Movin' on up.

Hey, another project comes off the shelf! Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Rachelle Nigro reports on her Facebook page:

460 NY Ave., the unsightly old brick federal building, has officially begun to take shape. I received a call last night from the developer Bozutto. Tentative plans are for a 63 unit condo building. The building would be 11 stories and have lift parking. One bedrooms and studios for now. Bozutto will have to appear before the BZA, ANCs etc. but they said they are moving forward with the development. Keep in mind the drawing/plans could change many times. Yippee for the neighborhood!!

Yippee, indeed. The Board of Zoning Adjustment approved the project in 2008, and granted Bozzuto an extension in 2010. The plans back then were for 80 apartments, at the maximum 130 feet tall, so it's been scaled back a bit.

The interesting twist to this development is the three-story brick box now standing on the site, which is neither an historic landmark nor in an historic district, but something the city's Historic Preservation Office wants preserved anyway (Matt Yglesias yelled about this last year). Why? In 2008, Bozzuto's preservation consultant Andi Adams told the BZA that it was designed in 1925 by a notable architect, and used as a car dealership and service facility. The D.C. Preservation League put it on a list of potential landmarks in Mt. Vernon Triangle, and Adams figured someone would probably nominate the warehouse if it were threatened with demolition. Bozzuto's representative said they'd agreed to incorporate the warehouse into the new building, "at significant cost." So, there you have it: Dubious historic preservation is an obstacle, but not insurmountable.

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UPDATE, Friday, 6:30 a.m. - According to a reliable source, commenter crin is correct: Bozzuto wanted to keep the old warehouse because 100 percent lot occupancy was grandfathered in under more restrictive zoning that would have allowed only 80 percent lot occupancy had they built anew.

Should these houses be razed for seven parking spots? (Lydia DePillis)

Religious building projects often take forever to come to fruition–churches aren't developers, after all, and they do have a more expansive timeline. The Third Street Church of God in the Mount Vernon Historic District is no different. It's been trying to do something with its properties on New Jersey Avenue for a decade now, and has been thwarted at every turn: First there was a plan for an old rowhouse directly to the south, but neighbors wouldn't agree to a necessary easement, so that project died and the Church sold the properties. Then, they tried to build on 4th Street, but the District wouldn't allow them to demolish the existing buildings, so they gave up on that idea too.

In September 2009, Pastor Cheryl Sanders thought she had a winner, when the Historic Preservation Review Board and a host of other agencies signed off on plans for a new administrative building right next to the church. Permits are still pending for that project. The problem is, it would take away about half of the roughly 30 parking spaces they currently have. So now, Sanders is applying to raze three decrepit rowhouses that the church has owned for 20 years, which would yield an additional five to seven spaces for their congregation.

The neighbors—highly sensitive to the issue of vacant properties, the deadening effect of surface parking lots, and demolition by neglect—are incredulous. 

"I don't know what your theology is, but there's a crying need for housing in this city," said one ANC commissioner at a planning and zoning committee meeting last night.

"It sounds like hoarding to me," said another. "If they're not being used as housing, I think that shouldn't be condoned, and we shouldn't look the other way."

Sanders' frustration is understandable: The church has put a lot of time and money into finding a way to secure more space. The houses are in pretty bad shape, but the Historic Preservation Office is saying that they can probably still be preserved. Meanwhile, the vacant property tax just kicked in—tax records show that the church paid about $16,000 on the houses over the last year.

"Yes, it is true, we did not restore them. But we had to set some priorities in terms of he other major expenditures," said a defensive Sanders. "The only answer that I can give to that is that as a church, we have limited resources."

The Mount Vernon Triangle of 2011, though, is not the Mount Vernon Triangle of 1991. Those houses would fetch a goodly sum—say $600,000—which could then be used to lease parking spaces nearby and shuttle parishioners to worship, as one community member pointed out. By asking to raze them, the church is effectively asking to pay $100,000 per space, which is quite a lot.

ANC 6C's planning and zoning committee overwhelmingly voted to deny the raze application, which will go before the HPRB at its June meeting.

Treehugging works. (photo from The Triangle)

Last week, ANC 6C commissioner Keith Silver blasted out an e-mail to local media promising to chain himself to an "historic" tree at 425 Eye Street, which was slated to be taken down as the sidewalk underwent upgrades. The Triangle subsequently picked up on his petition campaign, and tomorrow the good commissioner has scheduled a "symbolic photo" in front of the tree to protest its removal by Paramount Development Group, which is redeveloping the building to LEED Gold standard for use by Veterans Affairs.

Civil disobedience, apparently, was unecessary. Project Manager John Bone tells Housing Complex that they decided to keep the tree–which he reckons is an oak, planted when the building was constructed in the 1970s–right after hearing about the protest, even though they have approval from the Urban Forest Administration to chop it down.

"We love the environment," Bone says. "We’re going to work around it, and hopefully it can live another 100 years."

This morning's WBJ does not report good news for the next pioneers though: Broadway Management Co. was the developer handling the Atlantic Towers project, and as with many of their other developments in D.C., things are not swimming along.

