JBG Smith's 7900 Wisconsin Avenue mixed-use development project is close to topping out. Concrete for the rooftop has been poured, as you can see in these photos. The 17-story tower (some argue it is 18 stories) counts OrangeTheory Fitness, and a "neighborhood grocer" among its ground floor tenants; a JBG employee accidentally
identified the grocer as Trader Joe's in 2014. As a project that was planned before the disastrous Bethesda Downtown sector plan passed in 2017, 7900 Wisconsin does not suffer from the drab, cookie cutter massing and architecture many buildings designed under the plan's mandates share.
25 comments:
Robert Dyer you topped out years ago!
"As a project that was planned before the disastrous Bethesda Downtown sector plan passed in 2017, 7900 Wisconsin does not suffer from the drab, cookie cutter massing and architecture many buildings designed under the plan's mandates share."
LOL, whatever...Fruitcake.
5:43: Another lie - my Lakeforest scoop was original and based on comments by the Planning Director, NOT THE MAYOR, dumbass. My article was breaking news about two meetings which planning officials TOLD THE MAYOR ABOUT, you idiot.
"But closer to home," why don't you punch yourself in the face?
5:40: "LOL" - you need to do your homework and actually review the buildings proposed to see that I am correct. They all have the same base and setback tower in the center of it. Damn, you just got destroyed, son.
Trader Joes will have a captive audience. Is there any parking for that building?
You suggest that the Downtown Bethesda Sector Plan mandates drab, cookie cutter massing and architecture. Please cite where this is written into the ordinance. Frankly, you don’t seem to understand how thoughtfully designed zoning and design guidelines can shape the city to make it a better experience for all.
In fact, the new plan has been crafted to do many things that urban planners like to see in the creation of urban architecture. Specifically, it requires a base of a certain height, placed at the property line, to form an edge to the pedestrian walkway, and only be a certain height to not over power pedestrians with massive tall buildings that rise from the street. Massing above the base needs to step back to reduce the bulk and add interest. Walk up,to the Chevy Chase Building entrance and tell me that was a pleasant experience.
Secondly, a middle portion of the building is mandated to separate the base from a more articulated top. The top of the buildings are required to be different and interesting, to create dynamic skylines and memorable buildings. Bland and monotonous towers like the Clark Building were permitted before the new Sector Plan, with featureless and boring massing.
Tower setback is an important part of the Sector Plan as it requires that the upper portions of buildings taller than 120’ should be separated from each other to get air, light and views into all buildings. With all of the large blocks in downtown, tower setback are an important criteria.
The new Sector Plan and design Guidelines also have very detailed requirements for special conditions like corners, to create variety and distinctive buildings. Of course architects still need to be creative, but the design guideline real do steer new projects to be more interesting and thoughtful.
The Sector Plan adds a requirement that all projects must be reviewed by the Design Advisory Panel, an appointed body of architects, planners and designers who review and approve submitted designs for compliance with the plan and guidelines. These folks are a dedicated and tough group, and are very critical of mediocre plans, and often require multiple redesigns before they pass muster. Nobody gets a pass if the design does not meet the plan and guideline criteria, or at least offers a compromise to trade other benefits if the applicant can’t or won’t comply. The DAP is a unique group, and much more critical and intensive than most planning commissions and planning departments in this country.
The 7900 building was indeed approved before this plan, the guidelines and DAP were created. What you seem to think is a creative design has one major flaw. On such a large site, with a 175’ tall tower, the current design would not likely have been approved with solid brick and windowless party walls on both the north and south side. This flaw has now propagated to other adjacent sites, creating a continuous solid mass of high rise buildings from 7900, 8000 and the Toll Brothers tower.
There are many good qualities to the 7900 building, with the creative curving massing of the center wing, the dramatic mid-block arch and the large mid-block open space. The facade appears to offer some nice variety, and has a rich mix of materials and window proportions. The south end over the roof of the market looks especially nice with a pool and roof terrace. It will make this amenity a nicer part of the fabric of the city, compared with isolated rooftop pools and terraces.
