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| | | City advocating new zone for Union Station development | | February 09, 2010 | | | | Staff Writer | | In a quest to aid development of the area above the tracks at Union Station, the city has proposed classifying the 14-acre parcel as an entirely new zoning category. The rules accompanying the new zone would allow buildings to stretch as high as 130 feet above the H Street bridge that runs over the tracks.
That number has ruffled more than a few feathers of nearby neighbors, who noted last week that the city's Comprehensive Plan, which guides zoning decisions, specifically bans measuring the long-planned project's height from the 82-foot-high bridge.
Developer Akridge, which bought the "air rights" above Union Station's tracks at auction in 2002 from the federal government for $10 million, plans to build a mixed-use development atop two 20-foot-high platforms on both sides of the H Street bridge. The development would be called Burnham Place, named after Union Station architect Daniel Hudson Burnham.
D.C. Office of Planning officials said the new zoning category, deemed "Union Station North," is necessary to encourage Akridge to distribute density throughout the site while still allowing for an economically viable project. They also said they will seek to amend the Comprehensive Plan to allow the developer to measure from the H Street bridge. And the project will rise to 130 feet only in some spots, officials noted, because the density will be more limited than it usually is for a building of such a height.
Tentative plans call for 2 million to 3 million square feet of office, residential, hotel and retail space. It will take years just to build the platforms. When Akridge finalized the deal in 2006, the company said the platforms would be built by 2008. Officials said the economy contributed to the delay.
"We want to ensure a successful development here," said Matt Jesick, a development review specialist for the Planning Office. "We recognized that this development is going to be more expensive [than the average project]."
David Tuchman, a representative of Akridge, said the Union Station North rules do not guarantee that the Burnham Place project will be profitable. He said it might ultimately take a public-private partnership to finance the project, which had an estimated cost of $100 million in 2006.
But, he said, "Having a zone in place will help us look at some parameters."
Some Near Northeast advisory neighborhood commissioners (ANC 6C), members of the commission's zoning committee and other residents disagree.
Resident Drury Tallent, one of the neighborhood's unofficial zoning experts, said the details of the project should be contained within the framework of a planned-unit development. That process would allow residents to see a design before automatically allowing a specific height.
But, planner Jesick responded, if the project were couched as a planned-unit development, the Planning Office would count the expensive platforms as the sole neighborhood benefit.
He also opined that the city would have a better ability to control the distribution of building height throughout the site by creating this new zone. And he noted that even without seeking planned-unit development approval, Akridge still would have to go through a public design approval process.
Though planning officials said they worked with their historic preservation counterparts on the proposed new zone, some neighbors fear its rules won't protect the nearby Capitol Hill Historic District or the historic train station.
"This is a big hulking building that absolutely destroys ... Union Station," said Bill Sisolak, one of the citzen members of the zoning committee.
The Stanton Park Neighborhood Association is also protesting the proposed zone, saying that allowing such tall structures would eliminate the "transition zone" between NoMa's large office buildings and Capitol Hill's small row houses.
But at least one member of the zoning committee said he understood the need for a new zone.
"The way it's zoned now, it could be a factory. A change of zoning is extremely appropriate," said Tony Goodman.
The advisory neighborhood commission plans to draw up a list of requested changes to submit to the Zoning Commission and the Planning Office.
A Zoning Commission hearing on the proposed Union Station North zone is scheduled for May 13. It was originally scheduled for this month, but the neighborhood commission convinced the planning office to postpone the date. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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