Landscaping along City Vista

There is recent landscaping progress along the streets of City Vista. My last update on the landscaping was July 3rd. The plants on K Street aren't new but had previously been behind the chain link construction perimeter fencing.

Plants along 400 block of K Street NW

Plants along 400 block of L Street NW; in front of Safeway

Triangle Park at New York Ave and L Street NW

Are they planning to chain off the grass areas of the park using those posts they installed? It may be for the best. Panhandlers setting up camp under the shade of the tree should be discouraged.

City Vista streetscapes

Back on June 22nd we cited a WBJ report that Lowe Enterprises (City Vista) incurred a $300,000 expense preserving the roots of a 120 year old oak tree at New York Ave and L Street NW. Below is a snapshot of the tree (right).



Also noteworthy is that the planter at the corner of 5th and K Street NW is taking shape.

Restaurant-Based Neighborhood Revitalization

Richard Layman's Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space highlights the revitalization underway in H Street NE. This has become the "IT" place in the city with numerous WaPo articles like "H is for Happening". The driving force to the revitalization is considered to be the intiative by Joe Englert (CP | Examiner | WBJ | Washingtonian | Chat) of seeding H Street with tavern-entertainment destinations offering pretty good food.

Layman has a few "rules" to successful Restaurant-Based Neighborhood Revitalization:

1. Relatively appealing cuisine that isn't too specialized (or at the very least is popular such as Asian food); food that is attractive to a large number of people--Italian, Mexican, and "American," seem to work best. You want at least 100 customers/nite. These days Thai food is moving into this category. Chinese seems to have lost its appeal. Restaurants like Indian, Caribbean, etc. are just a bit too specialized, and therefore don't get the weekly or at least a couple times/month patronage that such restaurants need especially when they are located in emerging commercial districts.

2. Good food; it doesn't have to be stunning but it better be good. (Perhaps Mexican restaurants illustrate this point the best.)

3. Good, good plus, or better service; waiting isn't fun, and neither is dealing with a server that doesn't help you get what you want with a modicum (ideally none) of problems.

4. Competitively priced; you can't have drinks at $8 or most of your entrees costing $13-$20 -- unless you offer a fully realized concept where those prices make sense. If your prices aren't competitive and maybe a little less expensive than the market, you won't get that frequent patronage that is necessary for your success. Pitchers of margaritas or sangria are good, maybe not pitchers of beer, which seem to attract a rowdier more alcohol-centered clientele.

5. Nice interior; it doesn't have to be stunning or a $1 million interior renovation, but it can't be threadbare, and it has to be appealing.

Any thoughts on how these rules relates to our Triangle 'hood? Richard's Rules for Restaurant-Based Revitalization apply most closely to transitioning, emerging, and distressed commercial districts. The Triangle is transitioning but overwhelmingly through new construction rather than adopting old structures to new uses. So the rents will be too high to closely follow the path H Street NE has taken to success. I would think rules 2 thru 5 should always apply. I also think rule #1 makes sense for the first restaurant that arrives - which would most likely be in the ground floor space at 455 Mass Ave NW (aka Penzance Building).


The space at the Penzance Building has a great are for outdoor seating on the Mass Ave facing. When built out the Triangle will have the critical mass to support a specialty cuisine restaurant like Indian or Carribean. But I think that's deferred until K Street's restaurant row one day arrives. Perhaps Italian, Mexican, Thai, or "American" is the way to go for this first new restaurant. I would also think the choice should should strive to serve the lunch crowd from the GAO and Chester A Arthur office buildings and repeat business from the new condo residents.

floorplate is approximation of ground level as it was intended to represent floors 5-8

Let's hope the space does end up as a restaurant and not subdivided into another bank and Starbucks. =)

Washington City Paper: Hoods and Services

The Washington City Paper is running a guide to D.C. Neighborhoods coined "Hoods and Services". The article does not drill down to specific D.C. neighborhoods but rather clusters then in to tongue and cheek names ranging from Carryouterbanks to HUDson Valley to Turrets Syndrome.

The Mount Vernon Triangle falls into a hood labeled Land of the Lofts. Undoubtedly a play on words relating lofts to past sci-fi works. This pseudo-community includes Logan Circle, Shaw, Mount Vernon Square, and Chinatown/Penn Quarter and ranks second overall in the "power rankings" to C-SPANistan.

The content for Land of the Lofts includes an essay, Census 2000 Stats and scores/blurbs on Kid-Friendliness, Housing, Eats, Consumer Good, Nightlife/Culture and Intangibles.

Establishing an Identity

In the next couple of years the many buildings coming online in the Triangle will bring at least...

City Vista K,V,L (292+244+149=685)
The DuMont East,West (187+370=557)
Madrigal Lofts (259)
The Sonata (79)
Eye Street Lofts (160)
Yale Steam Laundry (359)

555 Mass. (264)
400 Mass. (256)
Mass Court (371)
The Meridian (462)

carry the one.. WHEW that's 3,452 residential units in or directly adjacent to the Triangle! And that's not really counting the rest of those parking lots that have projects on the drawing boards. Anyway, my point is, there are going to be a heck of a lot of people living here and hopefully a bunch of retail lining the ground level of most of these buildings.


A View of the soon to be bustling K Street
from the Mount Vernon Public Realm Design Project

What kind of identity would you like to see this neighborhood establish? I can say that for the past 5 years I've lived in the district I always thought of the Triangle as Parking / Tranny-hooker heaven. But I'm thinking that once we're all settled into it we could aim for something more like Fashionista-Lawyer / Design Within Reach district?

Architecturally speaking the Triangle isn't trying to veer to far from the DC norm which is a shame given the fact that we have a veritable tabula rasa to create a neighborhood that differentiates itself architecturally. Think of the possibilities!

While I would love to aspire to have great design shops like New York's SoHo I'm pretty sure given the rather mainstream thing that downtown DC is going for I'm hoping that we'll at least manage to attract younger, hipper individuals than your typical ___ type. (I fail to be more descriptive so as to not offend anyone). The last thing I want to see is the same planned homogeneity you encounter in places like Ballston, Crystal City and Boca Raton, FL. How can we attract the right kind of development that can give us an intrinsic character different from the rest of the District and more importantly, what do you want that character to be?

Please discuss.