Renderings for 400 K Street NW

The new Mount Vernon Place Master Plan outlines more specific details on the proposed office buildings along K Street.

Rendering of 400 K Street; Click to enlarge.

The specifications for 400 K Street conform closely with those of 300 K Street. The building will have 11'6" ceiling heights slab to slab with floor to ceiling glass.

First floor plate for 400 K Street; Click to enlarge.

A notable difference is that the building is dual core and can be built in two phases of approximately 210,839 rentable SF each. Separate lobby entrances and service facilities will exist for each section. Spanning the entire project, approximately 23,165 rentable SF ground floor will be available for retail space.

Renderings courtesy of www.mountvernonplace.com

Renderings for 300 K Street NW

The new Mount Vernon Place Master Plan outlines more specific details on the proposed office buildings along K Street. The most drastic shift in the new master plan is the facade change for the 300 K Street from a office building. Originally depicted with masonry that complemented the styles of the adjacent condominiums of the new plans show a floor-to-ceiling glass look.

New rendering of 300 K Street; Click to enlarge.

Original rendering of 300 K Street; Click to enlarge.

The building will have approximately 10,141 SF of ground floor retail space with 11'6" ceiling heights slab to slab.

First floor plate for 300 K Street; Click to enlarge.

As you can see from the drawing above a lobby entrance is planned at the center of the K Street frontage with retail space on either side flowing back along the 3rd and 4th street frontages.

Up Next: A closer look at 400 K Street

Renderings courtesy of www.mountvernonplace.com

Mount Vernon Place rendering update

News regarding future phases of Mount Vernon Place, a master planned mixed-use development totaling over two million square feet within the Triangle, has been few and far between. Construction on the project has ceased since the Mitchell Mayer building and the Sonata and Madrigal Lofts condominiums delivered over 2 years ago.

This past August, according to the Washington Business Journal, Mount Vernon Place developer Sandy Wilkes tested the waters in the sweepstakes for a proposed MSG theatre. Such a concept was a long shot for this site. Given the creation of a September 2009 update of the Mount Vernon Place Master Plan focus appears to have been restored to building 12 story LEED certified Class A office space along K Street.

New Mount Vernon Place masterplan rendering; Click to enlarge.

In the above rendering the color blue represents office space while the creamsicle/tan color represents residential buildings.

Interesting is that the U-Shaped blue massing below 300 K Street (#1) was not labeled with a number nor assigned a name in this new masterplan. This suggests that the developer still has not decided the future for this parcel which was also the case in the original master plan published years ago. The rendering does continue to indicate a plan to build over the edges of the alley that will run from 3rd Street to 4th Street. If that is the intention then the rear frontage of 300 K office building would have ghastly blank walls much like the west edge of the Mitchell Mayer building.

Up Next: A closer look at 300 K Street

Renderings courtesy of www.mountvernonplace.com

Triangle under consideration for new 6,000 seat theatre venue?

On Wednesday the Washington Business Journal created enormous buzz with news that the Madison Square Garden LP is aggressively scouring D.C. to identify a site for a new theatre venue. The article suggested MSG would open a venue of a 6,000 seats or more, requiring up to 100,000 square feet near shopping and public transit.

A day later, WBJ reporter Jonathan O'Connell unveiled more specifics on the locations under consideration. Two locations are in the immediate vicinity of the Nationals ballpark. The other three strike much closer to home:

• The Wilkes Company - Mount Vernon Place. Sandy Wilkes apparently met with the MSG team and he is planning 2.2 million square feet of development two blocks east of Mount Vernon Square. Not much further from the action.
  
• Douglas Development - Mount Vernon Triangle. Ever since assembling 1.2 million square feet across from the convention center, Douglas Jemal has been pursuing an entertainment attraction.
  
• Hines - CityCenter DC. The old convention center site will be the city's most high-end major development and has 111,460 square feet along New York Avenue between 9th and 11th Streets. Close to downtown, subway stations and dining options, it may be the most New York City-esque part of D.C.

How big would a 100,000sf venue be? Nearly double the size of the 59,000sf City Vista Safeway. From a capacity standpoint it would be 6X that of the 930 club, 3X the previously proposed House of Blues, and 1.5X the size of DAR Constitution Hall.

