Balancing Neighborhood Retail: The 25% Rule

By David Alpert*

Fostering a diverse range of retail in a neighborhood commercial area is a difficult balancing act. DC has tried several techniques for managing this balance, including limiting the frontage devoted to restaurants, limiting liquor licenses, and offering bonuses to new development that contains certain uses.

Restaurants, especially those allowed to serve alcohol, can afford higher rents than neighborhood-serving businesses, like grocery stores, hardware stores, pharmacies and dry cleaners. As bars and restaurants become successful, an area draws more foot traffic, attracting more of those businesses. Landlords can charge higher rent, which pushes out the local businesses. This is basically an economic game theory problem: the most natural equilibrium states are a mostly-vacant corridor on the one hand, and nothing but bars on the other.

Can zoning or other regulations help keep corridors in more of a balance? Is that desirable? One option is to allow market forces to determine the retail mix. But many residents are concerned about their neighborhoods becoming “another Adams Morgan.” At the same time, regulation also hampers business, leading to more vacant storefronts. Is there a way to strike a balance, encouraging free enterprise while also maintaining some diversity of store types?

At a recent working group meeting organized by the DC Office of Planning’s Commercial Corridors/Areas, participants discussed the current 25 per cent limitation on restaurants. This restriction allows at most 25 per cent of the “linear frontage” within the district to be used for bar and restaurant uses. It applies to many of the city’s neighborhood commercial areas, including the 14th and U “Arts Overlay” district, Cleveland Park, H Street, and lower Georgia Avenue.

The 14th Street arts overlay is nearing its 25 per cent, though there is some ambiguity about which establishments count. Cleveland Park residents disagree about their 25 per cent limitation, a debate which recently resurfaced when Starbucks announced it would close its location near the Cleveland Park Metro.

The workgroup meeting focused not on whether such restrictions are appropriate, but how best to implement them. Is measuring the linear frontage of restaurants the best way, or something else? The Office of Planning presented five options:

• Linear frontage: This is the existing approach. Measure the frontage of bars and restaurants and compute the percentage of the total frontage in the district. This allows multiple restaurants close to each other, as long as some other uses offset them elsewhere. However, it requires administration to keep the measurement up to date as businesses open and close.

• Total occupancy limit: Allow a certain maximum number of bar and restaurant uses in the district. Berkeley, California uses this for restaurants. This is very easy to administer, but since it treats a small restaurant the same as a large one, would probably create a disincentive for small establishments.

• Building area limit: Allow bars and restaurants to occupy at most a percentage of the ground floor of each block or building. DC uses this downtown to limit banks and ground floor office uses. This is also easy to measure, but is trickier in small blocks and small buildings.

• Distance separation requirement: Prohibit a new establishment within a certain distance of an existing one. Oakland uses this for liquor and restaurant licenses. This is very simple to administer but prevents small clusters of restaurants, and it can be difficult to define and measure the distance if the nearest other establishment is through a building.

• Average concentration per capita: Allow a certain number of locations per capita in each census district. As an area grows in population, more bars and restaurants could open. California uses this for liquor and restaurant licenses. This probably isn’t right for DC, because the supply of available retail spaces doesn’t necessarily change as population does.

*David Alpert is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington (http://greatergreaterwashington.org), a website about livable and walk-able communities, land use and transportation in the Washington, DC metro area. (This report, slightly modified for re-publication here, was initially posted on his site.) Previously, he worked as a Product Manager for Google and has lived in Boston, the San Francisco Bay area, and New York before moving to Washington, DC. He and his wife live in Dupont Circle.

Copyright (c) 2009 David Alpert & InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 & 108 (”fair use”).

Reconstructing Historic Holt House

By Stephen A. Hansen*

If you walk through Walter Pierce Park between Calvert Street and Adams Mill Road when the leaves are off the trees, a large, dilapidated old house can be seen across the gully sitting on top of a bluff on the grounds of the National Zoo. This historic house is known as Holt House and is one of only a handful of turn-of-the-19th century country estates left in Washington. Other such country-style estates of this period include Dumbarton Oaks, Dumbarton House, and Mayfair in Georgetown.

Under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo, Holt House had been used until 1979 for administrative offices, and then was abandoned. Intimately linked to the early history of Washington, and listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the DC Inventory of Historic Sites, Holt House is both a local and national treasure, but with each passing day, it is getting closer and closer to collapsing from neglect. Large cracks in the walls, a leaking roof, and general decay tell of its gradual demise.

