Rock Creek Property Group breaks ground this week on the restoration of the landmarked Codman Carriage House in Dupont Circle. Located at 1415 22nd Street, NW, the building sits at a prime connection point between two of DC’s most storied and established neighborhoods – Georgetown and Dupont Circle.

Architect Ogden Codman, Jr. originally designed the carriage house for his socialite cousin, Martha. Martha Codman spent the winters in the District in her nearby mansion. The location of the carriage house near the entrance to Rock Creek Park proved the perfect location for her stable.

Due to the building’s DC landmark status as well as its location next to Rock Creek Park, the proposed plans were reviewed by both the Historic Preservation Review Board and the Commission of Fine Arts. “Our goal with this property is to bring it back to life. After years of neglect, the original grandeur of the architecture was lost,” says Rock Creek Principal Gary Schlager, adding that the building is scheduled to deliver in April 2017.

To preserve the property’s intended design, the original carriage house doors will be replicated, the façade repaired, certain windows will be restored and others replaced in a manner sensitive to the property’s historic nature.

To create a modern interior, skylights will be integrated into the building on the second floor, and soaring 10- to 15-foot ceilings will open up the space. Additionally, at the rear of the property there will be a large roof deck, accessed by the second floor. The property’s façade is currently covered by a concrete wall addition that was added in the 1940s, when it became a tire and car shop. To open up the front and expose more natural light, the building will feature a glass NanaWall system stretching through most of the property’s street front.

OTJ Architects designed the project. Eichberg Construction will serve at the general contractor. “Given the historic nature of the Codman Carriage House, we put together a strong team with a creative eye and attention to detail that would work to both preserve and enhance this property,” says Schlager.

Rock Creek plans to lease the property and is looking for the right tenant to occupy the new space. Featuring nearly 10,000 square feet spanning two floors, the property is ideal for either retail or office tenants looking for unique loft space in a restored and modernized historic building. Schlager further commented, “In the end, we came up with a design that works equally well for both retailers and office users. The interior of the building plans very efficiently and delivers that rare, but highly desired, marriage where old meets new in an exciting, unexpected way.”

Rock Creek is actively working on a number of projects in and around the District, including ground-up mixed-use developments in the H Street and U Street corridors, as well as repositioning projects in other prime submarkets including Takoma, Shaw, Old Town, 14th Street, Dupont Circle and Montgomery County.

Recently completed projects include 1100 16th Street, NW, located just a few blocks from the White House, 810 5th Street, NW in the heart of Gallery Place/Chinatown, the 88-unit Takoma Flats just off Georgia Avenue, NW and The Shelby @ Huntington Metro, a 240-unit joint venture, ground-up development. Rock Creek is currently deploying Fund II, a $60 million discretionary real estate fund and currently has more than $100 million of ongoing projects in all stages of the development cycle. Rock Creek acquires properties both directly and with joint venture partners across the Washington metro region.

http://bit.ly/2gK7MdZ

The former home to a run of Dupont Circle gay clubs will now become loft-style retail or office space.

Rock Creek Property Group announced Tuesday it is ready to move forward with the restoration of the Codman Carriage House at 1415 22nd St. NW.

The building in recent years was the location of clubs Phase I, and before that, Apex and Badlands.

The 110-year-old carriage house was designed by architect Ogden Codman, Jr. for his socialite cousin, Martha. The location of the carriage house near the entrance to Rock Creek Park proved the perfect location for her stable, said Rock Creek Principal Gary Schlager.

Because the building has landmark status, its renovation had to go through D.C.’s Historic Preservation Review Board and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts.

“It’s been a lengthy review process,” said Schlager, who acquired the building from the owner of Phase I in April 2015 for $2.75 million. Phase I closed the Dupont location six months later. “This is sort of our specialty — taking a building and repurposing and designing it for a multitude of users.”

As part of the restoration, the original carriage house doors will be replicated, the facade repaired, certain windows will be restored and others replaced in a manner sensitive to the property’s historic nature, said Schlager. There won’t be an homage to the location’s club history, he said.