Proposed MSG venue would have 1.5 times the capacity of DAR Constitution Hall

What are reactions to this? I can't believe Mount Vernon Place is a serious contender. By my rough math neither of MVP's two largest remaining continuous assemblages of land on K Street is > 45000sf. City Center could definitely accomodate this project if desired. Douglas Development might have problems because of all the holdouts (Marrakesh, Rupperts) and historical properties they have to work around.

Where ever this project lands I hope MSG has a commitment to producing an architecturally beautiful building befitting a grand theatre rather than a value engineered blank box like the Convention Center or the 6th Street frontage of the Verizon Center.

UPDATE (8/18/09 7:10PM) - I've talked to an industry insider and while MSG needs 100,000 sf for the venue the required land footprint would be 50,000sf. Mount Vernon Place still is a non-starter as their largest land assemblage is 45,000sf which falls shy even before you have to carve a few thousand square feet out on the ground level for supporting infrastructure like parking garage egress, loading docks, etc...

Updated site plan for Mount Vernon Place

In early November I attended a PQNA breakfast meeting in which Sandy Wilkes and David Mayhood discussed the Mount Vernon Place project. From Wilkes we learned more details about the K Street office buildings while Mayhood profiled the typical MVT condo buyer.

At tonight's MVT CID Marketing Committee meeting the Mount Vernon Place commercial leasing agent Meany & Oliver company should be in attendance. Their website has two marketing materials: a Mount Vernon Place overview and a document focused on the 300 and 400 K Street NW office buildings.

Click to Enlarge; image from Meany & Oliver flyer-mvp1.pdf

In this economy I don't think anyone can answer when these projects will begin. What I find interesting is that this rendering does have changes from the masterplan on the Mount Vernon Place website. It reflects that 301 Eye Street will remain intact and that the current site of the Madrigal Lofts sales trailer will not be built on (will it eventually be a Church Square plaza?). I also notice that Mount Vernon Place contains one less site on K Street. Previously the lot immediately left of the 150,000 s.f. planned office was part of Mount Vernon Place. Lastly, we get another baroque inspired name, the Cantata, for the planned residential project on 3rd Street.

Mount Vernon Place office building update

As I reported a little over a week ago, the recent demolitions on 3rd Street do not signify movement on the Mount Vernon Place project. The vacant buildings were razed because they were attracting vagrants and prostitutes.

However after attending the PQNA Breakfast meeting I have learned more detail about Mount Vernon Place from the presentations from Sandy Wilkes and David Mayhood. Wilkes presentation began by listing his architectual partners and unveiling an overview of Mount Vernon Place master plan complete with renderings. This information is readily available on www.MountVernonPlace.com.

Rendering of 300 K Street

After that introduction Wilkes painted a deeper picture of what we can expect with the Mount Vernon Place office buildings on K Street.

• They don't plan to build any of the K Street office buildings until a lead tenant is identified
  
• They believe the location will attract non-profits and associations rather than law firms or GSA government
  
• Considering target tenants are non-profits they believe the buildings will have some of the highest LEED green building standards in the city
  
• They are committed to significant retail on all their K Street offices and integration of public art

Rendering of offices on 400 block of K Street

It was interesting to hear that Non-Profits and Associations are considered to be the target tenant. Recent news items show that non-profits like NPR and the Sierra Club planning to move to NoMA for lower costs. Does targeting non-profits mean we can infer that price/sqft lease rates at Mount Vernon Place will be a little closer to NoMA than the Downtown BID? I was encouraged to hear that GSA was not considered a probable client. With GSA buildings comes sidewalk barricades and armed guards.

The 100 million dollar question is: When will they break ground on these buildings? Considering a lead tenant has not been identified and the credit markets are locked up I don't think *anyone* can answer this question. I can speculate that unless a lead tenant is identified in the next 3-4 months that 2009 may be unlikely.

Renderings courtesy of www.mountvernonplace.com

Triangle related events on Nov 6th

Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood Association

The next Pennsylvania Quarter Neighborhood Association breakfast meeting will be held on November 6 at 8:30am at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre (641 D St NW). This meeting is focused on Mount Vernon Triangle development, the current state and future plans. Guest speakers include MVTCID Executive director Bill McLeod as well as a representative from the Wilkes Company. Wilkes is associated with Mount Vernon Place, an eleven building mixed use development spanning 5 blocks of the Mount Vernon Triangle.

