage door aren't the issue. You could make it look like a portal into another dimension, and it wouldn't change the fact that we're talking about a large volume of vehicle traffic (9-story building here) across the sidewalk.
Forget design that things is waaaaay out of scale with the neighborhood. Stand at a bus stop at 10th or 13th and look down the street. See any massive buildings towerign above the nice 2- and3 story rowhouses? No, you don't. Smack a 1970's college campus-style facade on it and then stream couple-hundred more cars in and out of H street every day and this propsal sounds (and looks) awful.
Let's see if we can try and make 'em change it. I don't really have a great deal of optimism in our ANC leaders.
We should set up a website (maybe here) where we could all log in all our concerns, throw some data at it, and actually show up to the community meetings and present it as a common core. The 'Frozentropics Fellowship for Concerned H Street Folks, brought to you by INKED'. :o)
We live here. We know what our concerns are (without much of a political agenda - I hope!), and we could actually make a solid point.
Power in numbers.
As anyone that follows this blog can see, it's frequented by folks in the local community that presume to be 'concerned'.
A good list - of all our diverse concerns - could be presented as an objective commentary on where residents stand on H street developments.
Just a thought.
I understand that most of us feel that the 'new' design looks better than we have now... so that's it?
How do we make our voices/ concerns heard?
Seriously, in all the newsgroups/ blogs for the area, i just see people complaining (i'm at fault at that too, i must admit)...as pingo said: 'power in numbers'...let make our voices heard!!!! We the residents, not some jack**s with a political agenda...(at least, I'm not)
But isn't it all about how much you can get...I mean the architect said if they lowered the front part of the bulding they would be cutting short on their retail space...they don't care what we say, do they?
Can anyone enlighten me on something, please?
How was georgetown able to preserve their buildings? Or at least control how the new constructions were built......
You want to "preserve" the exsiting building? That's a joke right?
I think it's going to be difficult (and a bit presumptuous) to make a private landowner who is not getting any concessions from the city to make changes if you don't present workable solutions that make financial sense.
There is a public meeting with the developer (Holland+Knight) scheduled for October 10th. All of the property owners that abut the proposed new building have been notified (I am one of those people). That seems like an appropriate forum to air design (and other) concerns. I do hope that the opinions of the immediate neighbors is given proper weight since ideas like widening the 7th street (or 6th street) alley access can only be done by removing one of our homes since we're all smack up against the property line.
very brutalist--maybe the "perceptions" of the neighborhood served as the design inspiration. i agree with the person who said it was very institutional looking. my bet is it will be apartments, not condos, but i could be wrong. it's too bad, the firm could choose to do a leed building (since they brag about such things on their Web site), and be the first apartment building in DC with that designation. we should press them on that issue, in addition to the other more aesthetic ones...
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