The 7900 building will be a good addition to the city, but not because it does not comply with the Sector Plan and Design Guidelines. It is a good building because it was designed by thoughtful architects. In my opinion, it would have been a better building if it had to comply with the new ordinances, at least on the north and south elevations.
There is a large three level underground parking deck for retail tenants and residents.
"7900 Wisconsin does not suffer from the drab, cookie cutter massing and architecture many buildings designed under the plan's mandates share"
You have that totally backwards. 7900 is an exception. Have you seen the Gallery, Cheval, or the horrendous Bainbridge? Site plans submitted under the new sector plan are required to go through architectural review now. The Wilson, The Elm, Metro Tower, Edgemont II and Avocet Tower will all look better than the current Bethesda standard.
6:59 AM Cheval is great- even better given the small footprint they were working with (a small gas station site)
Gallery and Bainbridge look like typical apartment buildings today.
6:59: That covers a lot of ground under one context. For example, 7272 Wisconsin was designed prior to the passage of the Bethesda Downtown plan, and - on paper at least - looked quite good. The Metro Tower was not one I would criticize, I said "many" buildings have ended up looking the same in form, which is quite boring. I did not find Edgemont II to be that exceptional in design, compared to the Newlands Building or Metro Center buildings right nearby it.
Whatever critique one makes of the Gallery, Cheval or Bainbridge, none of those have the base+setback tower that most of the Bethesda Downtown Plan buildings have.
6:41: I think it's exactly the opposite - the people who devised the criteria mandated by the new Bethesda Downtown plan are the ones who "don't understand" how to design an attractive and livable city.
It's been a race to the bottom as developers rush to gobble up the square footage allowed, and that's meant projects ready-to-go rather than projects that enhance the community. Most look the same, with no dramatic lines or shapes. New York City, Dubai, Shanghai and Chicago all are attractive cities precisely because architects did not have to all use the same form and design considerations on every project.
We started off well with the Metro Center, Bethesda Row, Chevy Chase Bank Building, and even the Apex. We've gone downhill and backwards in this decade.
The plan has yet to deliver any substantive amenities for the community, and is creating a dull, Ballston effect. Thumbs down.
So you prefer to mandate things to developers, like requiring movie theaters, late night entertainment nightspots, and reqiure that developers lease spaces at a loss to failing bookstores, but would allow carte blanc on design review? You would require these developers build very specific programs, but allow them to create windowless walls built right adjacent to their neighboring property lines? Require little or no design review as required by the plan? Discard all design guidelines based on sound and logical planning principles for urban design? Throw away the requirement for open spaces, park impact payments, mid-block connections, development incentives for affordable housing?
Sounds like a great plan! Too bad you are not empowered to decide.
7:53 AM windowless walls? You mean where buildings are being built right next to each other on wisconsin?
7:53: Yes, I would have tried to get the missing amenities we need through the plan. I would have already had the movie theater mandated in 2014 for 7272 Wisconsin, so that wouldn't have had to be a concern still at this point. Yes, I would have required rooftop nightclubs at new downtown hotels, because that would have been a fair and easy way to bring in some much-needed upscale nightlife.
I've never advocated for mandating Federal Realty keeping B&N; that was an unwise private property decision they made, not a matter for government intervention. It has mainly harmed their property by adding to the loss of foot traffic already begun by the loss of the Regal Cinemas up the street.
I've seen no major open or green space yet out of the Bethesda Downtown Plan, so they certainly failed bigly in that area. We already were getting mid-block connections at projects like the Gallery, 7900 Woodmont, Bainbridge and 7770 Norfolk, so the plan didn't break any ground there.
I did not suggest a Wild West design criteria. Designs should have to have been more distinctive and adventurous than what we've seen so far.
The biggest tipoff that we were going in the wrong direction, and a pay-for-play direction, was the emphasis on reviewing each property in town in big lists during the plan process. It favored a plan that would serve the short term needs of developers to give them what they wanted, and with a minimum of demands upon them for actual, quality and substantive public amenities.
