In the News
D.C. convention center hotel deal moves forward, Washington Business Journal, 7/7/2010
The Washington Convention and Sports Authority is expected to release funds within a month to start prepping the grounds of the future $537 million convention center hotel, officials said Wednesday.
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Best of two worlds at Kushi: Gastropub offers sushi, skewers, Washington Post, 6/20/2010
Darren Lee Norris was so unsure how Washington diners would accept an izakaya, or Japanese gastropub, that he tacked raw fish and vinegared rice onto his idea for a new restaurant. Sushi, the former Ridgewells caterer reasoned, would lure customers to Kushi Izakaya & Sushi. If they liked what they saw, maybe they'd come back for kushiyaki, skewered food cooked over a charcoal grill, which he had become smitten with during visits to Tokyo, where his wife, Ari Kushimoto Norris, was raised.
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Downtown D.C. development holdout saw a likely fortune vanish, Washington Post, 6/18/2010
At the dizzying height of the real estate boom, Austin Spriggs had the equivalent of a golden lottery ticket: a downtown Washington townhouse on precisely the red-hot block where developers hoped to build hundreds of swanky condominiums and offices.
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First Bite: Buddha Bar in Mount Vernon Square, Washington Post, 6/9/2010
The time: 7 on a recent weeknight. The place: The highly anticipated Buddha Bar, launched in mid-May in Mount Vernon Square. The mood: Honestly, I'm a little annoyed. I'm right on time for my reservation for two, but my guest is running a few minutes late. The pretty young thing in towering heels at the host stand suggests I wait for him in the bar.
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An influx of new voters, Washington Post, 2010
The District's Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood did not have a voting precinct of its own when Adrian M. Fenty was elected mayor in 2006. However, Precinct 143 was created in 2008 to accommodate an influx of condominium dwellers along Massachusetts Avenue NW.
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Fenty proposing massive increase to District's vacant property fee, Washington Business Journal, 4/23/2010
Mayor Adrian Fenty is proposing to charge D.C.'s vacant property owners an annual registration fee up to 250 times what they pay now - the penalty for failing to put tenants in hundreds of empty residential and commercial buildings that pepper the city.
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Buddha-Bar is almost here, Washington Business Journal, 4/14/2010
The long-awaited Buddha-Bar coming to Mount Vernon Triangle is almost here. We reported back in February that the Paris-based restaurant group's first D.C. venture was targeting a May opening, and the restaurant announced Wednesday it is on track to make that deadline.
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From seedy to sought-after: D.C.'s Mount Vernon Triangle becoming urban village, Washington Post, 1/30/2010
A few years ago, Mount Vernon Triangle was an area known for parking lots and prostitution. Today, it is a popular destination in the District for young home buyers, where new high-rise condos sit amid remnants of what was once an urban wasteland.
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The Known World of Edward P. Jones, Washington Post, 11/15/2009
Edward Paul Jones is sitting at a table in Guapo's restaurant in Tenleytown early on a midsummer evening, looking down into a glass of red wine. Nobody in the place recognizes him, although he's arguably the greatest fiction writer the nation's capital has ever produced.
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Mt. Vernon Square District Project Kicks Off, WRGW News, 10/5/2009
The D.C. Office of Planning and District Department of Transportation kicked off the Mount Vernon Square District Project at the D.C. Historical Society on Wednesday. The project's main objective is to transform Mount Vernon Square and the immediate area in to a more attractive and functional space for residents and tourists.
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D.C. Council OKs $272 million for convention center hotel, Washington Examiner, 7/14/2009
The District plans to use $206 million in public funds for a long-anticipated 1,167-room Marriott Marquis hotel across from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
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Taylor Gourmet Owner Explains Why He Chose Mt. Vernon Square for Second Location, Washington City Paper, 6/29/2009
You got to hand it to City Vista. This Mount Vernon Square development has landed the most impressive group of retail, restaurants, and amenities in recent memory: Results Gym, a beautiful Safeway, 5th Street Hardware store, Chevy Chase Bank, Busboys and Poets and now a second location for Taylor Gourmet, as first reported on Prince of Petworth.
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Spotting illegal billboards tough for the District, Washington Examiner, 5/29/2009
A D.C. government project to sort out legal billboards from illegal ones is requiring a staggering amount of legwork - searches through piles of decades-old city permits and calls to the National Archives, for example.
