Tagged : Nate Ward RSS Feed

Hailey House, a condominium conversion project, is coming to Columbia Heights. With it’s location at 3511 13th Street, NW, Hailey House will be close to two different Metro stations -- Columbia Heights and Petworth. The new homes will also be near the eclectic restaurants, bars, and shops on 11th Street known as the "Hip Strip.”

The five-story 23,500-square-foot Hailey House will contain 25 luxury condominium units -- eight single bedroom units and 17 with two bedrooms. One bedroom units will be approximately 650 square feet, while two bedroom units will range from about 700 to 920 square feet. The building features nine different floorplans with a light or dark finish style.

Hailey House will also provide bike storage, an advanced intercom system,…

Southwest Waterfront construction will begin soon since the Phase 1 Planned Unit Development (PUD) of the Wharf project was unanimously approved by the District’s Zoning Commission.

The approval includes 1.5 million square feet of residential, hotel, office and retail space, as well as three piers, various open spaces, thoroughfares, and a waterfront park spanning three acres. These areas of development are located in Parcels 2, 3, 4, and 11. Parcel 2 will house a Combined Heating and Power (CHP) facility in addition to residential and retail space, as well as a cultural and entertainment venue. Parcel 3a will incorporate a commercial office building with ground floor retail. Parcel 3b will also have ground floor retail with the InterContinental Hotel…

Homes in Crestwood sit along quiet streets with lush manicured lawns. Even though it’s in the middle of DC, Crestwood feels suburban. The neighborhood is in Ward 4, north of Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant. Crestwood is bordered by 16th Street, NW to the east and Rock Creek Park on the other three sides.

The Crestwood area was a single estate 300 years ago, but in the early 1900s, single family homes started to appear on large plots of land. In 1938, Crestwood got its name and developers described it as “wooded country in the downtown residential district and only 10 minutes from the White House.” In the early days of the neighborhood, the homes were marketed as Washington Post Display Homes and Evening Star “Silver Star” Homes. 

Currently,…

The new development on H Street, NE will be a mixed-use project to include new homes and retail on the 10,800-square-foot city-owned lot at 1300 H Street in Ward 6. It’s the former site of R.L. Christian Library, which opened in 1982, but has been vacant for two years and is now a brownfield site. After reviewing six proposals submitted in August, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development awarded proposal rights to redevelop the site.

The new development will be a 30-unit residential building with 8,000 square feet of retail and 17 underground parking spaces with an industrial-style exterior.  Six of the 30 units will be reserved for affordable housing, ideally for artists and social entrepreneurs. The retail will include a…

DC foreclosures have almost come to a halt due to the Saving DC Homes from Foreclosure provision passed by the DC City Council back in November 2010. The 41-page bill requires lenders to provide a four-month mediation period to homeowners at risk for foreclosure, as well as file copies of notices with the DC Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking. Before this law, some foreclosures happened in as little as 30 days.

Borrowers can elect to participate in the in-person mediation, but lenders are required to do so. The mediation period allows delinquent borrowers to discuss payment options in order to avoid foreclosure. These options could include renegotiation of the loan terms, loan modifications, refinancing, a short sale, deed in lieu of…

The tax abatement program in DC helps lower income residents purchase a home by eliminating transfer, recordation, and property taxes. Homeownership is part of the American Dream for many, and these tax incentives help more people achieve it for themselves.

In order to qualify for tax abatement in DC, the value of the property purchased must be less than $367,200, and the owner must occupy the property as his principle residence. In addition, there are income limits depending on the number of people in your household. For a person living alone, the maximum allowable gross income (including all jobs, Social Security income, public assistance, retirement pay, unemployment compensation, military housing allowance, etc.) is $56,100. For a family of four,…

Food services in DC Public Schools (DCPS) is changing due to staggering financial losses. In the 2011-2012 school year, the food services loss for all DCPS schools totaled $14.35 million. 

When DCPS operated its own food service in the 2007-2008 school year, schools were losing about $80,000 per year. But when a new vendor, Chartwells-Thompson Hospitality, took over food service, those loses skyrocketed to $115,447, and later stabilized at a deficit of $90,000 per school each year. Other local school systems do not suffer the same losses. In fact, some like Montgomery County, profit from their food services to the tune of $2 million. But Chartwells disputes the numbers in the DCPS food services audit.

DC public schools have aggressively promoted…

Are there armed guards in DC schools? Yes and no. DC public schools do not have armed guards, but some private schools do.

Sidwell Friends School, a selective Quaker private school with a campus in the Tenleytown neighborhood and another campus in Bethesda, employs several armed guards. These guards do not include Secret Service protection for President Obama’s daughters. Rather, the guards exist for the protection of all students who attend the school since many of them have high profile parents.

Since the Sandy Hook shootings, there has been a great deal of discussion about armed teachers, administrators, and/or guards in public schools. However, DC Public School (DCPS) Chancellor Kaya Henderson is opposed to guns in her schools. She believes that…

A new Education Committee was recently established by the DC Council. For the first time in six years, the DC Council has created a stand-alone Education Committee chaired by David Catania, an Independent who holds an at-large seat. In his first couple weeks as chairman of the Council’s Education Committee, Catania has already had meetings on organizational development, budgets, truancy, free lunch, and more.

Catania wants to bring transparency to the school budgets.  He bemoans the “total absence of transparency in our budgets. These numbers don’t add up, and you can’t track them.”  Chancellor of DC Public Schools, Kaya Henderson, says she is excited to work with Catania and wants “to be as transparent as possible. I want people to know where our money…

DC school boundaries are a hot topic of debate. In fact, the chancellor of DC public schools, Kaya Henderson, says that the boundary issue is “the thing that, I think, I fear most.”

The boundaries define which children go to which public school. So children who live within the boundary for a particular school have the right to attend that school. If there are any openings after all the in-boundary children select a school, then others have the opportunity to apply. 

The existing DC public school boundaries and feeder patterns have been in existence since the 1970s. But the city of today is quite different than it was even 10 years ago, let alone 40!

As a whole, DC public schools have not been known for stellar academics, prompting many parents to…