Tag Archives: Development

May 23, 2013 · 10:00 am

Update to Aren’t They Building?

3200 block of M St.

 

Up above, you’ll see a link to a page GM maintains called “Aren’t the Building?” It’s supposed to be a list of projects coming to Georgetown. “Supposed to be” is the key phrase there. GM’s not very good about keeping it updated.

So he occasionally does just what he’s doing today: going over the list and trying to update it.

So read ahead and please chime in with any corrections or additions:

Projects on the Existing List:

Developing Georgetown Post Office
-No announced date
-last GM prediction: 2011 at the earliest Late 2012
-New prediction: the project has been scaled back signficantly from the original plans to build condos. Now it will just be office space, which will all be contained within the building as it currently stands. Not much has been heard about this in a while, so GM will put it at mid to late 2014.

Billy Reid
-GM prediction: Fall 2011
-Took a lot longer due to trouble locating a space, only opened last month.

Jack Wills
-GM prediction: Winter 2011
-Opened a bit earlier than that: August 2011

Fuhggetaboutit
-GM Prediction: Summer 2011
-Called off (same people behind it opened up the pizza spot on Mass Ave. and 4th downtown.)

Redoing O and P Street Streetcar Tracks
-GM prediction: 2012
-Yup, that’s when it was finished.

K St. Streetcar
-@2016-2018
-The city is supposedly looking to build a cross-town streetcar line to Georgetown quickly, so that timeframe is still applicable.

Wisconsin Ave. Streetcar
-GM’s previous prediction @2020
-That’s looking less likely now. If there ever is a Wisconsin Ave. line, it will likely not be for a while and after more of the initially planned lines go in.

New Projects:

Verizon Building condos:
-Construction is underway, GM’s guessing a late 2014 completion date

Key Bridge Exxon Condos:
-This project hasn’t seen much public movement in a long time, but Anthony Lanier was recently quoted as mentioning it as a project he’s still pushing for. It’s got a lot of work ahead of it though.
-GM prediction: Early 2016

iThai:
-This Thai restaurant is supposed to go into the old Fino Italino space
-GM prediction: late 2013

Shop House:
-This Chipotle spin-off is currently under construction in the old Furin’s space. Should be open soon.
-GM prediction: Summer 2013

Pinstripes:
-This bowling alley just got zoning approval, so it should be smooth sailing now.
-GM prediction: Summer 2014

West Heating Plant condos:
-Four Seasons has a long hard slog ahead of them before they can start turning keys over to new residents.
-GM prediction: 2018

Anything else GM forgot?

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December 16, 2011 · 10:00 am

What To Look Forward To in 2012

It’s that time of year when we start talking about what happened for the last twelve months and what we expect to happen in the next twelve months. GM might get around the former, but today he’s talking about the latter.

So what sort of projects around Georgetown can we expect to come online in 2012? Here’s GM’s guesses:

EastBanc Projects

EastBanc has a lot of projects on the drawing board. Some rather ambitious, others less so. On the ambitious side, we have the Exxon condos and the Verizon parking lot condos. The Exxon project has run into design approval delays. The most GM expects to happen in 2012 is that a design is finally approved and maybe, maybe towards the end of the year the gas station will close and preliminary work will begin.

The Verizon parking lot, on the other hand, has already received design approval, so GM expects to see some visible progress on that project by the summer. By December 2012, GM expects to see some significant progress on this project.

On the lighter side, there is the post office project. This project began life as an ambitious plan to construct a dozen or so townhouses with a bunch of condos. It got scaled down and converted into an office project. Then it got scaled further down and converted back into a residential project. Finally it was determined that the part of the building that EastBanc planned to demolish was actually historical, so the project got even more scaled back and returned to an office project. The final product includes minimal exterior changes. It has been approved. Barring delays over the disposition of the property from the USPS to EastBanc, it should see significant progress (if not complete progress) in 2012.

Finally, the wildcard is EastBanc’s recently revealed plans to create a mini-Cady’s Alley behind the Coach store. Neighbors are lining up against it, but EastBanc may have some by-right development rights, and they still have plenty of good will from the original Cady’s Alley. GM’s not sure where it will be by the end of 2012, but he predicts we’ll be talking about it a lot regardless.

The Mall

This really is the elephant in the Georgetown retail room. We’ve seen a steady stream of evictions as Vornado creates a blank slate in preparation for bringing in new tenants. GM understands that the overall approach of Vornado includes a “de-malling” of the mall. In other words, a removal of the interior spaces of the mall. The end result would be single store spaces running from M back to the canal. It’s an intriguing idea (albeit one that is inherently incompatible with the small shops that currently inhabit, or rather recently inhabited, the pre-de-malled mall). Continue reading →

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October 12, 2010 · 10:00 am

Some Updates to “Aren’t They Building…”

Up above GM has a link to “Aren’t They Building…” where he lists various projects around Georgetown and when those projects might come to fruition.

GM’s got to update the list, here’s what’s new:

UGGs Store: Open

Serendipity3: Still no word around the rumor mill when it’ll open, but GM’s guess of summer 2010 was clearly off.

Madewell: Still no firm date, but again GM guessed wrong about a summer opening. Continue reading →

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