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CityVista signs new sushi eatery from Ridgewells chef, Washington Business Journal, 5/15/2009
D.C. is slated to get its first izakaya come fall. The Japanese term basically refers to a pub that serves food. In this case, sushi flown in from Tokyo and kushiyaki, or meat grilled on a skewer, are on the menu.
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D.C.-owned vacant lot is left to languish, Washington Examiner, 5/15/2009
There once was a row house at 460 Ridge St. NW, until it collapsed. The property's owner - the D.C. government - swiftly moved in after the building fell in November 2007, razed what was left and secured the lot with a chain-link fence and padlocked gate.
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The Corner of Luxury, Convenience in D.C., Washington Post, 1/17/2009
Just a block west of where Interstate 395 dead-ends into New York Avenue in Northwest Washington, the V at City Vista recently opened its luxurious doors on what was once a fairly desolate stretch.
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Mount Vernon Triangle to be seat of Buddha Bar, Washington Business Journal, 12/19/2008
iBring on the Buddha.
Buddha Bar has leased 9,400 square feet in a new office building at 455 Massachusetts Ave. NW, just three blocks from Verizon Center and the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
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Mixed-Use Project Awaits D.C. Approval, Crucial Financing, Washington Post, 11/24/2008
Douglas Jemal took more than 20 years to acquire the property he needed near Mount Vernon Triangle. He can wait for the city's go-ahead and for credit to start flowing again.
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Developers Still Banking on D.C., Washington Post, 10/16/2008
A luxury hotel in the middle of downtown. A housing project remade as market-rate and affordable apartments in Petworth. A supermarket reborn at twice the size in Shaw, amid new housing and shops.
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Gourmet Safeway Opening Downtown, Washington Post, 9/11/2008
Safeway is planning to open a 58,000-square-foot store in downtown Washington tomorrow, the only full-service supermarket in that neighborhood and the first store that the company has built in the District in 11 years.
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Douglas Development amasses properties for downtown project, Washington Business Journal, 9/5/2008
Douglas Development Corp., the company that helped remake downtown's East End, is planning a 1.2 million-square-foot project across the street from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.
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D.C. Records Increase in Registered Voters, Washington Post, 9/4/2008
Voter rolls in the District have gotten fatter this year, with Democrats and Republicans sharing in gains credited to a surge in the District's population and a lively primary race for an incumbent's D.C. Council seat.
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Mount Vernon Triangle renaissance takes shape, Washington Business Journal, 6/20/2008
When city officials and developers set out to create a vision for the future of Mount Vernon Triangle, a decrepit and seedy slice just north of downtown D.C., they went to great lengths to preserve and protect what was already there.
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Boutique hotels, housing pitched for Mount Vernon Triangle property, Washington Business Journal, 5/2/2008
A handful of hip new hotels want to open up in Mount Vernon Triangle, near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, and D.C. will be choosing which it likes best.
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'Not Quite Dupont' to Some; an Inspiration to Many, Washington Post, 5/3/2008
Matthew Nguyen, 34, and Sergio Quintana, 32, had been house-hunting in the District for more than a year before they learned the name of their new favorite neighborhood
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Clark's new club causes dismay among neighbors, Washington Examiner, 4/14/2008
Former Redskin standout Gary Clark is getting back into the hospitality business, but some of his neighbors are already throwing a penalty flag.
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Diner's Neon Might Glow Again, Washington Post, 11/9/2007
If the White House were dismantled and rebuilt, say, in Gaithersburg, would it still be the White House? How about Eastern Market or the Duke Ellington Bridge?
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All aboard the Passenger for cocktails, Washington Post, 9/18/2007
Residents of the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood picketed last night outside a video store, hoping their chanting and poster-waving would prod D.C. officials to shut a business the neighbors said has been operating illegally as a sex shop for more than a decade.
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Zoning Board Told To Close Video Store, Washington Post, 9/27/2007
After a neighborhood rally last week against a video store that residents say is a bastion of crime and illicit activity, D.C. Attorney General Linda Singer issued an order to the Board of Zoning Adjustment to expedite its closing.
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Protesters: Close illegal porn shop, Washington Times, 9/18/2007
D.C. residents protested last night outside a downtown video store to call attention to it operating illegally for more than 10 years and the city's slow response to closing it.
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Neighbors Protest at Reputed Sex Shop, Washington Post, 9/18/2007
Residents of the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood picketed last night outside a video store, hoping their chanting and poster-waving would prod D.C. officials to shut a business the neighbors said has been operating illegally as a sex shop for more than a decade.
