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WHY TRACK DEVELOPMENT?
The Economic Partnership began tracking development at the beginning of 2001 with the hopes of answering a number of frequently asked questions about the nature of development activity in the District of Columbia. While it was clear that a significant amount of construction and renovation was taking place, it was difficult to quantify. Through our research, we discovered that there were some good sources of information, but none were truly comprehensive, including both public and private projects, new construction and renovation, commercial and residential, institutional and infrastructure. Our goal was to create a comprehensive database of development activity that would help us find answers to the following questions:
- What is the make-up of development activity?
- Where is development activity occurring?
- What are the trends?
- How much is being invested in our community?
WHAT DO WE TRACK?
Projects over $1 million
Because of the tremendous amount of construction activity and staff resources required to maintain the data, we established a minimum threshold of $1 million to be included in the database.
WHO?
Developers & Architects – As two of our primary sources of information, we maintain contact information on developers and other controlling interests in development projects.
Financing Sources – Whenever possible, we identify public and private funding sources.
Sources of Information – Because we track data from a variety of sources, we identify sources of attribution for each record in our database.
WHAT?
Project Name – Project names are generally the name of the building or the development. However, when projects are referenced by different sources with different names, we use the most commonly referenced name of the project. When there is no name for the project, projects are referenced by address.
Costs – We track total development costs including both hard and soft costs associated with a project. Whenever possible, we use actual costs provided by the developer or from building permit data. Sometimes, however, it is necessary to estimate project costs. When estimating costs, we use $300 per sq. ft. for office, $200,000 per unit for residential including single-family and multifamily over four stories and $100,000 per unit for multi-family four stories and under, and $125,000 per room for hotel. Because retail costs vary significantly depending on the project and tenant finish out, we do not estimate retail development costs based on a sq. ft. or unit costs.
Square Footage – We try to obtain the total gross sq. ft. of the project when possible, in some cases we must use the RBA sq. ft. For mixed-use projects, we break out the sq. ft. associated with each major use, and in the case of residential and hotel developments we track the number of units and rooms.
Description – Complex projects and mixed-use development include a description that highlights key components and other points of interest about a development project.
Photo – Many of the projects in our database include one or more photos, renderings, elevations or other illustrations.
Type – Components of each project are categorized as one of the following:
- New Construction
- Renovation
- Infrastructure
Use – Each project is categorized by type of use. For mixed-use developments, we capture the sq. ft. for each of the following:
- Community
- Educational
- Entertainment
- Government
- Hotel
- Industrial
- Medical
- Museum
- Office
- Residential
- Retail
Number of Units – For residential projects, we track the number of units of both new construction and renovation. The number of new residential units does not necessarily reflect the net new units on the market because it does not account for units take out of the inventory.
Number of Rooms – For hotel projects, we track the number new rooms and renovated rooms. The number of new rooms does not necessarily reflect the net new rooms on the market because it does not account for rooms take out of the inventory.
WHEN?
Groundbreaking – The groundbreaking can be the date of a groundbreaking event or the date that a building permit is issued on a project.
Delivery – Delivery date is an estimate of when a project is scheduled to be completed. For completed projects, this is the date that the project was completed.
Status - Each project is tracked by status and defined by one of the following categories:
- Proposed – Proposed projects are defined as a potential development where a developer, individual, or organization has ability and interest in developing a project and has made that interest public.
- Planned – Projects are defined as planned when a developer has site control and funds committed or the project has received approval from the Office of Zoning.
- Under Construction – Projects are defined as under construction once a building permit has been issued on the project or groundbreaking event has occured.
- Completed – Projects are defined as completed once the first certificate of occupancy is issued on a project, except in the case of a multi-phase project, where each phase of the project is tracked separately.
WHERE?
Enterprise Zone – Each project is identified as being located in a primary or secondary enterprise zone.
Ward – The Ward identified for each project is based off of the 2000 Ward boundaries.
Zip Code – Zip codes are tracked for mapping purposes as defined by data from our geographic information system (GIS) and may not reflect the actual US Postal zip code for that address.
Street address – Street addresses are tracked and geocoded, allowing us to map development activity.
WHERE DO WE GET OUR INFORMATION?
To capture the most comprehensive inventory, we use a variety of sources to gather information about development activity, and whenever possible, we contact the developers directly to get the most up to date and accurate information available. Often our research uncovers discrepancies in available data on project information such as sq. ft., cost, number of units, etc. When this occurs, we try to reconcile the differences by speaking directly with parties involved in the development. Other sources of information are:
- Architects
- Brokers
- Building Permit Data
- Certificates of Occupancy
- CoStar
- Developers
- The Downtown DC Business Improvement District
- FW Dodge
- Newspapers & neighborhood newsletters
- DC Office of Planning
- Office of the Deputy Mayor of Planning & Economic Development
- Revenue Bonds
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