Rock Creek plans to add skylights and 10-to-15-foot high ceilings to the building’s second floor. Rock Creek will also add a large roof deck, accessed by the second floor, and tear down the concrete wall addition (added in the 1940s, when the property was a car and tire shop).

The developer will seek to lease the property and is looking for the right tenant to occupy the new space, which will feature nearly 10,000 square feet spanning the two floors.

Schlager said the new modern front will feature a glass wall that “will open and close like an accordion.”

OTJ Architects designed the project and Eichberg Construction will serve as the general contractor. The project is expected to deliver in 2017, Schlager said.

http://bit.ly/2g7NECF

Still no certainty as to how the space will be used due to a lack of tenants

By the fourth quarter of this year, the historic Takoma Theatre will be completely renovated. Already, the interior of the building has been demolished with the restoration expected to begin in late spring.

During the renovation process, the facade and storefronts will be repaired, and windows will be added along every side of the building. The historic roof sign and marquee will be restored. Skylights will also be added.

The owner of the project Rock Creek Property Group, LLC plans on converting the building for commercial use, but is uncertain as to whether or not it will be used for retail, offices, a restaurant, or the arts. What is envisioned is one or two tenants on first floor, and one on the second floor of the development.

The building is located at 6833 4th Street NW. Opened in July 1923, the theatre was one of the first designed by architect John Jacob Zink, who later went on to design Washington, D.C.’s Uptown Theatre. The movie theatre didn’t close down until 1980. By 1983, the theatre was turned into a venue for live performances. The theatre became vacant in late 2005 after the non-profit organization Takoma Theatre Arts Project’s lease ended.

Developers of the historic Takoma Theatre site secured key support from the Historic Preservation Review Board on Thursday for their plans to restore the long vacant building for commercial use.

Rock Creek Property Group purchased the revival-style building for $2.2 million last May and reversed course from previous developers’ plans for an apartment building. Built in 1923, the movie theater at 6833 4th St. NW closed in 1980, and the building has been empty ever since. Original owner Milton McGinty tried several times to demolish the building, only to be rebuffed by the preservation board each time.

McGinty died in September 2013. Shortly before that, his daughter submitted a plan to the preservation board for a two-story residential building with a third floor dormer on the site. Board members approved the project in concept but asked for design and location revisions, which never came.

Last week, the preservation board voted unanimously to find the Rock Creek firm’s proposed concept consistent with the neighborhood’s historic character and delegated final approval to Historic Preservation Office staffers.

“I know this has been a long and tortured process, but I think where this project and where this building are now is something that should make everyone happy about the hard work you put into it over these decades,” board historian Andrew Aurbach told project backers at Thursday’s hearing.

The project will add an interior second floor — formed by reducing the first-story ceiling height rather than raising the building’s roof — as well as new windows, skylights and gutters. The theater’s lobby, outdoor marquee and landscaping will be restored. The most controversial aspects of previous plans (adding a third floor or constructing an addition on the side) have been removed.

Interior schematics for the project have been drawn up, and construction is expected to begin later this spring and last six months, wrapping up by the end of the year, development principal Gary Schlager said in an interview.

Schlager said his staff thought the size and location of the building was better suited to commercial use than to residential, especially given the volume of residences in that portion of Takoma. Plans for the occupants haven’t been finalized, but Schlager said the first floor’s high ceilings could work well for a theater, music venue, restaurant or neighborhood market, while the new second floor’s exposed trusses and skylights lend themselves to office space.

Several neighborhood groups testified in support of the project at the hearing, a marked contrast from previous interactions between theater owners and the public. Takoma Theatre Conservancy president Loretta Neumann said she’s pleased with the focus on commercial as opposed to residential, and she continues to push for a black box theater serving up and-coming arts groups in the new facility.