Instead, there should have been less emphasis on cookie-cutter massing (which was partly a cop-out to let developers get away with adding tiny amenities rather than having to assemble or cough up major park spaces), and more on high standards that presented a vision for what we want Bethesda to look like, rather than on what Joe "Council Donor" Developer had ready to develop cheaply next week.
Robert Dyer: "New York City, Dubai, Shanghai and Chicago all are attractive cities precisely because architects did not have to all use the same form and design considerations on every project."
That's good to know. A 2,700 foot tall skyscraper is just what Westbard needs.
9:30: Westbard is a "city?" LOL
It will be when the Purple Line is extended to Tysons!
What you are describing as “cookie cutter massing” is hard for me to understand. Yes, the plan mandates things like a base, middle and top, with setbacks at each transition. But the form and massing of each project is largely dictated by the assembled site area. The stepped massing is simply there to create a more humanely scaled city.
A very good example of this typology can be found in Vancouver. They have a very similar set of rules that dictate stepped massing and tower setbacks. The city is filled with buildings that utilize their site in a thoughtful manner, with low rise massing at the street line, so pedestrians feel comfortable, and sunlight gets down to street level and the street trees. The towers above the base are tall and slender, and separated from their neighbors. Everybody has great views of the area and the city. The tops of the buildings are distinctive and interesting, creating iconic and memorable architecture. The city itself establishes a dynamic skyline, sort of a village of separated, architecturally unique towers. Not unlike several tower cities in Italy, where wealthy land owners built an array of towers above a dense base.
This is exactly the type of massing that is mandated in the new Sector Plan, and over time, should produce a similar condition. Hardly what one would ever consider a boring cookie cut massing. Architectural expression and variety is encouraged, will the greater good of light, air, views and privacy are maintained, even as the density is increased.
7:59
Yes the developer decided to build 7900 abutting both the north and south property lines, and therefore at the area are blank windowless walls. The exact same idea was approved for the Toll Brothers condo to the north, a huge pair of blank windowless walls flanking a tiny lightwell. The developer of 8000 Wisconsin pleaded and got approval to build adjacent to both of these blank party alls, and we will soon have a long continuous wall of abutting buildings on Wisconsin.
If the tower setbacks were in place, and enforced, we would have three separated towers that could have windows on four sides of each building, as envisioned in the sector plan. Less of a solid wall, more air and light for all three, and three distinct towers, instead of one massive connected element.
This was largely created because the sector plan was not in place for the first two approvals, and 8000 Wisconsin pleaded that since both neighbors had solid, featureless walls, these best they could do was to build adjacent to both. The DAP eventually allow this to happen after three meetings and lots of revisions to help mitigate the problem, with more recessed reveals, building facade alignment and material revisions.
In my opinion, its still a huge compromise from the ideal of three separated towers.
11:55: I've only seen one building under the new plan with a "distinctive and interesting" top, and that is the Metro Tower. I would like to see criteria that forces distinctive design rather than making spaces between buildings the top priority. With the new plan, everything is massed the same, and we're going to have to look at this lackluster stuff for the next 100 years.
And not a single major amenity or real park delivered yet, even with so many projects being approved. Disastrous!
Interesting to see a republican is on board with the government forcing private business to design or use their buildings a certain way.
The direct connection between Wisconsin and St. Elmo is certainly an amenity.
7:24: 7900 Wisconsin and that cut-through were approved long before the new Bethesda Downtown Plan, as were many others at post-recession buildings.
It also turns out that people do not take architectural or urban planning advice from people who have no experience in either field, and have no role in either the public or private sectors related to ongoing and future development.
But Robert has said that he has signed up and “testified” at planning and council meetings. I’m sure the councilmen and women listened carefully to his observations, and drastically reshaped their opinions. Good thing he is out there and standing up for the common man!
All joking aside, at least he makes an effort. So many people complain (many on this blog), but few take any action to try to effect change. I disagree with most of what he seems to believe in, but applaud him for trying to make things better, like this blog, and his interest in political office.
7:53AM - Turns out, people do not vote for people who scorn and debase them. Go figure.
8:16 AM 8/9/19
He monitors this blog less in the summer. I figure he's got a lifeguard job at the pool.
2:05 PM 8/10/19
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