July 7, 2006
From a Great Height
Last Sunday, Michael Grunwald took to the pages of the Post to discuss, and malign, the District's building height restrictions. His piece is an interesting read, but Grunwald's analysis of how the restriction has affected the city is fairly spotty, as Mark Jenkins notes in a City Desk post from yesterday. For one thing, it's difficult to say that height restrictions have created a space crunch in the city, when for so long so much space in and around downtown has been empty or occupied by rundown and underused buildings. Perhaps once the current building boom has exhausted office space possibilities in Northwest and Near Southeast we'll see agitation for relaxation of the rule, but until then, the commercial centers of the city have plenty of room to grow.
Setting aside the very interesting economic and urban development issues, however, the height restriction is an enjoyable topic to speculate about, because it has such potential to shape the appearance of our town. Honestly, it's fun to think about what D.C. would look like if developers could build tall, and how that height might change the city's scenery. I've always felt that, for aesthetic reasons, the downtown and monumental core of the District should be left as is, to protect the vistas and scale of the Capital City. Outside that, however, I'm game for height. Specifically, I think the relatively dense residential corridors along Wisconsin and Connecticut Avenues could handle a few towers, and the industrial areas along the Red Line's eastern branch, particularly around New York Avenue and Florida Avenue, might make an excellent home for skyscrapers. With the higher growth that's appeared across the Potomac in Virginia, it's not hard to imagine a low-slung downtown D.C. encircled by a ring of taller structures, with the Washington Monument poking up in the middle.
Of course, it seems much more likely that the Washington area will follow a model more similar to that seen in London or Paris, with Tyson's or parts of Arlington County playing the role of Canary Wharf or La Defense. But it's Friday, and we feel like discussing possibility, rather than probability. So what do you think, readers? Would a little more height be better or worse for Washington, and where would you get taller if you could reshape our town?
Picture taken by Grundlepuck.
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Are these new buildings even necessary? I've noticed that many buildings now have "Space available" banners around Farragut.
DC would be completely different if there were no height restrictions in the city. It would probably have more than a million people, and places like upper northwest or even Arlington would be pushed outside the beltway. It would feel more like a "big city", and have a totally different feel, I think.
I just thank god we had the height restriction during the mid-20th century. We're stuck with a bunch of awful urban renewal disasters like L'enfant Plaza, just imagine if they were high-rises? It's a lot tougher to erase a mistake when its several hundred feet tall (see: Pan Am/Met Life Building in NYC).
DC would not have been dense enough to build skyscrapers when they were artwork (1880's-1930's). DC's population peaked right in the heart of the god-awful period of skyscrapers (50's - 60's). If you really want to know what DC would look like if no height restrictions existed during the mid-20th century, take a stroll through Rosslyn or Crystal City (Rosslyn's fighting hard to atone for its errors, but it's got a long way to go).
I'm skeptical that U.S. skyscraper design has returned to the pre-international style standards of art and excelence, however it certainly has turned the corner. A few skyscrapers might be ok now, but frankly I'd be fine without them too.
I want my skyscrapers!!!
Please, can we have tall buildings?!
DC is the city. Right now, thanks to the rampant NIMBYism we're pushing the center to Tysons. Which is just idiotic.
I'm not sure DC would benefit much from skyscrapers. If there is a critical need for office space close to the core, Rosslyn is pretty well situated. And high rises would ruin one of my favorite details of DC, seeing the Washington Monument, Capitol, Post Office tower, and especially the Cathedral, from anywhere.
I feel that one of DC's biggest selling points is its lack of skyscrapers. You can see the sky, and we have birds besides pigeons and sparrows. I don't want to live in a place that's all steel and chrome and cement - that's part of why I live here and not in New York.
And, as mentioned above, if you really want skyscrapers, go visit Rosslyn.
Far from a space crunch, right now DC suffers from overdevelopment--particularly in the condo market. There are whole buildings that look like they're not selling. How much worse would it be if those buildings had 79 stories?
Once we're making full use of the buildings we've got, then we can talk about skyscrapers.