Neumann and several other community members testified that they want to see the preservation board consider even the smallest alterations from the current plan, rather than allowing minor matters to be delegated to staff members for an administrative review. Board chair Gretchen Pfaehler told the team she recognizes their desire to oversee the project at an intricate level and promised consultation with key stakeholders on relevant matters going forward.

Despite the ongoing concern about small revisions, community sentiments at Thursday’s hearing swung heavily in favor of the developer. Historic Takoma vice president Lorraine Pearsall said the Rock Creek Property Group has properly treated the theater as the “significant resource” that she believes it is.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the developer,” said Pearsall. “The developer has worked with us in a manner that is really great, that we don’t usually see. We have had very good communication.”

Takoma resident Sara Green, a former member of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4B, testified that she was among a group of volunteers who ran community screenings and helped with other theater business back in the 1970s. She maintains a special fondness for the building’s history. “We clutch these resources to our bosom with extraordinary affection and reverence,” Green said.

Green said she stands by ANC 4B’s supportive resolution on the project. Current ANC 4B member Faith Wheeler testified that she thinks the plan portends “a cohesive unit and a lovely building.”

Going forward, Schlager told The Current his team’s ultimate goal is to revitalize the neighborhood that surrounds the former Takoma Theatre.

“When you go south of the Metro, it kind of dies there,” Schlager said. “We’re hoping to be the southern anchor of the whole neighborhood.”

There may be no single block in D.C. undergoing a seismic shift like the 600 block of H Street NE.

What was, ony last year, a block dominated by a self-storage business, a deteriorating grocery store and an unattractive office complex will, within a matter of years, welcome the corridor’s first Whole Foods and nearly 800 luxury apartments.

Now comes details of the project that will round out the 600 block’s transformation.

As we first reported in May and again in June, Rock Creek Property Group and Cornerstone Development Group acquired 646-654 H St. NE from Pilgrim Baptist Church for $4.5 million. On Monday, the development team filed applications with the Board of Zoning Adjustments seeking variances for the project.

While the facade of 654 H (originally constructed in 1906) is to be preserved, the remaining buildings will be demolished to clear the way for a 26- to 32-unit residential project with up to 15,000 square feet of retail. The split between retail and residential will depend on how the second floor is developed, Rock Creek partner Gary Schlager told me Monday. Rock Creek also has not committed to apartments or condos, though for-sale units are more likely.

“I really do believe it’s the best corner on the H Street corridor,” Schlager said, adding he would like to be in the ground “yesterday.” “We’ll be the small, boutique jewel on the corner amongst the larger projects.”

Given that it is basically adjacent to a massive 90-foot-high planned-unit development, the Rock Creek site begs “for a substantial redevelopment project,” according to a statement of justification filed with the Board of Zoning Adjustments.

A tiny storefront (a sushi joint) is all that separates the Rock Creek project from Insight Property Group’s 432-unit, Whole Foods-anchored mixed-use building taking the place of the H Street self-storage and Murry’s grocery store. Across the street, Jair Lynch Development Partners is building a 307-unit, two building complex.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2014/09/the-next-big-thing-on-h-street-ne-rock-creek.html

Rock Creek Property Group announced that it has sold 5185 MacArthur Boulevard, NW in Washington, DC to Lakritz Adler Real Estate Investments for $14,925,000, or roughly $347 per square foot, in a transaction that closed on June 13, 2014.

DC-based Rock Creek owned the three-story, 43,000-square-foot office building with ground-floor retail near the District of Columbia-Maryland border for approximately nine years, according to Gary Schlager, a Partner with the commercial real estate investment company.“We are very happy with the outcome and can say with confidence that the buyer acquired one of the best mixed-use assets in the Uptown submarket, and the best property in the Palisades,” he says. “We congratulate Lakritz Adler on making this purchase.”

Josh Adler, a Principal and Managing Partner with DC-based Lakritz Adler, a real estate investment, development and management company, says that his firm may put some renovations into the fully leased building, whose tenants include Starbucks and UPS.

