Posts about Tenleytown Safeway

Safeway went back to the drafting board, and partnered with Clark Realty and New Urbanist architects Torti Gallas to design a mixed-use development with a 56,000 square foot grocery store and 190 residences.

The development team has spent a lot of time engaging the community. They have created an imaginative project with reasonable density that will blend into the existing neighborhood fabric while also enlivening the street.

The plan calls for more than just replacing the timeworn Tenleytown Safeway with a new store. By adding a residential building, the project will reinvigorate this stretch of Wisconsin Avenue marked by aging commercial development and help it start to transform into a mixed-use commercial and residential district.

Unfortunately, at the March 8 ANC 3E meeting, residents lodged a litany of complaints about the height, density, and parking and traffic impacts of the project.

Some Ward 3 residents have criticized the project as being too dense for the surrounding neighborhood. But the site's location on Wisconsin Avenue, between the Tenleytown and Friendship Heights Metro stations and served by high-frequency bus lines, makes it very appropriate for transit-oriented, slightly denser development.

Growth like what Safeway proposes will bring increased foot traffic and customers to stores and restaurants, giving residents in quieter surrounding neighborhoods more shopping and dining choices, and bolsters DC's tax-base while adding minimal traffic.

The development team showed great sensitivity to community concerns. The architects moved delivery traffic to Davenport Street from the originally proposed location on Elicott Street, where drivers will now unload in a covered delivery court. This buffers the noise and keeps truck traffic away from Georgetown Day School students across the street. The team also added a cover over the delivery court after residents voiced concerns about noise.

Ground level and landscape plan.

The architects added a row of liner townhouses to screen off the potentially blank, uninteresting walls of the grocery store, enhancing the sense of a residential environment. They also stepped back the height of the building to create terraces, increasing green space for the development, and added a second entrance to Safeway along 42nd Street to make the shopfront livelier.

Also, in direct response to concerns expressed at the January ANC meeting, the development team removed one whole story from the residential main block, making it 4 residential stories instead of 5 as originally planned.

There are, of course, details that still need to be resolved, such as how to foster lively street life, how to to minimize traffic congestion and enhance safety, putting utility lines, and encouraging other amenities like bike and car sharing.

The one area that could most improve is at the corner of Ellicott and 42nd, where WMATA has a small service building often referred to as a "bunker." Safeway and Clark are negotiating with Metro about this property. A semi-public use, such as a coffeehouse pavilion, would bring many benefits to the community and developer alike. DC could also modify the slip lanes in this area to create additional public space.

Either way, the final proposal is an excellent one. The team has shown willingness to compromise, and deserve full support from area residents.

Unfortunately, critics of the store could not put up a consistent front, going off on tangents about a number of minor elements, some of which were created by other halfhearted concessions. Whose interests does the store need to address? Some residents want a smaller store. One teacher at the adjacent Georgetown Day School objected to Safeway's decision to move the controversial rear walkway, which ran from the school to the store entrance, inside the garage. "We are neighbors too," he said.

And beyond that, how about the residents of a few blocks away—or the region? Safeway entered into a public debate as part of the Planned Unit Development process, and at some point has to address public benefits. Safeway has tried to reduce the impact on adjacent neighbors. However, the store needs to take into consideration public issues, like regional planning, street life, and future growth in the area. A beautiful wall like the one to be built along 42nd is still just a wall. With the currently proposed monolithic store, Safeway cannot be urban.

What did appear was a conclusive sense that dialogue had failed between neighbors and the store. Safeway had made no promises and now promised even less. The neighbors in attendance seemed to not expect any changes. The potential for mixed use and sustainable neighborhood design gets lost, unless Safeway reconsiders their plans or the zoning commission rejects them. The site has much potential, but Safeway is choosing to squander that.

Crossposted at цarьchitect.

To be completely honest, I'm pretty split over whether this action was reasonable but defensive or an example of disrespectful cunning. At meetings of ANC 3E, which represents residents on the western side of Tenleytown and all of Friendship Heights, vocal transit-oriented denialists can bring to bear a disproportionate influence on decisions. However, critics of the project include people who want more building or just a shorter one; opponents are not necessarily opposed to the current project. Some residents worry about the effect of large, blank walls abutting their townhouses. In fact, when presented with their concerns, the Board of Zoning Adjustment Zoning Commission told Safeway to modify the building in response to resident concerns over shadows and massing.

While no wrongdoing has occurred in a legal sense, Safeway may have breached the public trust in going around the public Zoning Commission hearings. Safeway has touted the successful integration of their stores into neighborhoods and their outreach to neighbors. So far, they had done an exemplary job, proposing a fine urban structure, submitting to the public process for a planned-unit development, and presenting a good amount of information to the public. Safeway could have built a multistory building as-of-right with no discussion.

Jon Bender, the ANC 3E chair, is trying to broker a deal, and he's suggesting progress in the right direction. He has mentioned a compromise of a multistory structure on 42nd Street, stepping down into townhouses nearby. That would be an ideal resolution: to not only ameliorate the impact on the community, but also to make it better for the greater city and environment by adding some reasonable density. Whether Bender's plan has any more support than the current one will come out at the ANC meeting tonight. Hopefully, with that discussion, Safeway and the residents can continue to work together to find a reasonable compromise for Tenleytown's future.

ANC 3E will discuss the Safeway at their meeting tonight, 7:30 pm at St. Mary's Church, 42nd and Fessenden Streets.

Some of their concerns for any given project can seem legitimate when viewed without context, ignoring of the multiple benefits of well-designed areas with mixed uses. But Tenleytown's zoning only allows for densities along a very narrow band on Wisconsin Avenue, closer in form to a suburban arterial than an interconnected city neighborhood. Many other lots, just a block or two from the Metro have no opportunities for development at any scale, because they are zoned as low-density in spite of their location at a major node in the city's infrastructure network.

Because there are so few available parcels, city officials and residents on both sides end up debating the few opportunities for development even more hotly. The Tenley-Friendship Library, for example, represented an appealing opportunity to add housing to an existing project on publicly-owned land. But that small site posed other challenges, like fitting in a reasonable building without disrupting the adjacent Janney School. That proved too difficult, and city officials ultimately abandoned that effort.

Last week, the Economic Development office announced that the new library would have stronger columns in the rear third of the building, to support future construction above and behind the current building.

A small addition, mostly on top rather than beside the library, might be possible, but there's very little room to maneuver. And realistically, any building other than a modest standalone structure would seem out of place amid the other uses on that block. Eliminating one of Janney's fields is too steep a price to pay for the benefits. However, nobody would be suggesting such an expensive, controversial project if the neighborhood had zoning that was more reasonable for such a central location and neighbors that greeted development with constructive dialogue.

The local ANC issued a list of potential development sites in response to the Library fiasco, however, the sites they selected are not enough. Metro and the commercial potential along Wisconsin are both amazing resources that a neighborhood cannot squander while also looking to become sustainable and rational.

Cross-posted at цarьchitect.