Broadway's the company behind Mount Vernon Triangle's disastrous Dumont project, which failed to attract enough buyers, stalling completion of the building and eventually leading early purchasers to demand refunds on their security deposits, as the Washington Post detailed last January. Broadway also developed Senate Square on Eye Street NE; A judge recently appointed a receiver to that project after Broadway stopped repaying its bank loans in April, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Now, Broadway is again in default (to Wells Fargo Bank, this time). An auction date had been set for October of this year, but then "on Sept. 22 — three weeks before the first scheduled foreclosure auction — a consultant produced a report indicating the presence of environmental contaminants in soil and groundwater samples from the property," according to the Washington Business Journal.

"The site’s industrial past may be one factor complicating a foreclosure sale. Lenders are often reluctant to take title to land burdened with environmental liabilities, according to legal experts," the article explains. The property still has not sold.

Looks like the 9:30 club will be holding onto some grungy credibility for a while longer.

*Well, here's a Zoning Commission transcript from 2006, there's not much recent news that I can find on the project.

The Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District is holding its first house tour this weekend. "Private residential condos will be primarily featured on the House Tour, which will include units in 555 Mass, The Sonata, Madrigal Lofts, The L, and The K," according to the press release. There have surely been ample opportunities to enter many of these buildings and see condos—for free—before.  But model units have a curious way of feeling totally uninhabitable—like being on the TV set of some terrible, short-lived  sitcom about hip, urban twenty-somethings.

So at least this tour might give you a sense of what it would be like to actually live in these spaces.

Here's a bit more information about the event from the website:

The Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District is hosting the inaugural Mount Vernon Triangle House Tour on Sunday, May 17, 2009 from 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. – benefiting Strive DC – a life skills and job training organization. Mount Vernon Triangle is an emerging neighborhood on the east end of Downtown Washington DC with new condos, apartments, retailers, and offices.

Tickets are $15 in advance at 5th Street Ace Hardware, 1055 5th Street, NW, or go online to www.mountvernontriangle.org to use PayPal. Tickets will be on sale on event day at 5th Street Ace Hardware for $20. This event will go on rain or shine.

Image by Mr. T in DC, Flickr Creative Commons

City Vista
1045 5th Street NW

Meridian at Gallery Place
450 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

455 Massachusetts Avenue (Western View)

Madrigal Lofts
811 4th Street, NW

455 Massachusetts Avenue (Front View)

455 Massachusetts Avenue (Front View)

Massachusetts Avenue, Between 5th and 4th Streets (Southern Side)

Massachusetts Avenue, Between 5th and 4th Streets (Northern Side)

For my story this week, I briefly chatted with William Rich, Vice President of real estate research firm Delta Associates, based in Alexandria. We discussed the price-per-square-foot of condos in some of the District's hottest neighborhoods. Since most of the information didn't make it in the piece, I thought I'd share here*:

City Average:$510
Adams Morgan/U Street area:$500
Penn Quarter/Thomas Circle area:$635
Mount Vernon Triangle/Mount Vernon Square:$530
Georgetown/West End/Dupont area:$750 to $850

If you're wondering why Adams Morgan/U Street is so low...You are not alone. I think many people would consider U Street one of the most desirable parts of the city right now. Just ask everyone that wrote fluff pieces about the neighborhood in the wake of Barack Obama's absolutely historic visit to Ben's Chili Bowl! However, if you consider how many old units are in Adams Morgan versus how many are in Mount Vernon Triangle—just drive Massachusetts Avenue to check it out—you can imagine why their average is higher.

*Statistics cover units that sold the last quarter of 2008.

Image by Incurable_hippie, Flickr Creative Commons

According to the photographer, this shot was taken in 455 Massachusetts Avenue.

Today, the Washington Post takes a look at The Dumont, one of the many new condo buildings on Massachusetts Avenue in Mount Vernon Triangle.

And who can keep track of them really? The entire row of colossal glassy high-rises looks like a 21st century ghost town. In fact, one wonders what will be the enduring image of this era once it is over. Luckily, we're not (yet) looking at any Dorothea Lange-esque shots of destitute children.

But perhaps there will be images of collections of cranes pointlessly looming. And stretches of road with half-empty and half-completed condo buildings one right after another.

The Dumont is a 550-unit building, located at Fourth Street and Massachusetts Ave. N.W. According to the Post story, construction has stalled on the project, and the developer has stopped responding to inquiries from people who have put down deposits on condos.

The 550-unit Dumont was launched during a housing boom that saturated the region with condominiums. Now the ferocious economic crisis, already paralyzing new construction, is wreaking havoc on projects that are nearly finished or even newly completed.

Ensnared in the mess are unwitting buyers, who have given up other homes and had deposits frozen while they await the outcome. One buyer said he had put down $65,000 on a $1.2 million, two-bedroom penthouse.

David Weldler, a principal at Broadway Management, the New York-based development company that is building the Dumont, said the project stalled because Broadway Management sold too few units to satisfy the lenders. The building's future, he said, "is in the hands of the banks," which could decide to keep it as a condominium or convert it to rental apartments and return buyers' deposits. "We hope this should come to a resolution in a relatively short amount of time," he said.

Image by Mr. T in DC, Flickr Creative Commons