Big GDS news

[Anonymous]

I'm a neighbor and I appreciate having the new Giant. But the development is ugly. And it's built too high at the street. The building should have been required to step back to allow more light. That said, the thing that GDS should be aware of is that small minority of neighbors blocked that project for decades. In fact, I think the project only moved forward because one of the ring leaders died. While I admire their tenacity, I don't think they had the best interests of the neighborhood in mind. They were worried about traffic on their particular street. They used every trick in the book to slow down development. And there a lot of tricks to slow down development of a big skyline changing project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the cadre of under 7th graders using the metro with, or without their parents.

All the Deal 6th-8th graders use public transportation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not about GDS for me. DC is losing it on allowing buildings that are too to tall and/or too close to the sidewalk. Examples imclude the condos at Wisconsin and Calvert. The Home Depot at Irving and 14th and Carhedral commons. I fully support dc becoming denser but we need to keep a close eye on the architecture. This is a city with modest buildings and many of the new projects are ugly and way too big.

+ 1. Cathedral Commons (what a name, by I digress) is the above example closest to GDS. I am disappointed at how stark and frankly ugly it looks. It also appears like it was built on the cheap. There's so much exposed concrete and what was once a pleasant walk on Wisconsin Ave. now is cast in dark shadow much of the day. The Tenleytown residents and even GDS should pay attention to what happened at C-C and insist on project design that is scaled appropriately and more respectful of the surrounding context.

Ummm... So you don't like the concrete of Cathedral Commons? Do you recall what was on Wisconsin before? One word: concrete. Cleveland Park has the toughest historical society and zoning board. Cathedral Commons was 30 plus years in the making. Whether you like it or not, you have to remember the concrete GC Murphy & co. Giant and Giant Pharmacy (People's drugs) which was there before. Not saying Cathedral Commons (which is not completely finished) is beautiful but had to adhere to a similar appearance as the buildings it replaced.

I am a neighbor who is also reasonably happy to have that area developed, but Cathedral Commons is seriously lacking in architectural detail. And the store is too big. I still shop at Whole Foods and use the new Giant the same way I used the old one, to pick up milk or eggs when I run out. The vast majority of my neighbors use it the same way, and I have a sense that the store is not doing so well. City projects should be attentive to the demographics of the people who live there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL! Cult of the new, I guess. The circular, heavily-branded Giant entrance is just as ugly as the PNC bank was. And the architecture of the rest of the retail strip is emphatically "not interesting."

The sole entrance into the new, windowless Giant reminds me of a tunnel into a Metro station -- dark and kind of grimey. That's after you run the gauntlet of Giant workers standing just outside the door taking a smoking break.

It's kimd of shocking that the city zoning commission did no real design review of the as-built project. The assumption is that Giant had greased the skids pretty well by the time it filed. I suppose that's a warning to GDS neighbors, that if the school has the sort of "Macher" and big developer helpers that it appears to have, the GDS consortium may find a very receptive (and obliged?) audience at the District Building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not about GDS for me. DC is losing it on allowing buildings that are too to tall and/or too close to the sidewalk. Examples imclude the condos at Wisconsin and Calvert. The Home Depot at Irving and 14th and Carhedral commons. I fully support dc becoming denser but we need to keep a close eye on the architecture. This is a city with modest buildings and many of the new projects are ugly and way too big.

+ 1. Cathedral Commons (what a name, by I digress) is the above example closest to GDS. I am disappointed at how stark and frankly ugly it looks. It also appears like it was built on the cheap. There's so much exposed concrete and what was once a pleasant walk on Wisconsin Ave. now is cast in dark shadow much of the day. The Tenleytown residents and even GDS should pay attention to what happened at C-C and insist on project design that is scaled appropriately and more respectful of the surrounding context.

Ummm... So you don't like the concrete of Cathedral Commons? Do you recall what was on Wisconsin before? One word: concrete. Cleveland Park has the toughest historical society and zoning board. Cathedral Commons was 30 plus years in the making. Whether you like it or not, you have to remember the concrete GC Murphy & co. Giant and Giant Pharmacy (People's drugs) which was there before. Not saying Cathedral Commons (which is not completely finished) is beautiful but had to adhere to a similar appearance as the buildings it replaced.

