Town Topics

Georgetowner • March 12, 2013

The Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery launched a new Courtyard Café menu, including a quiche of the week and Illy Italian gourmet espresso. The Museum stores also re-opened with a new redesign and products. New products include lampwork glass jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, Pantone-color-inspired products such as folding chairs and espresso sets, and merchandise—mugs, magnets and journals—inspired by items in the permanent collection. In April, Kim Sajet will become the new director of the National Portrait Gallery, currently CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Georgetowner •

Less than a year after placing the Portrait Building on the market, Dutch investor Wereldhave NV sold the eight-story, Class A office building to Clarion Partners for $98.5 million, or $730 per square foot, in February. Located in Chinatown, the building has about 140,000 square feet with a four level underground parking garage. Last spring, Wereldhave sold 801 9th Street for $147.5 million, or $625 per square foot, to Japanese investment firm N.S.P. Ventures Corporation. The company is looking to divest its U.S. holdings and also owns 1401 New York Avenue in Downtown.

Georgetowner •

Residential street sweeping resumed March 1, with posted signs to identify the days of the week and hours when parking restrictions will be enforced. There was gradual enforcement until March 11, to give drivers a few days to get used to the restrictions. Department of Public Works street sweepers cover about 4,000 lane miles monthly. “The residential street sweeping program is among our most successful operations to keep D.C. streets clean,” said DPW Director William O. Howland, Jr. in a press release. “We have expanded it over the years to accommodate more and more residents willing to move their cars to allow the sweepers access to the curb lane where debris and pollutants collect. We also want to make sure commuters and visitors are aware that the parking restriction applies to all motorists and a $30 ticket can be issued for violating the restriction.”

Georgetowner •

ArtJamz opened its new 1,900-square-foot split-level loft at 1728 Connecticut Ave., NW, on March 7. The new location will have an expanded bar menu, a new merchandise line and crowd-sourced online art-classes. With the crowd-sourced classes, any potential instructor can pitch his/her class concept to ArtJamz online. Successful proposals will be published in an online marketplace for three weeks, and if enough students sign up, the instructor will be paid to lead the class at ArtJamz. The online marketplace will be live in April. The new hours of operation will be Monday through Friday from 4 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., Saturday from noon until midnight, and Sunday from noon until 8 p.m.

Georgetowner •

A new Paleo delivery system has launched from local resident Robert Morton, which eliminates processed food, including grains, dairy, sugar and preservatives. The Power Supply mission is to build healthy, accessible meals and it has charted benchmark and baseline standards to help users understand where their food falls. Customers place an order using the MyPowerSupply.com website, and meals can be ordered for lunch and dinner in three or five day increments. Prices range from $35 for three day’s worth of lunch meals, to $119 for five day’s worth of lunch and dinner meals. Customers can alert the company to permanent substitutions for ingredients as well. Power Supply delivers meals on Monday and Thursday to Crossfit gyms across D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

Georgetowner •

Get ready to ring in the summer with the Garden Marketplace March 22 through 24 at the Washington Convention Center. The show features hundreds of displays of products and flowers, including water lilies to bamboo table fountains and exotic bulbs. The show goes from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. each day.

Georgetowner •

The D.C. Environmental Film Festival returns March 12 with 190 documentary, feature, animated, archival, experimental and children’s films. The films will be shown at more than 75 venues around Washington, D.C., including museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters. The critical role of rivers and watersheds will be a special focus of the 2013 Festival’s films, selected to provide fresh perspectives on global, national and local environmental issues. Filmmakers and special guests will discuss their work at the festival. Most screenings are free to the public and include discussion with filmmakers or scientists.

Georgetowner •

E.L. Haynes High School opened March 7 at 4501 Kansas Ave., NW, and a ceremony included remarks from Mayor Vincent Gray, Councilmember Muriel Bowser and a keynote from Maria Gomez, founder and president of social services non-profit Mary’s Center. Founded in 2004 and designated a Tier One High-Performing School by the DC Public Charter School Board, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School currently serves 950 students from grades pre-school through ten and is recognized locally and nationally for advancing student achievement. E.L. Haynes High School now fulfills the school’s college preparation promise and is a non-selective public high school designed so that every student will successfully complete a college-prep program. The 33,000-square-foot addition adjoins 12,000 existing square feet of space, adding 400 students. The facility includes science labs, a gymnasium, specialized spaces for the arts, a technology lab for video game design and programming courses and an indoor/outdoor cafeteria. The project team included architects Shinberg Levinas and general contractor Forrester Construction. Grants from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, Qualified School Construction Bond, and support from The Campaign for E.L. Haynes Public Charter School funded the project.

Georgetowner • February 15, 2013

Got a half million bucks to get on some serious real estate bidding? It is one of the last major pieces of land in Georgetown available for commercial development. The General Services Administration will sell its surplus property, directly south of the C&O Canal and just east of Rock Creek. Bid increments are $200,000. It is assumed you will have millions more on hand to continue in GSA’s e-Bay auction which began Jan. 18 and is slated to end Feb. 19.

According to the Jan. 22 Washington Business Journal, “The West Heating Plant in Georgetown has yet to draw its inaugural bid, four days after the General Services Administration launched the online auction. It’s too early to say whether the investors have opted to pass on the site or whether the lack of activity is a strategic measure designed to keep bidders from running up the property’s price too quickly.”

Georgetown developers and citizens have been waiting for this move for at least a year. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans, the Citizens Association of Georgetown and the National Park Service have asked for part of the site to be set aside as green space, connecting with the canal and creek. Developers and commercial real estate owners, such as the group organized by Richard Levy that envisions Four Season condos in the old Art Deco industrial building, have the money and plans drawn and ready to go.

The 29th Street building itself was the site of a June 19, 2012, House hearing that chided GSA’s slowness in disposing of old, unused gov- ernment property.