Posts about Development
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Can Alexandria breathe new life into a “dead mall”?
In the West End of Alexandria, there are plans to replace a defunct shopping mall with a neighborhood where people can live and do some of their day-to-day errands without having to get into a car. The redevelopment promises to provide new opportunities for the area, but new buildings alone cannot ensure a successful place to live and work. Keep reading…
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Residents of these apartments will be able to walk straight out their front door and onto the Met Branch Trail
Where the Metropolitan Branch Trail meets R Street in DC's Eckington neighborhood, there's a fenced off piece of land that will soon become a park. The developer that owns half of the site has plans for a housing and retail building that goes hand in hand with the park, trail, and surrounding neighborhood. Keep reading…
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Why it makes sense to turn this empty lot next to Metro into a parking garage for Children’s Hospital
Just north of the Brookland Metro station, a four-story parking garage will go up so that employees and visitors of DC’s children’s hospital can park and take a 1.5-mile shuttle ride to the hospital. That doesn’t sound like a great use of the land at first, but it turns out other possibilities, like housing or office space, aren’t realistic. Keep reading…
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Buffalo kicked off 2017 by ditching parking minimums. Could DC do the same?
Buffalo, New York, recently got rid of an archaic law requiring developers to include a minimum number of parking spots for each building. Even though DC reduced parking minimum requirements last year, Buffalo’s example makes you wonder: Could the city do away with them for good? Keep reading…
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Housing and jobs are popping up around the Green Line at breakneck pace
The Green Line is an economic engine in the Washington region, attracting jobs, housing, retail, and young people, says a new report. It’s a great example of how important public transit and transit-oriented development are to economic growth in our cities. Keep reading…
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A passageway between the Met Branch Trail and Florida Ave is coming, and it just got a big upgrade
Back in the summer, the company behind the Washington Gateway development just off the Metropolitan Branch Trail updated plans for a “bike lobby” in the bottom of one of its new buildings. At that point, the plan was to enclose the it with glass walls but, thanks to community input, the space will no longer be enclosed, and it will be open for longer hours. Keep reading…
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Bethesda’s Apex Building could become one of the region’s tallest
Bethesda could soon be home to one of the region’s tallest buildings, as a former movie theater on Wisconsin Avenue gives way to a 290-foot tower above a future Purple Line station. Keep reading…
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The curious case of the parking garage nobody wants
Plans to build a four-story parking garage next to the Brookland Metro station are moving forward. While many neighbors oppose the project because they say it will make traffic congestion worse, it’s not exactly the kind of thing urbanists would support either— they’d likely say that housing and retail would be a far better use of the land. Keep reading…
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Abandoned office buildings can become new housing
It's no secret that throughout the region, it's becoming harder and harder to find housing that's affordable. One out-of-the-box solution to the problem is to turn old office and commercial spaces into housing. Keep reading…
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“Density” is not a bad word
DC’s population recently reached its highest point in 40 years, which for some stokes fears that the city is undergoing a “Manhattanization” and makes them want to totally reject density of any kind. But housing density does a lot of great things for cities, and we don’t talk about those benefits enough. Keep reading…