American Builders Quarterly
By: Joyce Finn

Hip urban dwellers in our national capitol have David Franco and Jeff Blum of Level 2 Development, LLC to thank for new exciting apartment options. Founded by the two partners in 2003, the firm has prospered through the economic recession by addressing the increased need for rental and mixed-used buildings. 

Level 2 Development delights in bucking the more traditional architectural styles common throughout the city in favor of its distinctive bright and sustainable designs, and both Franco and Blum believe building locally gives their work a stronger focus. According to Franco, “We're Washingtonians and have watched the city change since we were kids, and we want to be a creative part of these changes. We also see so many opportunities in DC right now.” Those opportunities continue to result in new projects, including the View 14 apartment complex.

The 14th and U streets corridor, once notorious for the start of the 1960s race riots, is now one of the most sought-after areas in America’s cosmopolitan seat of government. View 14, a high-rise apartment building completed near the intersection in the fall of 2009, with spectacular views of the US Capitol and the Washington Monument, is a monument itself to responsible construction and community engagement.

Washington Blade
By: Mark Lee

Last week was the anniversary of the 1968 riots in D.C., following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis. The ensuing five days of destruction that befell Washington and filled the sky with smoke scarred the city’s landscape for decades and cut a hole in the heart of commerce through the prominent local retail districts of the era.

Washington neighborhoods hollowed out by looting and fires are only now beginning to fully finish recovering as commercial and residential real estate development repurposes the remaining empty buildings and reconstructs many of the last vacant lots across a wide swath of the city. Nowhere has this transformation been more dramatic than along the 14th Street, N.W., commercial corridor, as it intersects with U Street and stretches northward into Columbia Heights.

By: Tierney Plumb, Reporter

UDR Inc., a Denver-based publicly traded apartment owner with 16 properties in the area, closed on the sale of View 14 on 14th Street NW in D.C., shattering the record for the highest price per foot ever achieved in the metro region for Class A rental product.

The building sale, which was first reported in the Washington Business Journal in April, traded for $104 million, or about $670 a square foot for the 155,000-square-foot property.

Borderstran
By: Tom Hay

After a three-year lull, condo and apartment development along 14th Street — from Logan Circle to the blocks north of U Street — has blossomed at a frantic pace. (See list of related stories at bottom.)

Work is well underway at several sites and many and others are slated for groundbreaking soon. Most properties will be considered mixed-use, usually in the form of ground floor retail and residential units above.

By: Staff, Washington Business Journal

Level 2 Development LLC has snagged two tenants to occupy a major portion of the retail space at the View 14 mixed-use complex. 

The YWCA National Capital Area will occupy 15,000 square feet at the 2303 14th St. NW project. Cushman & Wakefield Inc.. brokered the deal for both parties.

Beta Academy, which hosts martial arts classes, has signed a lease for 9,000 square feet on the lower level. Cushman & Wakefield represented Level 2 in the deal, while Thur & Associates worked with Beta.

GREENBELT, Md., May 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Bozzuto Management Company today announced that, for a limited time, the View 14 luxury apartment community – located in the hip U Street Corridor of Washington, D.C. – now brings the world within reach via a new "iPad For Your New Pad" giveaway.

Known for its fantastic city vistas along 14th and U Streets, View 14 now offers an iPad and one month's rent free with every new signed lease. The offer extends to any referrals, including referrals from current residents, which result in a new signed lease.

David Franco, a principal of Level 2 Development LLC, which, along with Centrum Properties Inc., developed View 14, says he personally uses an iPad daily.

DC Modern Luxury

With the District going gaga for luxury apartments, Level 2 Development’s ritzy rookery View 14 (view14.com) ups the ante with amenities aplenty. Situated at 14th Street and Florida Avenue, in the booming U Street corridor, the property is poised at the intersection of the ageless and avant-garde. For the edgy outpost’s common areas, fashion-forward design gurus from Vastu created a Modern-Baroque fusion of functional fabrics and furnishings in warm posh palettes of oranges, browns and lime greens, offset with über-mod graphic wallpapers. Just now ready for move-in, the hot property lays the groundwork for L2D’s high-velocity vision, blazing the U Street trail with wired shared-spaces, street-level shops, unparalleled cityscapes (check out the roof-view on this issue’s cover) and even a sublime Zen garden for a quiet escape. They say location is everything, and even though your hot spot is perched atop the city’s “It” strip, you may never want to leave.

