Showing posts with label K Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label K Street. Show all posts

Saturday, January 09, 2010

K Street Redesign: And the Winner Is...

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The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) has chosen a plan for remaking K Street downtown into a two-lane center transit way with loading zones, to streamline the lobbying corridor between Washington Circle and Mount Vernon Square. Throughout the fall, DDOT held a series of public meetings to allow interested parties to provide comments regarding the project. DDOT considered two build options to address infrastructure, safety, congestion and access problems in the busy K St corridor. The K St Redesign is estimated to cost $139 million, which DDOT hopes to cover entirely with federal TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) funds.

The winning design includes two center bus/transit lanes, which might allow taxis at limited hours, separated from the general purpose lanes by a median. During rush hour there would be three general purpose lanes and during regular hours the curb lanes might be used for loading and parking. In this alternative, commuter buses would stop in the curb lanes to pick up passengers traveling to the MD and VA suburbs. As for cars and pedestrians, the plan would include 200 on-street parking spaces during off-peak hours as well as on-street loading in off-peak hours, and provide a shared lane for bikes with autos and a shared lane with parking in off-peak hours.

TIGER fund recipients will be announced in February.

Washington DC real estate development news

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Downtown Trophy Site Begins Construction

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Clark Construction has begun work on one of Washington DC's most visible corners - 1000 Connecticut Avenue, at the corner of K Street and Connecticut. Property owner 1000 Connecticut Ave Associates, LLC consolidated several adjoining office buildings to form the massive lot now under construction. Initial site work and excavation are under way to dig the hole for below-grade parking for the building designed by the late Jim Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, who also designed the neighboring building at 1700 K St NW. Owners expect the office building to deliver by late 2012.

Owners Michael Gewirz, Steven Gewirz, Edward Kaplan and Albert Small formed the LLC when the owners of three older office buildings decided to combine their lots and construct one massive building under joint ownership. The former buildings were demolished in 2007. Project Manager Michael Tyler of MJ Tyler and Associates estimated that the total hard construction costs will come in around $70 million, with total project costs around $180 million. Interior design firm WDG Architecture worked with Pei to design a building that should garner LEED Gold approval, assuming everything goes according to plan.

Though demolition began in 2007 and construction was initially to begin in 2008, the group sat on the property, leaving some chafing at the vacancy of the highly visible site. Negotiations with major law firms to secure a tenant lead first to Mayer, Brown, Rowe and Maw, but fell through, and there were even rumors of the owners' application to the city for a permit to use the site for parking in the interim. Eventually, the group secured law firm Arent Fox to fill the role. Tyler said the group waited "because of the market and because of the timing with the lead tenant."

Arent Fox, having signed on in May 2008, will be the lead tenant, occupying 74% of the space with 8 floors and over 238,000 s.f. of office space. According to Arent Fox's Steven Harras, the firm expects to open its new doors in early 2013, which will coincide nicely with the 2012 expiration of the firm's current lease just down the street at 1050 Connecticut Avenue.

According to Audrey Cramer, Vice Chairman at Cushman and Wakefield, the top floors of the building are available for lease and include up to 120,000 s.f. of space, which she estimates will go for around $60/s.f. triple net. According to Tyler there is also approximately 14,000 s.f. of ground floor retail space available. At this point, Cramer said the brokers are "flexible" on how tenants choose to lease space in "the best building in Washington, with the best location."

