Outside of Tysons Corner, Vienna MetroWest is Fairfax County’s greatest experiment yet in transit oriented development. But now it appears developers have scaled back, and may build car-oriented retail instead.

Original plan (left), and current plan (right). Images from Clark Realty and Paraclete Realty.

MetroWest was initially approved in 2006 after years of debate as a dense, walkable town center adjacent to Vienna Metro station. It was Fairfax County’s first big smart growth win.

With construction of the residential sections underway, the town center seemed close to finally, finally happening. But now that it’s time to actually start leasing spaces, the town center development plan looks a lot different.

Instead of dense, walkable midrises, the are single-story retail buildings surrounded by surface parking lots. Instead of an urban town center, it’s a glorified strip mall. What happened?

One can speculate. A recession hit, competing developments at nearby Dunn Loring Metro opened first, and the market changed.

Developers do often build single-story retail as a “temporary” placeholder until they’re ready for more intense uses. That was the idea behind the Kentlands town center in Gaithersburg, which is now redeveloping parcel by parcel. But “temporary” in this case can mean 20 years.

For people who bought homes at MetroWest based on the promise of a strong town center nearby, the potential of something better years in the future is little consolation.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Maryland has awarded a construction contract for the Langley Park transit center.

Langley Park is currently the busiest bus transfer location in the region that isn’t connected to a Metro station. But it’s a mess. Bus stops are spread all around the busy crossroads of New Hampshire Avenue and University Boulevard. Transit users hoping to transfer have to cross up to 14 lanes of traffic, and have to memorize which curbside bus stops their route uses. It’s a complicated and dangerous situation.

Solution: bus station.

Langley Park transit center, including future Purple Line connection.
All images from Maryland MTA.

To solve this problem, Maryland has been planning for years to build a Langley Park bus station. The station would centralize all bus routes in the area under a single building, with vastly improved customer amenities.

Funding for the station was lined up in 2010 when MTA received a TIGER grant for it, but a land ownership issue delayed construction until now. Groundbreaking is expected this summer, with completion in fall of 2015.

Location map.

Transit center plan.

A proposed skyscraper in Tysons Corner will be 435 feet tall, making it the tallest in the DC region, and first to breach the 400 foot threshold. The building is proposed as part of the SAIC redevelopment, adjacent to the Silver Line’s Greensboro Metro station.

SAIC Westpark. Image by FXFOWLE, published online by The Tysons Corner.

Traditionally, the tallest skyscrapers in the region have been in Rosslyn. But Rosslyn is in the flight path to National Airport, so buildings there can’t rise higher than 400 feet. A bevy of development projects in Rosslyn, Alexandria, Tysons, and North Bethesda are in the 300-400 foot range, but this is the first serious proposal to crack 400 feet.

Outside the DC region, Maryland’s tallest building is 528 feet, and Virginia’s is 508 feet. Richmond’s is 449 feet.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Rendering of potential H Street FBI building. Image from Arthur Cotton Moore via Washingtonian.

As the FBI searches for a new headquarters location, most of the options have focused on the suburbs or Poplar Point, but Washingtonian reports on another proposal: Keep it downtown, at H Street and North Capitol Street, NW. But that location has serious downsides.

The proposal would repurpose the existing Government Printing Office buildings on North Capitol Street, and add a new extension to the west. The new building would be over 2 million square feet, and would cover multiple blocks from New Jersey Avenue to North Capitol.

Ideally an employer as large as the FBI should have its offices downtown, but the FBI isn’t just any employer. Its building is likely to be a security fortress, which means it won’t be very good for pedestrians, or have ground floor retail. H Street is an important pedestrian and retail spine. Giving up a long stretch of it to the FBI would be just as bad there as it is on E Street, where the FBI is a sidewalk dead zone.

Actually, a dead zone on H Street might be even worse. Walmart is building an urban format store directly across the street from the FBI proposal. And love Walmart or hate it, it’s going to be one of downtown’s biggest retail draws. That means this exact block of H Street is about to become one of the busiest retail main streets in the city. It should have retail on both sides.

One advantage of this FBI proposal is that the land is already owned by the government. That does mean it’s less likely to get retail on it, but putting the FBI building on it would cement that, literally.