David Franco laughs as he recalls his foray into the entrepreneurial arena. It was 1989 and his good friend, John Guggenmos, was pulling together a group of investors to buy the nightclub Tracks. Franco, a fresh-faced 24-year-old, could not have known that Tracks would shortly experience its heyday and become the focal point of D.C.’s gay nightlife scene, making it a hugely profitable venture, but he smelled opportunity. Or at the very least a really good time. He was ready to jump at the chance.
There was just one snag: “I was not out at the time.”

Franco wasn’t among the legions of gay men and lesbians who came to D.C. to explore and embrace life outside the closet. The recent University of Maryland graduate was a native Washingtonian who had never lived anywhere else. He and his four brothers worked for the family business, a chain of discount department stores run by their father, and they all lived within a mile of each other in the Maryland suburbs. How would his family, especially his Orthodox Jewish father, react to having a family member who was not only gay but owned a gay nightclub?

Marketwire

In celebration of the opening, a VIP cocktail party will be held for friends of the project later this month. The first 150 people to register on View 14's website, www.View14.com, will receive a special invite to attend the VIP party and a preview of the community.

View 14, the new beacon of 14th Street, boasts a new level of modern architecture at its finest. Its recognizable angular cantilevered glass wedge and its walls of angled glass cubes perched on 14th Street overlook all of D.C., capturing breathtaking views of the city. The building's East side faces the Capitol while the West side faces the Washington Monument. So vast are its views that one can even see the Potomac River and Woodrow Wilson Bridge from its rooftop terrace.

Young Leaders Group
By: Sonya Starnes

DC’s U Street Corridor has changed a lot in the last ten years and the newest sign of this transformation is View 14, a 185-unit Class A apartment building developed by Level 2 Development and Centrum Properties. In celebration of the opening, ULI Washington’s Young Leaders Group sponsored a U Street Corridor panel discussion Wednesday, November 18th, followed by a View 14 tour and a reception at Andy Shallal’s Eatonville restaurant. The discussion was moderated by Jair K. Lynch, President & CEO of JAIR LYNCH Development Partners and panelists included Josh Dix, VP of PN Hoffman, David Franco, Principal of Level 2 Development and Paul Robertson, President of Robertson Development. 

By: Shaun 

After two years of construction and $90 million spent, the SK&I-designed View 14 started accepting leases this month as the building prepares for its first tenants to move in by the end of the month. A joint project of Level 2 Development and Centrum Properties, View14 sits at the intersection of 14th Street NW and Florida Avenue, on a site that once held the Petrovitch body shop and a dozen two-story Comcast satellite dishes - few neighbors were sad to see them go. The project will soon lose the remaining 14 story antenna tower; that alone is a welcome change for neighbors. View 14 stretches U Street northward, where half a dozen projects are in either the planning or construction stage within a single block of the new apartment building. 

Washington Business Jounral
By: Tierney Plumb

Another housing option has popped up along the U Street corridor: View 14’s leasing center just opened this week. 

Located at the intersection of 14th Street and Florida Avenue, the 185-unit building boasts Zipcar services on site, a game room with Nintendo Wii, a sculpture garden and two landscaped roof decks. 

The condo-turned-apartment project took several years to wrap up, and construction will be “substantially completed” by mid-November, according to a press release. 

To celebrate its opening, an exclusive cocktail party will be held in December. 

FYI to the non-VIPs: The first 150 people to register on View 14’s Web site will receive a special invite to attend and check out the space. 

The property was developed by Level 2 Development LLC, in partnership with Centrum Properties of Chicago, and is managed by Bozzuto Management Co.