Construction image courtesy of DC Kaleidoscope.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

K Street Redesign Presentation on Wednesday

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Washington DC commercial property brokerage, retail for leaseTomorrow, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) will host a public meeting for comments on the Environmental Assessment (EA) of the K Street Transitway Study. DDOT is currently considering two build options to address infrastructure, safety, congestion and access problems in the busy K St corridor. Tomorrow's public hearing, according to the DDOT website, will afford all interested persons the opportunity to provide comments regarding the project. District Department of Transportation, K Street corridor StudyThe K St Redesign will cost roughly $139 million, which DDOT hopes to cover entirely with U.S. Department of Transportation TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) funds. Both build plans are open for public comment, which will be included in any final decision-making process. The EA rated each plan based on its effect on the community and on transportation in the corridor. Each build option, according to the EA, would improve the travel time from end to end on K Street. Perhaps of great interest to the public is the effect each plan will have on parking and bicyclists. Alternative 2 (Two-Lane Transitway) would include 200 on-street parking spaces during off-peak hours as well as on-street loading in off-peak hours, and provide a shared lane for bikes with autos and a shared lane with parking in off-peak hours. Alternative 3 (Two-Lane Transitway with passing) has no on-street parking at any time, with loading Harvard Lofts, 1466 Harvard St., NW, Washington DCavailable in selected locations. Alternative 3 is a bikers dream with a 5 foot paved and signed bicycle dedicated lane. Alternative 1 would be to leave the present street unchanged. The event begins at 6 PM and is scheduled to end at 8:30 PM at the Carnegie Library at 801 K St., NW, and will feature a presentation at 7 PM and an open public testimony session beginning at 7:30 PM. The public comment period ends October 30, 2009.

Washington DC commercial real estate news

Thursday, September 10, 2009

K Street Without Congestion? Perhaps...

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In an attempt to wrangle competitive federal transportation stimulus funds, the DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) sped things up over the summer to include a K Street Redesign as part of the application for U.S. Department of Transportation TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) funds. The K St Redesign will cost $139 million, which DDOT hopes to cover entirely with TIGER funds. Thanks to the September 15th application deadline, DDOT may finally put an end to the six years of discussion, with interested parties including WMATA and both the Downtown and Golden Triangle BIDs.

DDOT is currently considering two build options to address infrastructure, safety, congestion and access problems in the busy K St corridor. The K Street transit system "serves over 250,000 of the city's approximately 700,000 workers...If workers cannot commute to and through K Street comfortably and efficiently, tenants and jobs will leave the city's core" said Rich Bradley, Executive Director of the Downtown BID in making his case for the K Street redesign.

K St's infrastructure is about 30 years old and the current design is inefficient to say the least. The four center lanes are congested with the various metro buses, commuters buses and cars. The service lanes, separated from the center lanes by medians, are meant for loading, parking and turns, but are more often plagued by parking violations. Beyond the inefficiency and congestion, there is no continuous east-west cross-town transit system to connect Georgetown, Downtown, the Convention Center and Union Station, as stated in the K Street Busway Executive Summary.

The first option includes two center bus/transit lanes, which might allow taxis at certain hours, separated from the general purpose lanes by a median. During rush hour there would be three general purpose lanes and during regular hours the curb lanes might be used for loading and parking. In this alternative, commuter buses would stop in the curb lanes to pick up passengers traveling to the MD and VA suburbs.

The second option includes three center bus lanes at all time (where the road allows). The third lane would act as a passing lane and would switch every few blocks to allow buses in each direction to pass one another. The center lanes would also be separated by a median from the two general purpose lanes. There would not be any parking allowed at any time, but certain locations would be set aside for loading. In this scenario, the commuter buses would use the transit lanes, with Metro and Circulator buses using the center lane to pass.

Bicycle lanes have not been completely ironed out at this point in either alternative.

The project submitted for TIGER funds did not choose an alternative as each would incur the same cost. According to DDOT spokesperson, John Lisle, the EA will be released late this month for a 30 day public comment period. The preferred alternative will be decided after the public comment period ends.

TIGER money is awarded on a competitive basis as "capital investments in surface transportation infrastructure projects that will have a significant impact on the Nation, a metropolitan area, or a region." Final decisions on awards will be granted in February of 2010. DDOT intends to bring the plan to 30% design phase by that time. Assuming the TIGER grants come through, construction for the project could begin by late 2010.
 

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