Holt House was once part of Columbia Mills, now referred to as Adam’s Mills because of their ownership by John Quincy Adams. These water powered mills were likely constructed between 1793 and 1800 and built along Rock Creek, just above Georgetown, in an area that is now also owned by the National Zoological Park. The mills produced plaster of Paris, flour, and corn meal. No one is sure when Holt House was actually built, nor who the architect was, but indications are that it was constructed sometime between 1800 and 1829, when Roger Johnson owned the mills. The house was first ever mentioned in 1831 in Johnson’s will, which also revealed that the house already had been separated from the mills. John Quincy Adams purchased the mills from Johnson around 1824, but within months of purchasing the property, he became President. Adams had hoped that the mills would be able to provide him some income and security in his retirement years. Though never a very successful business, the mills remained in the possession of the Adams’ family until about 1872.

After Roger Johnson’s death, “Pretty Prospect” (as the Holt House property was then known) was sold in 1835 to Dr. Ashton Alexander, a prominent physician from Baltimore, for whose family Alexandria, Virginia is named. Dr. Alexander never resided in Washington himself, and in 1838, rented the house to Amos Kendall, Postmaster General of the United States, a close confident of Andrew Jackson, and one of the founders of the modern Democratic Party. Kendall must not have been the best of tenants, as in 1841, Dr. Alexander placed an advertisement in the newspaper offering the property for lease or sale, declaring, “It has undergone three years of deterioration by the worst treatment by those who unfortunately tenanted. The proofs of which are grievously visible at a glance. And for the whole three years not a dollar, so far, has been received for damages or rent.”

Another physician, Dr. Henry Holt, originally of Oswego County, New York, and after whom the house is now named, purchased the property in December 1844 and was the first owner to have ever lived in the house. But rather than practice medicine, Holt farmed the property.

Holt made several changes to the house, including adding a new entrance on the north side and verandas and stairs on the south side. It is also likely that the two-story south vestibule is a fill-in of a large original rear porch. These changes altered the proportions and overall appearance of the house from its former classic design. While Holt occupied the house, it continued to deteriorate. Photos from the 1880’s show ivy growing through the windows into the house, and broken-down exterior stairs in the front and the back. Dr. Holt and his family finally sold the property to the Commissioners for the National Zoological Park in 1889 for $40,000.

By the time the Zoo purchased the property in 1889, Holt House was very dilapidated and badly in need of extensive repair. In addition to the repairs, the Zoo altered the house even further by extending the north vestibule, digging out the center of the basement, filling in windows, enlarging and adding additional windows. While the building is once again neglected, its purchase by the Zoo in 1889 probably helped ensure its continued existence for the last 120 years.

As a long-time resident of Kalorama Triangle, I had become very concerned about the fate of Holt House and frustrated by the lack of any attempts on the part of the Zoo to maintain the building. Thanks to the efforts in 2001 of a local community organization, Help Save the Holt House, which first called public attention to this historic treasure, the house was mothballed, gutters and downspouts installed, the roof repaired, and the windows boarded up. In 2003, the Kalorama Citizen’s Association released an 84-page report urging the National Zoo to save this historic house on its property from imminent collapse.

Recently, I decided to build a computerized recreation of Holt House to show how it may have originally appeared when it was built. Our goal was to create a visual and accurate record of the house, as well as offer a new and visual approach to historic preservation that might help raise a new public awareness and interest in the house.

Based on the historic documentation that exists of changes to the house, historic photographs, stylistic analysis, and physical examinations of clues to changes made to the house over the years, I generated a 3-D computerized recreation of Holt House as it may have appeared when it was first constructed. It was an enlightening and educational process to watch this house come back to life on the computer screen as original details were discovered and were restored. This will be an ongoing project and we will update the model each time we learn more about Holt House. This reconstruction can be seen at www.holthouse.dchistoricdesigns.com The website also includes an explanation of how certain decisions were made in the reconstruction the original house.

*The writer is a local historic preservationist and is owner of DC Historic Designs. He can be reached at shansen@dchistoricdesigns.com or by visiting www.dchistoricdesigns.com.

[Editor's Note: Holt House has been the subject of previous coverage in this newspaper. See, "Zoo Allowing Collapse Of 200 Year Mansion Desecration Of Old Burial Ground And Rock Creek Pollution; Laws May Be Broken" (May 1997); "Preservation-Minded Neighbors Decry Decayed State of Zoo's Historic Adams Mill Road Site" June 2003); Scenes from the Past (April 2003).]

Copyright (c) 2009 Stephen A. Hansen & InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 & 108 (”fair use”).

A Glass Tower Pops Out on Harvard Street

By David Alpert

Harvard Street in Columbia Heights, between 14th and 15th Streets, looks like a typical DC street, with a combination of classic row house styles. Except, in the middle, a single glass building sticks out, in more ways than one. Since Google Street View took these pictures, the construction was completed, and the modern, glass façade spans the entire front and of the building and most of one side.