The New York Times
By: Daniel McGinn

For the condo developers Jeff Blum and David Franco, the evening of Sept. 14, 2006, couldn’t have been more perfect. For two years the partners had worked on plans to construct a nine-story condo building called View 14 at the intersection of 14th Street and Florida Avenue in northwest Washington. On this night, they welcomed nearly 1,000 potential buyers into a nearby furniture store that they’d transformed into a nightclub. A D.J. spun music while bartenders poured an orange concoction called the View-tini. And as the party hit its peak, the partners unveiled a giant Lucite model, complete with dry-ice fog and glowing lights, of their building, which would cost $55 million to build. ‘‘It was like the Detroit debut of a new car,’’ Blum says. ‘‘We had everything except the turntable.’’

The morning after the party, the View 14 sales center opened. Over the next few weeks, a crowd of potential buyers came through, ogling floor plans and artists’ renderings of the units, which had an average price tag of $500,000. The sales team signed contracts for the penthouses, with one fetching $1.2 million. But sales of run-of-the-mill units were agonizingly slow. ‘‘People loved the building, loved the finishes, but they weren’t writing contracts,’’ Blum says. According to the partners’ business plan, 50 of the building’s 180 units should have sold in the weeks following the launch party. But by early December, during a meeting with a key financial adviser, the partners closed the door to talk candidly. ‘‘We haven’t sold 40 or 50 units,’’ Franco said. They’d sold only 18. The adviser’s jaw dropped. A minute later, they gave him another shock: instead of selling View 14 as condos, Blum and Franco were thinking of converting the building — on which construction hadn’t yet begun — into rental apartments.

It’s an act of real estate hocus-pocus that’s starting to become common. ‘‘It’s happening all over,’’ says Greg Willett, the vice president for research at M/PF YieldStar, an apartment-market consulting firm. Willett saw the first signs of the shift in early 2007 in places like Washington, Boston and Miami, where the condo boom had been particularly frenzied. Buyers were realizing that condo prices had reached a plateau. The speculators who once loved to flip new-construction condos had disappeared. Instead of rushing in with deposits, buyers began taking a wait-and-see approach, hesitant to risk watching their investment lose value during the course of construction. The credit crunch that began in mid-2007 made things only worse. As condo demand has fallen, some developers have tried to adapt by turning their projects — some of them still in the planning phase, some partway through construction, some completely finished — into rentals. ‘‘We’ve been tracking this market for 35 years, and we haven’t seen anything like this,’’ says Gregory Leisch, the chief executive of Delta Associates in Alexandria, Va., which recently counted 15,000 capital-area condo units under development that would eventually hit the market as rentals.

Post District Extra
By: Jillian S. Jarrett

Level 2 Development has donated $1 million to the Sankofa Tenants Association for assistance in purchasing the Cresthill Apartment building, 1430 Belmont St. NW.

The 48-unit building provides affordable housing to district families.  Funds will also go toward renovating the 1920s building.  Planned improvements include appliances, heating and cooling systems and cosmetic repairs.  

Cresthill tenants organized the association and made an effort to purchase the building as a co-op to keep it affordable and low income.  David Franco; principal of Level 2 Development, said it donated the funds after learning that the affordability period for Cresthill had expired and that the building had to be sold.  

"We are humbled by the opportunity to assist the Sankofa Tenants Association in making their affordable housing home ownership a reality," Franco said.  

Washington Business Journal
By: Tierney Plumb

On Oct. 30, a D.C.-based real estate developer that specializes in mixed-use residential and retail projects around the 14th and U streets NW area held a ceremony for the groundbreaking of the View 14 Apartments.  Level 2 Development presented a $1 million check to the Sankofa Tenants Association for the association to purchase the 48-unit low-income Cresthill Apartment building.  With Mayor Adrian Fenty as the keynote speaker, the ceremony marked the start of construction of View 14, an $80 million development of 185 apartments and 34,000 square feet of retail space.  The affordable housing contribution is part of the View 14, an public benefits package, which also includes removal of the Comcast satellite dish farm and antenna tower at the site, a green roof, participation in D.C. employment programs and $40,000 in contributions to neighborhood organizations.  