“We are extremely pleased to have acquired 5185 MacArthur Boulevard, NW,” he says. “This property is a diversified income transaction that had more attractive income characteristics than deals taking place further downtown.”

Rock Creek’s sale of 5185 MacArthur Boulevard, NW comes just two weeks after the firm and its joint venture partner, Cornerstone Development Group, paid $4,525,000 for 646-654 H Street, NE, a prime development site in the District of Columbia consisting of about 7,000 square feet of land and 8,000 square feet of commercial properties in five separate structures.Plans for 646-654 H Street, NE are to develop a first-class, mixed-use, 30-plus-unit residential condominium project with approximately 6,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Other recent and ongoing Rock Creek developments include 1100 16th Street, NW, located just a few blocks from the White House, 810 5th Street, NW in the heart of Gallery Place/Chinatown, the 88-unit Takoma Flats just off Georgia Avenue, NW and The Shelby @ Huntington Metro, a 240-unit, joint venture, ground-up development. Rock Creek currently has more than $100 million of ongoing projects in all stages of the development cycle and acquires properties both directly and through joint ventures with other operators and development partners.

http://dc.citybizlist.com/article/rock-creek-property-group-sells-5185-macarthur-boulevard-nw-washington-dc-lakritz-adler-real

A pair of local developers have acquired five adjacent commercial buildings in the 600 block of H Street NE from a nearby church for $4.525 million.

As we reported last month that it would, Pilgrim Baptist Church has relieved itself of 646-654 H, to a joint venture of Cornerstone Development Group and Rock Creek Property Group. The deal closed June 3.

The properties total 7,000 square feet of land. Large portions of the commercial rowhouses, which currently comprise about 8,000 square feet of building area, will be demolished to clear the way for a 30-plus unit condominium project with roughly 6,000 square feet of retail. The developers will likely preserve the facade of 654 H, constructed in 1906, to earn bonus density.

The Cornerstone/Rock Creek property is flanked on all side by new development, including Insight Property Group’s Whole Foods-anchored, 430-unit apartment building, and a 307-unit, two building complex from Jair Lynch Development Partners.

According to a release, the partnership between Cornerstone and Rock Creek came together only a few weeks ago. Dario Davies of Cornerstone said Rock Creek came in and within 48 hours its partners had analyzed the deal and “improved the project in a number of ways.”

“We have been looking seriously in the H Street corridor for almost a year and could not have acquired a better located asset,” Rock Creek partner Gary Schlager said in a statement. “To sit on a major corner just yards away from the front door of Whole Foods Market is an opportunity rare to find in any market.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/breaking_ground/2014/06/600-block-of-h-st-ne-update-sold.html

Vacant to victory? It’s worked multiple times for Rock Creek Property Group, which just sold its redeveloped 28k SF 1100 16th St to the Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman for $16.5M, according to public record. (That’s a little over $581/SF.) It comes a few months after Rock Creek sold 1438 U St, a vacant, redeveloped former nightclub, to the Republic of India. Rock Creek’s Gary Schlager couldn’t confirm the buyer or price, but he told us this morning the new owner gets a “gem of a property in a timeless location [16th and L] that will serve them well for 100 years.” Though Gary couldn’t comment on it, the Sultanate of Oman is expected to use the space as a cultural center, same as the Republic of India on U Street. (So much culture. Don’t even let your boyfriend say there’s nothing to do in DC. Dude jut doesn’t want to pay for a date.)

1100 16th’s “before picture.” Gary says Rock Creek bought the property – a former charter school and once the site of the Benjamin Franklin University accounting school – in 2011 at a foreclosure auction, and with design and construction consultants OTJ Architects and Bognet Construction sought to incorporate its historic bones into a 21st century, efficient space. “It’s much easier to tear down a building and start from scratch,” Gary says, but renovating a historic property the right way can create a “much more special space that people really want to occupy.”

http://www.bisnow.com/commercial-real-estate/washington-dc/739-gsa-bombshell/