There are other questions. DDOT’s proposed crosstown streetcar would run along H Street. The FBI has never weighed in on streetcars, but would they throw up security-related roadblocks? It’s unknown.

According to Washingtonian, the FBI would close G Street entirely to traffic. That further cripples the L’Enfant grid at a time when other projects are trying to restore the grid nearby. And would this forbid pedestrians and cyclists as well?

Finally, the existing GPO buildings are among Washington’s most prominent historic red brick buildings, and were designed by a prominent architect at the time. The FBI concept renderings show a courtyard in the middle of the GPO building, but aerials show no such courtyard currently exists. That suggests the buildings will have to be completely gutted to fit the FBI. Is that a worthy tradeoff?

Any proposal that keeps the FBI downtown merits serious consideration, but given the FBI’s security requirements, and given the potential for this location to be redeveloped with something even better, it may be preferable to let the FBI go. Putting the FBI on this block might be better than having it remain a parking lot, but almost any other building would be more ideal.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

11th and V poptop.

This 5 story pop-up rowhouse at 11th and V, NW has gotten a lot of negative press. DCist and Popville had nothing kind to say about it. And while it’s undeniably a silly-looking thing, it’s not actually bad. In fact, from an urbanist perspective, it’s good for the city.

First, a bigger building will allow more people to live in a core city neighborhood. That will help the neighborhood support more stores and services, and reduce car traffic everywhere. Density in the core of the city is a good thing, and a 5 story building is a very reasonable amount of density.

Second, this preserves the narrow lot pattern of its block, versus having one developer buy up multiple row houses and then put in a much wider building.

All other things being equal, a street with several narrow buildings is preferable to a street with a single long building of the same square footage. A streetscape with constantly changing narrow buildings is more interesting to look at than one with a single long building. Narrower buildings are also more likely to be owned by small local property owners, instead of big development chains.

Yes, this property looks silly now. But think about the future. Assuming we can’t (and don’t want to) freeze the city in time, densifying infill on small properties is exactly the kind of development we want. If it’s all eventually going to be 5 stories anyway, it’s better that this block redevelop property-by-property than all once.

Pop-ups are the first step towards this in Amsterdam, which really isn’t such a bad thing.

Amsterdam. Photo by Jim Nix / Nomadic Pursuits on Flickr.

Will this particular building look as good as that picture? It’s hard to tell at this point. It might, but it could just as easily become the ugliest building in DC. Buildings that size aren’t inherently pretty or ugly. There are lots of good ones, and lots of bad ones. What it looks like is not ultimately the same issue as its mass and scale.

The point is, narrow 5 story buildings are a great physical form for city streets. That’s the form of some of the best parts of Paris, London, and New York. Although this will look weird with 2 story neighbors, it pushes the evolution of the block in a good direction.

 Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.
 
 
 

Rockville’s awful parking lot, and the development that will replace it.

For literally decades, downtown Rockville’s most central block has sat empty, used only as a parking lot. It’s been a huge hole in the city’s urban fabric, separating the area near Rockville Metro station from the more vibrant Town Square. Now, after multiple failed attempts, it is finally, finally, being developed.

And with this property, the most visible sign of Rockville’s failed 1960 urban renewal will be erased.

Back in 1960, Rockville was transitioning away from its historic role as a sleepy county seat, and into a booming post-war suburb. City leaders fully embraced the notion that walkable urban places were obsolete, and approved an urban renewal plan that bulldozed 111 buildings covering 47 acres – almost all of Rockville’s historic downtown.

Like countless such plans from that era, this one was a disaster. A few mostly car-oriented buildings were constructed, including the short-lived Rockville Mall, but much of downtown remained empty.

It wasn’t until New Urbanism started taking hold in the 1990s that Rockville once again began thinking about its downtown as a downtown, instead of a glorified strip mall and office park.

Since then Rockville has had many successes. The Regal Theater opened, a grand new courthouse was built, and of course, the impressive new Town Square redefined the center of downtown. But in all that time, one key property has failed to redevelop, despite repeated attempts.