I am a neighbor who is also reasonably happy to have that area developed, but Cathedral Commons is seriously lacking in architectural detail. And the store is too big. I still shop at Whole Foods and use the new Giant the same way I used the old one, to pick up milk or eggs when I run out. The vast majority of my neighbors use it the same way, and I have a sense that the store is not doing so well. City projects should be attentive to the demographics of the people who live there.

+1. Cathedral Commins seems like a bit of Germamtown or Woodbridge shoehorned into Northwest. It's not just a mismatch of demographics, it isn't really responsive to local shopping habits. I agree about Giant customer take up. I've gone in at different times of the day and it usually seems pretty desolate. I'd hate to see Wisconsin filled with more of the SOS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL! Cult of the new, I guess. The circular, heavily-branded Giant entrance is just as ugly as the PNC bank was. And the architecture of the rest of the retail strip is emphatically "not interesting."

Ha! Hadn't realized that but it appears that Giant incorporatedd the shape of the old bank after super-sizing it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the cadre of under 7th graders using the metro with, or without their parents.

All the Deal 6th-8th graders use public transportation.

And they all live in DC. That won't be true of GDS kids. And most of the Deal kids take Metrobus, don't they? There have been maybe a half dozen kids max at GDS MS in any given year who rode the bus to the Dupont Metro. By contrast, lots of parochial school kids (of the same age, sometimes with younger sibs in tow), took the same bus. Basically just because people can take Metro doesn't mean they will take Metro, especially if the don't live near a station. And people who will take Metro often won't ride buses.

In other words, I think both quoted posters are right. A few more middle school kids will use Metro to get to school if the campus moves to Tenleytown. More could, but they won't for a host of reasons -- not comfortable doing it, hard to get from station to house, have to get to afterschool activities that aren't transit-accessible in the relevant timeframe, someone has to drive to school to fetch younger kids anyway, stuff to be schlepped, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the cadre of under 7th graders using the metro with, or without their parents.

All the Deal 6th-8th graders use public transportation.

And they all live in DC. That won't be true of GDS kids. And most of the Deal kids take Metrobus, don't they? There have been maybe a half dozen kids max at GDS MS in any given year who rode the bus to the Dupont Metro. By contrast, lots of parochial school kids (of the same age, sometimes with younger sibs in tow), took the same bus. Basically just because people can take Metro doesn't mean they will take Metro, especially if the don't live near a station. And people who will take Metro often won't ride buses.

In other words, I think both quoted posters are right. A few more middle school kids will use Metro to get to school if the campus moves to Tenleytown. More could, but they won't for a host of reasons -- not comfortable doing it, hard to get from station to house, have to get to afterschool activities that aren't transit-accessible in the relevant timeframe, someone has to drive to school to fetch younger kids anyway, stuff to be schlepped, etc.

LOL. Some Deal (and Wilson) kids actually live in PG County, but their parents got them into a DCPS feeder school by fraudulently using a relative's or friend's DC address and then doing the lottery. Some parents do this for convenient, nearly free after school care when the parents work in DC , a better education compared to their home school, or a sometimes better chance of making a HS team. Residency fraud is pretty common in DC but there's been little done about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's good for GDS is good for America.

And for Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL! Cult of the new, I guess. The circular, heavily-branded Giant entrance is just as ugly as the PNC bank was. And the architecture of the rest of the retail strip is emphatically "not interesting."

The sole entrance into the new, windowless Giant reminds me of a tunnel into a Metro station -- dark and kind of grimey. That's after you run the gauntlet of Giant workers standing just outside the door taking a smoking break.

It's kimd of shocking that the city zoning commission did no real design review of the as-built project. The assumption is that Giant had greased the skids pretty well by the time it filed. I suppose that's a warning to GDS neighbors, that if the school has the sort of "Macher" and big developer helpers that it appears to have, the GDS consortium may find a very receptive (and obliged?) audience at the District Building.

