Developer Q&A: WC Smith Senior Vice President Brad Fennell

D.C.-based developer WC Smith has been active for decades in neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. It is currently co-developing the major Skyland Town Center project, planning a redevelopment of the Terrance Manor community, and earlier this year signed the first Chipotle east of the river at its Shops at Park Village retail center in Congress Heights. Bisnow caught up with WC Smith Senior Vice President Brad Fennell to get the latest on the developer's activity. 

Bisnow: You had a major milestone earlier this year when you broke ground on Skyland Town Center. This project has been in the works for many years and had its ups and downs with Walmart pulling out. What did it feel like to finally break ground?

Fennell: It was as an incredibly long and arduous process to get to that point. We were euphoric to get to the stage where we could be showing the community our commitment beyond words with actions. A tremendous amount of equity went into the project and we were thrilled to get that first shovel in the ground.

Bisnow: In terms of the retail at Skyland Town Center, I know you’ve signed CVS, have you gotten any other tenants? How has the leasing activity been?

Fennell: Rappaport is managing the leasing on the retail side, we’re there supporting and watching that process. I can say the retailers are showing a lot of interest in Skyland. But I think that when that building comes up out of the ground and you start seeing the frame, which is happening now, you can see columns have broken through the ground and the scale and size of the project is evident. I think we’re going to see more interested retailers lining up as we come into the first and second quarter of 2019. The project is going to deliver in 2020, so that seems to be appropriate for them to focus on their decisions and make commitments to Skyland and get through their build-out plans in time to open with a strong showing.

Bisnow: Once the project delivers and you start to see activity there, what do you think the overall impact is going to be on the neighborhood?

Fennell: It’s transformative. There’s no question it’s a game-changer for the community at large to take what was a hodgepodge of retail built out in a disconnected and unplanned way and turn it into a unified town center concept. It’s going to bring services and opportunity to the community that the community has longed for, and it’s going to provide housing opportunity and housing choice that hasn’t been seen east of the river in decades. The development that’s been going on primarily has been focused on tax credit-funded projects that have income qualifications. So to build at this scale and to transform at this scale I think is going to be very exciting for the neighborhood.

Bisnow: You acquired the Terrance Manor property following the bankruptcy proceedings and are planning to demolish the buildings and build a new 128-unit project. What is that development going to look like?

Fennell: Terrance Manor sits on edge of the Villages of Parklands, a property we’ve been involved with since 1991. It was really just in a sad situation with families exposed to deplorable living conditions and we felt compelled to want to step in and to act. So we feel the best plan for the property is to tear it down and to bring back a new residential project, an elevated building that provides community spaces and a fitness center and a business center and quality of building that is befitting of the community. So that’s what were doing. We need cooperation with DHCD to bring about funding to make that happen. We just submitted the latest round and we’re anxious and hopeful that we’ll be successful.

Bisnow: What’s your expected timeline for that? When do you hope to break ground?

Fennell: I think that the timing is somewhat beholden to the district’s decisions on providing support. We just submitted for the current round, and that will take some time for the city to work through. In the best-case scenario, I think we could see ourselves breaking ground by the end of next year.

Bisnow: Are you providing temporary replacement housing for the existing Terrance Manor residents and are they going to be coming back once it's redeveloped?

Fennell: Within the first month of acquiring the property, we worked with the 13 families who were still residing there and we provided adequate relocation opportunities for each of them. We’re in constant contact with them, we work hard to stay connected and I know they’re very anxious for the new Terrance Manor to come to life and they will be the first residents who will occupy the new building.

Bisnow: You own the Shops at Park Village property where you signed Chipotle to its first east of the river location. What does that say about the changes the area is experiencing?

Fennell: It’s a great indicator of a strong future. We worked hard through the mid-2000s and brought Giant, the first supermarket to open in Ward 8 in many decades, and that happened in 2007. So to see the strength of the center still there, to see that 10 years later the metrics are positive and we’re continuing to grow in terms of our opportunities I think speaks to the larger community and the great things that are happening up and down the corridor, certainly with the opening of the Mystics facility at St. Elizabeths and all of the work going on down there there. I think it bodes well for future activity.

Bisnow: Do you see this property as a future redevelopment play given the proximity to Metro at Congress Heights and the St. Elizabeths redevelopment with new athletic facility. Do you think in the future you could add density and housing to this site?

Fennell: I think the Shops is really an important retail offering for the whole Congress Heights neighborhood, and right now we’re focused on delivering the best services and the best stores and providing the most convenience for the neighborhood. We haven’t really been discussing a redevelopment at this time.

Bisnow: Regarding the overall neighborhood, your outlook on Congress Heights and the surrounding area, do you see this as an area that is poised for significant revitalization and growth with all of that activity happening?

Fennell: Yeah, it's part of the continuing story of the closeness and proximity of Ward 8 to the rest of the city. I started my first real project in the late 1980s and extended along South Capitol Street. I reflect about how disconnected Ward 8 was from the rest of the city and how through lots of public investment and infrastructure how much closer it has become to the rest of the city, and I think opportunities are opening up in a lot of different ways. You see it whether its down in Anacostia or Congress Heights or you look back over at Skyland, you see economic opportunity and vitality. Even extended on South Capitol Street where new investments are going in. It’s great to see and I think it’s offering the community tremendous opportunities.

Bisnow: Do you have any other projects in the area that you’d like to touch on?

Fennell: We have THEARC. The Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus. When it opened, it was a 110K SF center that had 14 nonprofits. We just recently opened up the latest phase of THEARC, which added over 90K SF of building and major partner commitments, including the Bishop Walker School for Boys, the Children’s Hospital is expanding its medical services there, Apple Tree is one of the anchor tenants and a black box theater opened to complement the full theater located in an earlier phase.

So now, THEARC is over 200K SF of building capacity and providing homes for nonprofits who are doing incredibly important work offering services to the larger community. That's one that’s really pretty impressive in terms of something that grew out of an idea of a community center. We developed the Village of Parklands in the early 1990s, that was a 54-acre property with 1,300 units that we took on. Today we’ve grown to over 110 acres and over 2,000 units of housing. We’ve got the shops, which is over 100K SF of retail, and now THEARC over 200K SF of community space. It has been a tremendous, prolonged investment and provided a real anchor to that community in terms of opportunities.

Bisnow: You have been involved in Ward 8 for decades now. Why did you decide to be active in the area and are you seeing more developers pay attention to it now?

Fennell: We’re celebrating our 50th anniversary year this year and Ward 8 has been part of our DNA from our origin. We’re D.C.-centric as a company, and we love the platform of being in all neighborhoods, in all communities and providing opportunity at all levels. What drew us across the river in part was that sense of opportunity, that we could make a difference and we could invest in communities and that’s what we’ve done and it's been a great experience.

In terms of seeing more people, yeah it’s amazing how few were there and how many are there now. When you drive through the neighborhoods you see opportunity or you see projects really either within your field of vision or right around the corner, and that certainly wasn’t the state of things 25 years ago.