I like DC how it is, with the lower buildings - it reminds me of a European city.
One of my favorite things about DC is that there aren't tall buildings...I like how open it feels.
In response to Politburo. Yes we need more office space. The Central Biz District has the lowest vacancy rate for any CBD in the country.
Theoretically, the market clearing rate is estimated to be around 10%. i don't have the official figure, but I think the CBD is around 5% vacancy.
There is an ugly "Office Space" available sign on our building, but it is advertising about half a floor of a 13 story building. So, the signs are not indicative of the general market health.
The hieght restrictions help DC's character because it is technically a limit of 1.5 times the street you are facing. Thus, it is nice that the P Street rowhouses cannot become ten story office buildings.
The drawback is that the build outs for an office space are going to be much nicer without the restrictions. Because DC is squeezed vertically for space, it is tough to be an office space with larger-than-10ft ceilings in the city. As a result, a company like CEB will be able to have a much nicer buildout inside in Rosslyn where they will have more flexibility with a buildout.
All that said, I am in favor of the CBD height restricitons.
For anyone interested, the book "The Edifice Complex: How the Rich and Powerful Shape the World" by Deyan Sudjic has an interesting chapter on skyscrapers and the cities that build them.
It might be good to have a few taller buildings in some places. Like downtown where there's a bit of a lack of good 1st-floor stores and all, more apartment space might provide for that. And it might make those places seem a little more lively. I know some places are lively enough when tourists are around, but places like Freedom plaza and others are usually wasted dead space. More people would equal more stuff/fun. Maybe.
I love the fact that the District is a low-rise city with a beautiful skyline in its own right. Don't mess with it. Put all the skyscrapers in Arlington and Crystal City, where at least the Potomac offers a geographical buffer. There are still plenty of opportunities for commercial development here within the height restrictions.
Personally, I like the result of the height restriction--being able to see the Capitol, Monument and Cathedral from anywhere in the city, AND not having to walk in the dark shadows between skyscrapers (like you have in Chicago and New York). A visitor from Toronto exclaimed how nice it was to be able to be right downtown but still be walking in sunshine. She also felt it was more like a European city in feel because of this.
I really like the height restriction in the city. I've lived at both extremes of building height (the Arizona desert, where almost nothing's taller than a story, and New York City, where the buildings completely block out sunlight) and I think DC is the perfect blend of the two. We've got plenty of giant buildings expanding entire blocks, but the sun is still perfectly visible, as is the horizon depending on where you are.
The height restriction is a huge part of what makes DC DC, and I'd be loathe to see it completely abandoned. I wouldn't have a problem with a few skyscrapers in the outter-lying residential areas so's not to clash with the monuments, but I'd like to see developers really have to fight to build them.
I'm firmly in the "no" camp to high rise buildings in DC. We have a unique and beautiful city without them. If they were allowed, we become yet another typically large US city.
I like the lack of skyscrapers in DC. As for the crunch for more space, tear down some of the delapidated and outdated buildings, redevelop brownfields and old industrial areas, and develop in Anacostia. There is plenty of land that could be redeveloped in DC.
I dig the height restriction. It makes us different from other American cities.
And isn't everyone glad that all those ugly boxy buildings along K St are 13 stories high and not 30?
Every argument used in the Post article, (traffic, urban sprawl, etc.) happens in cities with skyscrapers too. For all of the economic rises and falls that DC has experienced, high amounts of excess real estate is the last thing that we need.
yay! i say do it! i love traffic.
visually, I prefer skyscrapers... but it is nice to have the wide open sky... I'm a fence-rider.
The advantage of concentrating the skyscrapers in DC is that all the Metro lines already lead to the center of DC, so it's much easier to get larger numbers of people there than if we centralized growth in, for instance, Rosslyn, which is toward the west side of the system and only served by the Orange and Blue lines.
Also, the argument that we don't need taller buildings because there are still undeveloped areas of DC ignores the desirability of enabling people to get to a large number of destinations without using a car. If we spread out the growth over the whole District, people are going to need to do more driving around than they would if everything were compressed into a small area.