ZC is a rubberstamp generally. There can be a lot of hand-wringing, venting, and delay, but in the end it pretty much signs whatever the developer puts in front of it -- typos and all, as a three judge panel pointed out in the recent Durant case.

I had a similar reaction to the Giant entrance the one time I went in. i didn't look closely, but thought/hoped it was because the place was still largely a construction site at the time. Apparently not.

[Anonymous]

Not only is Cath-Com ugly, it's shaping up to be pretty boring. I'm glad for a couple more restaurants but does the area really need three more bank branches in one development?! And two Starbucks? Next thing you know, there will be a second CVS there! . Does Tenleytown truly need 90' buildings courtesy of GDS with just more of the same chain retail?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is not about GDS for me. DC is losing it on allowing buildings that are too to tall and/or too close to the sidewalk. Examples imclude the condos at Wisconsin and Calvert. The Home Depot at Irving and 14th and Carhedral commons. I fully support dc becoming denser but we need to keep a close eye on the architecture. This is a city with modest buildings and many of the new projects are ugly and way too big.

+ 1. Cathedral Commons (what a name, by I digress) is the above example closest to GDS. I am disappointed at how stark and frankly ugly it looks. It also appears like it was built on the cheap. There's so much exposed concrete and what was once a pleasant walk on Wisconsin Ave. now is cast in dark shadow much of the day. The Tenleytown residents and even GDS should pay attention to what happened at C-C and insist on project design that is scaled appropriately and more respectful of the surrounding context.

Ummm... So you don't like the concrete of Cathedral Commons? Do you recall what was on Wisconsin before? One word: concrete. Cleveland Park has the toughest historical society and zoning board. Cathedral Commons was 30 plus years in the making. Whether you like it or not, you have to remember the concrete GC Murphy & co. Giant and Giant Pharmacy (People's drugs) which was there before. Not saying Cathedral Commons (which is not completely finished) is beautiful but had to adhere to a similar appearance as the buildings it replaced.

I am a neighbor who is also reasonably happy to have that area developed, but Cathedral Commons is seriously lacking in architectural detail. And the store is too big. I still shop at Whole Foods and use the new Giant the same way I used the old one, to pick up milk or eggs when I run out. The vast majority of my neighbors use it the same way, and I have a sense that the store is not doing so well. City projects should be attentive to the demographics of the people who live there.

The giant Giant is great for toilet paper in those supersize packages. At least there's that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not only is Cath-Com ugly, it's shaping up to be pretty boring. I'm glad for a couple more restaurants but does the area really need three more bank branches in one development?! And two Starbucks? Next thing you know, there will be a second CVS there! . Does Tenleytown truly need 90' buildings courtesy of GDS with just more of the same chain retail?

Yeah, when Chai Latte yoga Mom posted about how visionary and transformative the GDS project would be, I thought wow, you must not be looking very hard if you can't find Chai Latte and a yoga class in Tenleytown already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only is Cath-Com ugly, it's shaping up to be pretty boring. I'm glad for a couple more restaurants but does the area really need three more bank branches in one development?! And two Starbucks? Next thing you know, there will be a second CVS there! . Does Tenleytown truly need 90' buildings courtesy of GDS with just more of the same chain retail?

Yeah, when Chai Latte yoga Mom posted about how visionary and transformative the GDS project would be, I thought wow, you must not be looking very hard if you can't find Chai Latte and a yoga class in Tenleytown already.

Instead of yoga studios and coffee bars, Tenleytown seems to have more in the way of used car lots, pizza delivery services and of course .... mattress stores. Can't blame GDS for wanting to upscale its 'hood a bit.

[Anonymous]

Nothing GDS is doing will make pizza places or the mattress store disappear. And if Starbucks, Panera, and Coffee Nature don't offer sufficiently upscale Chai Lattes already, why does GDS assume it'll attract a more luxe establishment?