Many non-historic district neighborhoods are struggling with pop-ups; where zoning allows three stories in a block made up of two-story houses, there’s no historic protection, and the occasional homeowner (by right) puts an ugly vinyl-siding third story atop their beautiful old brick row house.

This, on the other hand, pops out in two different ways. First, it projects out closer to the street than the buildings on either side. On many streets, whole rows of houses were originally set back some distance from the property line. Outside of historic districts, though, many blocks lack building restriction lines to stop a property owner from adding onto the front of the house in these cases, even if that breaks up the consistency of the row. DC’s zoning update process discussed this issue during the Low and Moderate Density Residential working group. The Office of Planning’s currently proposed new regulations would let some neighborhoods impose building restriction lines, keeping all buildings behind one consistent line, or build-to lines, requiring all buildings to position the front edge at that line.

The design is a more complex issue. To the east is a long row of the early 20th century townhouses with bay windows; to the west, a brick apartment building, an alley, and then a long row of the brick row houses with porches common in this area. Sandwiched between the two is now this glass tower.

Copyright (c) 2009 David Alpert & InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 & 108 (”fair use”).

When Does My Cast Iron Staircase Need Attention? Always!

By Paul Ponzelli*

Original cast iron staircases, a common sight in the lower sections of the District of Columbia and Capitol Hill are a glorious testimony to a masterful art that highlights houses lucky enough to have them. Or still have them. Or still have one that is intact.

Washington’s original cast iron staircases are unique. Unique to the city, sometimes unique to a street, or even a single house. Unique not only because they represent some of the finest staircases ever cast anywhere, but also unique because they were cast right here in the city for nearly exclusive use here; in some cases by foundries representing several generations of the same family-owned experts of the cast iron art.

These original staircases represent many things aside from being highly sought after items. They are things of beauty and a focal point for that all important “curb appeal” to a historically correct house.

Today, the most noticeable (and troubling) thing they represent is the fact that they are disappearing from the once proud houses they highlighted at a pace that is not only troubling, but in some cases unnecessarily. Disappearing, never to return. They can’t, because they are not made anymore. Unnecessarily because in some, if not most cases, they can be saved if properly maintained. They must also be properly used.

The majority of cast iron staircases here were made and installed between the late 1800s and the 1930s. It should, therefore, be no surprise that they were not designed for the lifestyle of today’s average household or commercial building — such as moving a 300-pound refrigerator, complete with two, 200-pound delivery men up or down the fragile cast iron staircase, especially bouncing it down the steps on a hand truck. Obviously not a concern during the time period they were made in. Add to the equation 100+ years of time passage and even a well-maintained original cast iron staircase is quite likely to have maintenance or repair issues. With this type of material, a serious or even hazardous condition may exist or one may suddenly appear without warning. They are at a stage of their life where constant monitoring is not only prudent, but necessary.

There are two main factors that lead to problems with these original cast iron staircases.

DETERIORATION. Chiefly, this is the result of neglect. While it is true that cast iron is much more resilient to wear and long-term weather conditions, and it can withstand prolonged periods of not being protected by paint, such conditions will take a toll over 100 years. Try that with one of the steel staircases of today! Did you ever wonder why manhole covers are made of cast iron? Some are older than your staircase. And they are still made of cast iron today. Manhole covers are not cost-prohibitive, however, so they did not go the way of the cast iron staircase; nor do they require a lifetime of experience to design and craft, or a complicated foundry to manufacture.

Unfortunately, most of these cast iron staircases were neglected in many ways. Material-specific paint and even more importantly, the correct primer, is a must. Another form of neglect is not paying attention to changes taking place and having them addressed before more serious problems arise. Loose components, misaligned pieces, bolts shearing off or missing completely, settling or sagging, loose or broken railing posts, cracks, broken stringers, etc. A good telltale sign that a previous owner had serious problems with the staircase and repairs were not made is the presence of added supports, posts, props or bricks, etc. to hold the staircase up. Of course that sounds obvious, but many people pay that makeshift added support thing no attention. That could be a costly mistake.

DAMAGE. This can result from a variety of things, including construction, renovating, moving heavy items over the staircase, dropping something on the staircase from above, placing a ladder in the center of a step or on the stoop plate, tree limb falls, bouncing down the steps or skipping steps while descending the staircase, and improper repairs.

It should be remembered that cast iron is fragile. It will not bend like steel. It will snap and break. Damage can also occur, and frequently does, from improper welding practices and poorly designed and carried out repairs. An inordinate amount of repairs are necessary due to improper welding. Sometimes the piece that was welded is not salvageable, and usually this welding has more serious consequences than the original problem presented. That is not to say that sometimes, contrary to the belief of some, that welding is not called for. In a perfect world, parts can be replaced with “salvage” parts from other similar model staircases, but it is not a perfect world when dealing with antique structures and the right part in the right size from the right model staircase are not always available. And some of the “reproduced” ones are a horrific replacements.