"We are humbled by the opportunity to assist the Sankofa Tenants Association in making their affordable housing home ownership a reality," says David Franco, principal of Level 2 Development.  "It seals their rightful place in this community, and we are pleased to have them as View 14 neighbors.  

By: Barbra Murray

Plans move forward for the development of View 14, a 185-unit mixed-use apartment project in Washington, D.C., with tomorrow's demolition of a Comcast satellite dish farm. Removal of the six dishes and antenna tower, which have been an eyesore in the now blossoming 14th and U Street neighborhood for almost 20 years, will allow Washington, D.C.-headquartered developer Level 2 Development to kick off construction of the $80 million project late this spring. Celtic Demolition Inc. is orchestrating the teardown. 

By: Tom Ramstack

Developers and D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty applauded as a backhoe ripped down a large satellite dish at 14th Street and Florida Avenue Northwest yesterday, marking the end of the Comcast satellite-dish farm that has occupied the northeast corner of the intersection for 20 years. 

A new apartment building will rise on the site, which is at the north end of the U Street corridor. 

"I think this is the District of Columbia moving forward," Mr. Fenty said in a ceremony before demolition started. 

Real estate developer Level 2 Development plans to build a 190,000-square-foot apartment building at the site of the satellite-dish farm called View 14 with slanted bay windows that look toward the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument. The $80 million project is scheduled for completion in early 2009. 

It is designed with 185 apartments. Studios would rent for as little as $1,200 per month. One-bedroom apartments are planned to rent for an estimated $2,200 per month. Level 2 said it would open 34,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor of the nine-story building. 

By: Vikas Bajaj

WASHINGTON — David Franco’s illuminated model of a proposed 10-story condominium tower dominates a sales center that, in spite of the “Now Selling” banner still fluttering outside, is conspicuously closed for business.

“We could have waited it out and kept pushing and pushing,” Mr. Franco said about the decision to abandon plans to sell 180 luxury condominiums with floor-to-ceiling windows offering views of the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill. “But it would have taken significantly longer.”

The Current

Despite a slowing real estate market, small D.C.-based company Level 2 Development is breaking into the big-time condo market in a dramatic way, with two buildings and more than 400 condos slated for the 14th Street corridor, along with an innovative sales office to reel in the numbers needed to sustain such a vision.

The two-person firm, run by D.C. natives David Franco and Jeff Blum, has partnered with a Chicago development giant, Centrum Properties, which has been poised to enter the D.C. market for some time, according to Level 2 Development. The first building, View 14, is a nine-story, 180-unit, $80 million project currently in its pre-construction phase on the northeast corner of 14th Street and Florida Avenue. It will be completed by fall 2008.

The InTowner
By: Michael K. Wilkinson

View 14, 2303 14th Street and Nehemiah Center, 2400 14th Street. Level 2 Development is planning two large condominium buildings across 14th Street from each other. The first, View 14, which was the subject of an extensive report on the sale of the landmark Petrovitch building a year ago in this newspaper (“Longtime 14th St. Auto Repair Business Sells Property to Developer,” July 2005, page 1), includes 36,000 square feet of commercial space. At grade, the developer is marketing 16,000 square feet of retail space to small grocers, restaurants, banks and other neighborhood oriented, pedestrian friendly businesses. There are plans for an outdoor seating area on the Belmont Street side of the building. In the 20,000 square-feet of commercial space on the building’s lower level, the developer is in negotiations to install a state of-the-art fitness center.

Across the street, the developer plans to replace the Nehemiah Center, a one-story complex with surface parking, with a 225-unit condominium building designed by noted architect Shalom Baranes. The building will feature a rooftop pool and green spaces that extend from the lobby outside to the courtyard of the building, with units ranging from studios to two-bedrooms. It will include 18,000 square feet of retail at grade, which the developer will market in the same way as the street-level retail at View14.

The Washington Post
By: Lynn Thorne

Tatyana Schum was single, 30, and looking for new friends. So she decided to take action. No, she didn't sign up for "speed friending," hit MySpace or join a book club. Instead, she organized a condo crawl through her Park Fairfax neighborhood near Shirlington.