Town Center parking lot

Ever since the 1960 mass bulldozing of downtown, the block bounded by Middle Lane, Montgomery Avenue, Maryland Avenue, and Monroe Street, has been vacant of buildings. It’s the central block in Rockville’s downtown street grid, and marks the transition between the remaining urban renewal era highrises to the south, and the new Town Square to the north.

Arguably, it’s the most important single block in Rockville, and it’s been nothing but a parking lot for decades. In 2009 I named it the 5th most offensive parking lot in the Washington region, and the #1 worst outside of the District.

In 1994 the city worked with developers to plan a huge complex of office towers, including what would have been the tallest building in the city. The proposal floated around until the dot com bust soured the upper Montgomery County office market. By the turn of the millennium, the proposal was dead.

Then in 2005 the City of Rockville approved a new mixed-use redevelopment for the property, with somewhat shorter buildings. But development never got started, and when the recession hit those plans were once again tabled.

But now it appears that 2005 proposal has been dusted off and is ready to be built. The developer has a tenant and bank financing, which had always been the major holdups.

7 years after project approval, 18 years after the first proposal, and 52 years after urban renewal ruined Rockville, downtown is finally being stitched back together.

Upon seeing the property fenced off for the start of construction last week, Thisisbossi said it best on Twitter: FINALLY.

Cross-posted at Greater Greater Washington.

I’ve spent the last couple of days at the Virginia Governor’s Transportation Conference in Tysons Corner, which has given me a chance to see the Route 7 portion of the Silver Line up close.

Construction is moving along rapidly, which is great. But as the line takes shape, it’s also becoming clear just how difficult it will be to transform Tysons into a walkable urban place. Route 7 is so wide that these Metro stations are looking very much like Vienna and Dunn Loring. That’s not a deal-breaker (there’s a huge TOD under construction at Vienna right now), but it’s certainly less ideal than the tightly knit Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, which Tysons seeks to emulate. Highways punching through the middle of cities are bad, and Route 7 in Tysons will be no exception.

Here are a few photos, snapped while stopped amidst traffic on Route 7.

Greensboro Station.	Spring Hill Station.
Elevated rail line, near Spring Hill Station.	Spring Hill’s pedestrian bridge, not yet installed.

Phase 1 of the Silver Line is 83% finished, and on target for a summer 2013 completion. It will open in late 2013, after a few months of required testing by WMATA. During that time trains will sometimes be visible running on the tracks.

A construction contract will be awarded for Phase 2 in May 2013, with construction starting later that year, and completion anticipated in 2018.

In early November construction crews put in place the pedestrian bridge at Wiehle-Reston East station that crosses over the Dulles access highway. Here’s a photo from the interior:

Photo by Chuck Samuelson of the Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project.

Rendering of a completed Super Stop.

Arlington County has been planning a series of 24 “Super Stops” along Columbia Pike. The new bus stops will have expanded shelter and seating, electronic real-time arrival displays, maps, and a raised curb platform. They’re intended to be more like light rail stations than bus stops.

Eventually the Super Stops will actually be light rail stations for the Columbia Pike streetcar, but until that opens they’ll only serve buses.

The first Super Stop is under construction now, and beginning to take shape. It’s at the corner of Walter Reed Drive, and is scheduled to open in the coming weeks. Here are three pictures of the progress, taken last Wednesday.

In my humble and possibly biased opinion, Washington Union Station is the best train station in the US. A strong case could certainly be made for New York’s Grand Central, and there are plenty of other good ones around the country. But neither our Union Station, nor Grand Central, nor any of America’s largest or most active train stations, have a great train room. There are some small US stations that still have train sheds, such as Harrisburg, but they aren’t grand public spaces like in Europe.

But soon that will change. Denver is building a new train shed on the back of its historic Union Station, in support of a massive regional light rail and commuter rail expansion. And it’s going to be super cool. Construction has been ongoing for quite a while, but over the last week crews have started to put up the train shed itself. You can watch them at work and keep up with progress using the construction webcam.

Here’s what the train room will look like when done:

Image from the Denver Union Station Project Authority.

And here’s their construction progress, as of this morning:

Webcam image from Kiewit Construction.