Availability of the parts needed and cost-effectiveness sometimes dictates proper welding to make the staircase safe again. Installing poorly engineered support under the staircase or in the wrong places can almost certainly cause damage or structural failure. Don’t just “prop it up”, instead, determine the reason it suddenly needs artificial support. Usually, something more serious is going on. Structural integrity is everything with any structure, but it is even more important with castings. Obviously, these staircases consist extensively of castings.

One of the major causes of damage to one of these original cast iron staircases is poor or improper support due to ground settling, causing the staircase to drop or lean toward the bottom or one side. This will cause it to be out of level and result in poor or no support in critical areas. It can also cause too much stress in some areas and weight not being equally transferred to the ground at the bottom step. In extreme cases, the bottom step will not even be in contact with the ground. Look for a make-shift bottom step or bricks holding up the bottom step. A sure sign repairs are needed.

Severe settling of the ground near the bottom of the staircase can cause the stoop plate (the flat landing or porch area) and/or the hand railings to pull out of the building.

Risers (the “up” section between the steps) can break out and treads (steps) can crack or break. Bolts that hold the risers and treads in place can be broken or missing and both can be loose as the components became misaligned. A dangerous condition indeed.

The stringers (long “side” pieces that run from the bottom step up to the house) can crack or break, and in a worse case scenario cause a collapse.

On many of these staircases, a stringer’s flat structural support bar that runs behind and along it is rotted and no longer in contact with the bottom step. Continuous longitudinal support of the stringers (main side supports) is thereby interrupted and the entire weight of the staircase can be on the fragile castings which are largely ornamental in nature and not designed to support the total weight of the staircase.

When these staircases were installed, the current practice and technology of digging a deep hole in the ground (below the freeze line) and pouring an adequate concrete footer to serve as a foundation for the staircase was not done. Understandable for the time period, but this factor alone continues to contribute to settling of the staircase resulting in serious damage. In some more serious cases, such a concrete foundation must be added before repairs to the staircase can be made.

What can you do to preserve your original cast iron staircase into perhaps the next generation when it will be even more valuable? The answer is — read again the above-discussed, two problem factors of deterioration and damage. Look for any of these signs, and keep looking. They require constant monitoring now and into the future. We can only guess if the artisans who crafted them thought their masterpieces would endure into a time generations beyond them, but to their tribute and to the testimony of original DC architecture, they have. Now it is up to you.

If you notice any of the conditions mentioned here, or any others of concern, or if you have any doubts regarding the structural integrity of your cast iron staircase, call a qualified ironworks or welding company for an inspection. As previously mentioned however, cast iron is markedly different from steel and the materials commonly used today in staircases. They were produced by experts qualified by many years of experience with cast iron. Similarly, they must be repaired and maintained by such experts. These experts are hard to find anymore, but do your homework and don’t be discouraged by a backlog of work they may have. Unless you have serious or dangerous problems with your cast iron staircase, it may take a little time to get the repairs you need. But it should not be a problem to at least get them to do a thorough inspection and evaluation of your needs and a priority for those repairs. Loose or separating parts can lead to a hazardous condition and costly repairs. Early detection and repair is best.

WARNING: These are not the type of repairs to shop for the cheapest cost estimate, since that is likely what caused some of the damage in the first place, even though it may not be evident if you don’t know what to look for.

Unfortunately, the amount of cast iron staircases needing repairs in our area has not gone unnoticed by unqualified individuals, some from states far away, seeking to profit by promising “expert” repairs. Be leery of someone with a telephone number from out of the area, a pager phone number, a telephone number or company name you cannot find in the Yellow Pages, an individual with no company name at all or someone showing up with only a pickup truck and not an obvious larger service body truck equipped for ironworking or any truck not prominently lettered showing the company name and local phone number (except for estimator’s vehicles). Also watch for far away state tags on the truck. There are many “horror stories” of unprofessional and even damaging repairs being made and the individual could not be located afterward. It should have been obvious with any of the above conditions existing, but he was cheap and he said he has been doing this for 106 years and was an expert. He was, but not at what you paid him for.

*Paul Ponzelli has been the owner of Suburban Welding Company located in Alexandria, Virginia for 38 years. He is a GOLD member of NOMMA (National Ornamental And Miscellaneous Metals Association) and a member of the American Welding Society. He has contributed to, and has been featured in, articles published in Welding and Ironworking as well as Time-Life publications and the Washington Post magazine. Prior to forming his own company, he had been a welding instructor training apprentice ironworkers and working in a large forge and foundry. His company provides a full line of ironwork and welding services, including repairing original cast iron staircases.

Copyright (c) 2009 Paul Ponzelli & InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 & 108 (”fair use”).