Archive for the ‘ Planning + Urban Design ’ Category

Will Obama’s Presidential Center Invigorate or Gentrify Chicago’s South Side?

Economic impact is projected at $246 million annually. Neighborhood sentiment is strongly pro-Center. But how to address persistent concerns about an environmental lawsuit, traffic disruptions and the refusal to sign a Community Benefits Agreement

”Don’t call it a “library.”

The Obama Presidential Center (OPC) is the official name of the proposed complex to commemorate the nation’s 44th President, slated for location in Jackson Park, on Chicago’s South Side. None of the actual papers and documents from Barack Obama’s two terms will live there. Instead, existing facilities within the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) system will store those documents, with digitized copies of nonclassified documents made available online. However, the Center is projected to include a branch of the Chicago Public Library, while the grounds will feature an incline suitable for sledding in winter, an outdoor track, indoor athletic facilities, community gardens and outdoor food trucks. The Barack Obama Presidential Library website, administered by NARA, is already live, housing whitehouse.gov archives from Obama’s presidency.

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2019
03/18
CATEGORY
Architecture
Planning
Planning + Urban Design
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D.C. United in talks with four developers for Audi Field-area project – Washington Business Journal

The more valuable Parcel B becomes, the more it will pay off for D.C. three decades down the road.

Source: D.C. United in talks with four developers for Audi Field-area project – Washington Business Journal

 

2019
01/18
CATEGORY
Architecture
Planning + Urban Design
Sports
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Details Emerge On Massive New Construction Projects, Future Development Sites For Amazon In Northern Virginia


Courtesy: JBG Smith
A rendering of the north section of Amazon’s National Landing, including parts of Pentagon City and Crystal City

Northern Virginia won half of Amazon’s second headquarters, the tech giant announced Tuesday, and after over a year of anticipation, the details about what exactly the company’s presence in the region will look like are finally coming to light.

Amazon refers to its new Northern Virginia hub as National Landing, a newly coined neighborhood that includes Crystal City, the eastern portion of Pentagon City and the northern piece of Potomac Yard. The company said it will invest $2.5B, create over 25,000 high-paying jobs and occupy 4M SF of office space, with the opportunity to expand to 8M SF.  

The Seattle-based tech giant will lease space in Crystal City and Pentagon City from JBG Smith, which owns 6.2M SF of existing office space and 7.4M SF of future development sites in the neighborhood. Additionally, a Virginia Tech Innovation Campus will be developed in the Alexandria portion of Potomac Yard. 

The company will lease roughly 500K SF of existing office space at 241 18th St. South, 1800 South Bell St. and 1770 Crystal Drive, JBG Smith said. It expects to begin construction before the end of the year on the renovations at 1770 Crystal Drive, which include 272K SF of offices. 


Bisnow: Jon Banister
Amazon Vice President of Public Policy Brian Huseman at the Nov. 13 HQ2 announcement in Crystal City

Amazon also plans to purchase sites from JBG Smith, including the long-planned Pen Place site in Pentagon City that could support up to 4.1M SF of total development. It said it will begin planning the first office building this year and expects to begin construction next year. JBG Smith would serve as Amazon’s development partner, property manager and retail leasing agent.

Read more at: http://bit.ly/2RRKllH

2018
11/13
CATEGORY
Architecture
Mixed-Use
Planning + Urban Design
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How The Wharf Represents The Future Of D.C.’s Architecture

The fabric of D.C.’s built environment is going through monumental changes, from the push toward mixed-use development to embracing the city’s rivers. No project is more representative of those shifts than The Wharf. 


Bisnow: Jon Banister PN Hoffman CEO Monty Hoffman and Gensler co-CEO Diane Hoskins

“I believe we are in a renaissance, and maybe even in the early stages of that renaissance,” said PN Hoffman CEO Monty Hoffman, the lead developer behind The Wharf. “It’s exciting to be a part of and watch how residential, retail and office spaces are becoming more compact around each other and the lines are blurring.”  Hoffman, speaking at Bisnow’s Inaugural D.C. Architecture and Design Summit, said the mixed-use development happening in D.C. today is wildly different from what he saw when he began developing in the city in the 1980s, when office was limited to the Central Business District, and residential and retail areas were siloed. 

Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/washington-dc/news/mixed-use/how-the-wharf-represents-the-future-of-dcs-architecture-94543?be=edward.estes%40dc.gov&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thu-01-nov-2018-000000-0400_dc-re?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser

2018
11/13
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Architecture
DC Lifestyle
Mixed-Use
Planning + Urban Design
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The Racist Roots Of “Urban Renewal” And How It Made Cities Less Equal

It sounded like a great idea at the time: give cities funding to clean up their impoverished areas and invest in affordable housing and urban infrastructure projects. But the federal policy of urban renewal, established by the Housing Act of 1949 that lasted through the 1950s and early 1960s, had devastating consequences–including displacing more than a million people from their homes.

A new project from the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab uses data to investigate the number of displaced families from 1950 to 1966 in hundreds of cities and towns in the United States. The end result, an interactive data visualization called Renewing Inequality, highlights the cost of urban renewal by overlaying data about displaced families with data about race and redlining, the discriminatory practice during the 1930s that barred black people from living in certain neighborhoods.

Source: The Racist Roots Of “Urban Renewal” And How It Made Cities Less Equal

2018
01/05
CATEGORY
Planning + Urban Design
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MRP Realty Team to Redevelop DC’s Northwest One Parcel

A decade after DC’s New Communities Initiative put forth “Northwest One” as one of a handful of redevelopment sites, the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) has selected a development team for the parcel. The team of MRP Realty and CSG Urban has been chosen to redevelop the 3.5-acre site at North Capitol and K Street NW (map), which includes the former Temple Courts Apartment building.

As presented in April, the MRP and CSG Urban proposal would create a three-building development, designed by Marshall Moya Architects, that would deliver 806 residential units in two phases. Over 500 of the units will be designated as affordable, many of which will be 3- and 4-bedroom units, one of the key reasons that DMPED went with this development team.

Source: MRP Realty Team to Redevelop DC’s Northwest One Parcel

2017
11/28
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Planning + Urban Design
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An Interview With the Architect of DC’s Shipping Container Apartments

DC-based Travis Price recently made headlines for being the architect behind the shipping container apartments that popped up in northeast DC last month. But the architect has long had an outside-the-box philosophy when it comes to architectural design, and in DC, that started in Forest Hills where the homes he designed, including his own, stand out among the neighborhood’s brick colonials. UrbanTurf recently chatted with the poetic Price about the state of DC architecture, the trend of super-small living and this idea he has for floating homes on the Potomac.

via An Interview With the Architect of DC’s Shipping Container Apartments.

2014
10/31
CATEGORY
Adaptive Reuse
Architecture
Planning + Urban Design
Residential
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