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D.C.-owned row house collapses, Washington Examiner, 11/29/2007
The outer wall of a Shaw row house collapsed Monday night, and with it a 107-year-old home that community leaders say was abandoned by its current owner - the D.C. government - is now gone.
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Group asks city government to help solve vacant properties issue, Washington Examiner, 5/30/2007
The District of Columbia neighborhood that lays claim to the Washington Convention Center and a flurry of new development also is overrun by vacant, dilapidated properties that stifle the community's progress, a residents' group said in a recent survey.
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Names in the News: Community Heroes, Washington Post, 2/1/2007
Tommy E. Barnes Jr. and Carlson Klapthor were named Heroes of the Year this month by the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association.
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Neighbors Fight Thorpe, Washington City Paper, 12/21/2006
The Shaw advisory neighborhood commission's outgoing chair, Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr. has had a busy December. He was officially voted out of his elected position on the ANC, only to be appointed to a new role-parliamentarian and executive assistant to the chair-by new chair Barbara Curtis. He took over a Shaw neighborhood association and two days later allocated his new organization $3,000 in ANC money for new computers.
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House Of Blues Seeks a D.C. Home, Washington Post, 11/30/2006
The owners of the House of Blues, a popular chain of concert venues, are negotiating with the District to build a $120 million complex near the new Washington Convention Center that would include a live-entertainment hall, a hotel, retail stores and restaurants.
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The Mediocre Mile: Residential Projects Are Rising Rapidly Along Massachusetts Avenue. Design Review Hasn't Kept Pace., Washington Post, 9/4/2006
Just as tourists wander Georgetown to get a feel for the Washington of two centuries ago, or Capitol Hill to admire the city's Victorian sobriety, or Embassy Row to enjoy the exuberance of its gilded age, perhaps one day they will wander that part of Massachusetts Avenue which is now a massive construction site, and think: This is what it felt like to be in Washington at the new fin de siècle. It was an uneasy age of condos mortgaged to the gills, gentrification, urban tribes of twenty-somethings drinking martinis at $35-a-plate eateries, and the quiet but deeply embedded fear of terrorism, housing bubbles and national implosion.
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Never Mind the Rumors; This Condo Deal Is On, Washington Post, 6/19/2006
No question that the local residential real estate industry is jittery these days, what with twice as many homes for sale as a year ago, sales incentives abundant and price reductions being taken.
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Honor Roles, Washington City Paper, 1/20/06
School Without Walls' 1996 valedictorian Wai-Ying Chow graduated summa cum laude from George Washington University, worked at the National Institutes of Health, and is now back in school for her doctorate.
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CityVista to begin selling, leasing, Washington Times, 1/18/2006
Owners of the CityVista project in the District plan to begin leasing retail space and selling condominiums next month at the $210 million complex at Mount Vernon Triangle.
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When the moon hits your eye like a big ... condo., Washington Business Journal, 9/30/2005
Trammell Crow has made August Vasaio an offer he can't refuse.
The real estate developer's willing to give Vasaio, whose family has run AV Ristorante Italiano at the corner of Sixth Street and New York Avenue NW since 1949, "a crazy amount" of money for his three-story, Permastone-covered building and a few adjoining properties.
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In the Heart of the City, a Neighborhood That Cares, Washington Post, 5/20/2004
Three years ago, if someone asked me where I lived, I would reply "Mount Vernon Square" and get a blank stare. Then I would hint " . . . near Fifth and M Streets Northwest." Inevitably they would wrinkle their forehead and repeat what I said as though it were a mantra: "Fifth and M . . . Fifth and M . . . "
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The Past Is Present, Washington Post, 3/13/03
This patch of land downtown between Seventh and Ninth streets, at the
confluence of New York and Massachusetts avenues and K Street, set aside
by Pierre L'Enfant and designated Mount Vernon Square, has long been
overshadowed by some of Washington's more obvious attractions. But it is
a place that pulses with history -- a place where dinosaurs roamed and
troops marched, where great aspirations were born and power was boldly
asserted. This is the story of that square.
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Convention center opens with new hopes, Washington Times, 3/30/2003
iThe new Washington Convention Center opened yesterday to ribbons, champagne and cheers as city officials took a break from terrorist alerts and tight budgets to welcome what they hope is a new beginning.
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