RSVP via email to joann (at) PennQuarter (dot) org. When responding, please include the first and last names and affiliations of all people attending.

Additionally, as we announced a month ago, Thursday is also the day for:

Mount Vernon Triangle Community Walk with Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells

D.C. Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells will join Mount Vernon Triangle residents for a Community Walk through at 6pm on Thursday November 6th. The walk starts at the 555 Mass condominium. This is a followup to last year's walk which is recapped on Tommy's blog.

Demolition on 3rd Street completed

The demolition on the 900 block of 3rd Street NW is complete.


The properties demolished were 908-914 3rd Street NW. The land is part of the Mount Vernon Place master planned development. The 300 K Street NW office building is supposedly the next piece of Mount Vernon Place to be built.

I have inquired what this demolition might signify. Word is that the buildings were demolished predominantly for safety reasons. The vacant buildings were attracting prostitution activities in and around them. The flickr photostream I compiled does not include a pre-demolition snapshot of the buildings as everytime I happened to walk over with my camera someone was sleeping or hanging out in front of the properties.

Demolition on 3rd Street

Demolition has begun on a 3 story building on the 900 block of 3rd Street NW. A chain link fence was erected to surround the perimeter of the addresses 908 to 914 during the last week or so. The permit to raze the building was obtained earlier this month.


This parcel of land, across the street from Mount Carmel Baptist Church, is part of the Mount Vernon Place development.

Mayer Mitchell building

A couple of photos from Flickr user MVJantzen of the Mayer Mitchell Building (251 H Street NW)

All Politics Is Local

There was a discussion over at the MVSNA Blog earlier this week about the shenanigans at the last ANC 2C meeting. The events, at least as portrayed there, made me mad: how could the people who make up my political community be so trivial and unproductive! I felt embarrassed to be represented by ANC 2C.

But then I remembered, I'm not in ANC 2C! The Madrigal Lofts, Sonata, Dumont, and (I believe) both City Vista and 555 Mass Ave, are in ANC 6C. That's right, many of the new Mount Vernon Triangle residences are in a separate political area than Mount Vernon Square, even though the MVSNA does cover the entire Triangle. In fact, ANC 6C is the same ANC as most of the Penn Quarter condos are in (though the PQ condos further to the west are in ANC 2C).

I don't say this to diminish the MVSNA (not in the least!). I'm sure that they would gladly cover relevant parts of the ANC 6C meetings, for instance, if someone attended and sent a write-up to them. But! That requires someone knowing that we need to be going to the ANC 6C meetings! Given the great work that MVSNA does, it is easy to forget that we span two ANCs.

As I look at the map of ANC 6C, the Triangle's new condos are all in ANC 6C01. The PQ condos are in ANC 6C09. And the Triangle area of ANC 6C01 is a bit of an appendage, unlike the PQ condos, which fall in the dead center and make up the bulk of ANC 6C09. While I expect that Kieth Silver, the commissioner of ANC 6C01, knows that these new buildings are here (has anyone from 555 Mass or the Sonata interacted with him), as these buildings start to fill up it will be incumbent upon us to make sure we are not treated as an appendage.

--MLB

WAKE UP!

It seems to me that everyone was on the ball regarding the future of our community back in 2005 when development was at a frenzied pace. Unfortunately I don't see this fervor (At least not on line anyway) anymore. I'm going to point you guys to a couple of great initiatives for the triangle that seem to have completely died by way of websites that haven't been substantially updated since well...2005.

The Mount Vernon Triangle Project
Transportation and Public Realm Design Project
Last Updated: April, 2005

The Mount Vernon Triangle CID
Community Improvement District
Last Updated: Yes, the post mild updates every month or so. But I want more!

Mount Vernon Place (Development)
The developer of the easternmost third of the triangle.
Last Updated: Never. We want to know what the hell you guys are planning. As we can see by the buildings going up in front of the Sonata there has been a clear change in the otherwise picturesque master plan they had for MVplace... Shouldn't they make their intentions a little more clear to us?