2/6 City Council Development Coverage
February 8th, 2007 | by David Daddio | Published in Hollywood Station, Housing, Politics, Projects, Route 1, The Jefferson, University View Overlook | 1 Comment
Wednesday night’s City Council Meeting was choc full of development issues. Briefly, here’s what you missed if you didn’t want to brave the cold (or turn on your TV).
–> The council indicated their initial satisfaction of the proposed 220 unit College Park West Development on the Lasik’s site. JPI, the developer, had the blessings of a community group who appreciated JPI’s improved community cooperation since their last project (Jefferson Square) across the street.
–> The council approved, with some minor conditions, a 4-5 story office building at 9909 Baltimore Ave. The site tucked in an odd place, but we still think it’s a shame it turned out to be such a standard office park and won’t be prominent from Route 1. (kind of like the M-Square project which the city is so quick to criticize). Granted M-Square is adjacent to the metro and the 9909 site is on the beltway.
–> District 1 councilman Krouse (see his letter to the community) tussled with the developers of the massive (we covered it yesterday) Greenbelt Town Centre project at Greenbelt metro station. Many were outraged to hear the potential of a 18 story building and the developer now plans “balloon tests” in the coming weeks to demonstrate the scale of the project to nearby North CP neighborhoods. This new revelation comes after over 7 years of planning. The developers were challenged to find another example in the DC area where a single family home community was subjected to such high density by a WMATA redevelopment.
–>Otis Warren of the University View came in for a chat over a number of things. He repeated his intention to complete the project as originally proposed (see image to the right) although he’s holding out the possibility that the building proposed for the grassy area in front of the University View may end up being more student housing or a hotel instead of the originally proposed office building. He guessed about 350 student beds could fit in the project should it go forward. Retail would still front Route 1 on the ground floor.
Warren expressed surprise that the council had reservations about his proposed 12-story condo at 8400 Baltimore Ave given their friendly reception to it in December. He also disclosed a failed deal with the university to build a garage and grad school housing on campus on lot 11 directly behind the View. While not binding, the campus master plan envisions that lot for a mega parking garage.
We’ll defer to the Diamonback’s article about a number of interesting quotes on this and other topics, which some at the meeting probably didn’t want reprinted.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:59 am (#)
Mr. Daddio’s comments after attending our “exciting” council meetings are always welcomed. With respect to the proposed office building at 9909 Baltimore Ave., after the 2005 JPI (Jefferson East) debacle, some projects have the main points decided long before the City Council and even the City staff have an opportunity for comment. At that point, it is only prudent to, examine the details.
Next Tuesday should be interesting as we will need to discuss PDC Campfire project (located east of the bowling alley/Pizza Hut on 48th Ave). This is a project we very likely will oppose. If so this would be the second time we opposed a project, the first being the Commerce Bank (to be sited across the street from Platos, adjacent to Zip’s dry cleaners).
With respect to Commerce Bank, our objections to the bank’s proposal were upheld on our appeal to the District Council on January 29th. It was only the second time we had won an appeal in more than 15 years, I believe. The other time was in about 1999 when we suceeded in blocking Wendy’s from building at a location where the southern part of University View is now located. The main difference this time is that Commerce Bank will likely build the bank in compliance with our recommendations, as we didn’t oppose the project, only some design elements.
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