Now, a couple of times a year, Schum and her fellow Alexandrians spend an hour socializing at one condo owner's house, sharing everything from gardening tips to decorating ideas. They then move on to a kind of roving party at several other neighbors' condos that continues until late in the evening.

"I wanted to meet people," she said. "It seemed that there were so many young, single people in my neighborhood. And they were right there. But I didn't want to exclude anyone. It seemed natural to have the whole community involved."

DC Modern Luxury

Overview: Level 2 Development is a local development firm bringing a new and fresh perspective to condominium development in D.C. Two new mixed use development projects, View 14 and Twenty Four Hundred with their stunning designs and spectacular views of DC will anchor the north part of 14th and U Streets.  The projects will embody a new way of condominium living.  "Elevated Style", with their sleek Italian kitchens, floor to ceiling glass, intimate courtyards, cantilevered projects, rooftop pool (Twenty Four Hundred) and ecologically friendly components such as green-roof areas.  

History: Founded in 2004, Level 2 Development has grown quickly from small rehabs and infill projects to large mixed use communities.  Level 2 Development currently has over 400 units in planned development with its joint venture partner Centrum Properties of Chicago.  

Philosophy in Practice: We are committed to building well designed quality projects which involve our neighbors and enhance our communities.  We are not just selling a product; we are selling a vision, for both the customer and the neighborhood.  

By: Chris Kirkham

Offers to buy Paulo and Pedro Petrovitch's garage started coming in more than 15 years ago.

Their popular auto-repair shop at 14th Street and Florida Avenue NW sat on a spot that was increasingly in demand for development as the District's real estate market boomed.

But the Petrovitches sat tight, waiting for a buyer who would give them the one thing they wanted: a little extra time. They wanted to close the doors properly on their 35-year-old shop, which over the years had tuned the cars of former mayor and now D.C. Council member Marion Barry, former  defense secretary Robert S. McNamara and now- imprisoned former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R- Calif.).

Neighborhood residents and those who drive along 14th Street between Florida Avenue and Belmont Street Northwest have been intrigued at recent signs of construction preparation at the former site of an auto repair shop.

This stretch of 14th Street rises high above Washington with spectacular views of downtown. Level 2 Development LLC and Centrum Properties Inc. of Chicago have joined to develop a nine-story mixed-use project known as View 14 at this location, with an additional condominium building, 2400 14th St., across the street. 

SK&I Architectural Design Group of Bethesda has designed the building. The 275,000-square-foot View 14 project functions as a link between the Columbia Heights neighborhood and the U Street corridor, both of which have experienced growth and revitalization in recent years.

The In Towner
By: Rafael E. Valero

The Metropolitan Police Clubhouse #10, located in Lower Columbia heights at 2500 14th Street, a unit of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington, was the recent beneficiary of a $20,000 donation that will allow for the expansion of its tutorial programs.

With this funding provided by the city’s newest commercial real estate development group, the local owners of which have established their offices on U Street, Clubhouse #10 will now be able develop and implement educational activities focusing
on music, arts and crafts, along with further expanding its sports programs and the summer camp program, as well as setting up a state-of-the-art computer lab.

“We’re delighted to do our part in promoting youth programs in the community,” says David Franco, founder of Level 2 Development. “This donation is our little way to support the Clubhouse and help foster children and education in the Washington metropolitan area.”

The mission of the Boys & Girls Clubs is to help youngsters of all backgrounds, with an emphasis on at-risk youth; build confidence, develop character and acquire the skills needed to become productive, civic-minded, responsible adults.

Level 2 Development is not new to the 14th Street neighborhood. Just a stone’s throw from Clubhouse #10, the company is transforming two properties into high-end condominiums and up-scale retail stores. Plans include the redevelopment of Nehemiah Shopping Center, which is adjacent to the Clubhouse, along with the former Petrovich Auto Repair Shop property at 14th Street and Florida Avenue. (This latter project was the subject of a report in this newspaper a year ago. See, “Longtime 14th St. Auto Repair Business Sells Property to Developer,” InTowner, July 2005, page 1.)