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13 October 2003, 03:36 PM
D.C. Has Big Plans for Revival of Waterfront
By Neil Irwin - Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17996-2003Oct12.html
Southwest Washington is a rarity -- a 1960s urban redevelopment project that actually created a functional neighborhood.
That era produced innumerable sterile, wind-swept plazas and stark concrete buildings around the country. The area just south of Interstate 395 contains townhouses and apartment buildings that may look a bit dated but comprise a generally safe and comfortable middle-class neighborhood.
Comfortable, but not vibrant.
A short distance away is a waterfront of restaurants and nightclubs. To get there, however, a resident of Southwest has to walk several blocks and then cross 11 lanes of fast-moving traffic on Maine Avenue SW and Water Street SW, and then compete with the busloads of tourists who are dropped off at those establishments.
The D.C. Council last week approved a plan that seeks to change all that by turning the waterfront into a more bustling commercial center strongly connected to the neighborhood around it.
Now, city planners and the quasi-public National Capital Revitalization Corp. must navigate a thicket of economic and political challenges to execute the redevelopment. Even under the most conservative estimates it will take five years and cost $275 million.
"It's quite a ways before we get a shovel in the dirt over there," D.C. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) said.
The plan calls for the warehouse-style restaurant and nightclub buildings along the Washington Channel to be razed and replaced by bigger buildings with retail and restaurant space on the ground floor and apartments reaching six to 12 floors above. The area surrounding the open-air fish market at the northwest end of the waterfront would be refurbished; arts uses might be added at the southeast end, near Arena Stage theater. Parking lots would be placed underground.
To make room for those bigger waterfront buildings, Water Street would be torn up. The idea is to make Maine Avenue as pleasant for pedestrians as Connecticut Avenue. Planners envision tourists strolling down from the Mall or from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, now under construction near the 14th Street Bridge.
In total, the plan would comprise 700 to 900 residential units, perhaps 20 percent reserved for people with moderate incomes; a new hotel; and more than 230,000 square feet of retail.
One of the key hurdles is land. The D.C. government owns 40 percent of the 47 acres along the waterfront, mainly the land now occupied by Water Street. The National Capital Revitalization Corp., an organization chartered by the District that operates somewhat like a private developer, owns another 40 percent, mainly the land now occupied by the row of restaurants. The federal government owns the rest.
Even though the land is all under some form of public control, gaining the right to redevelop it could still be a challenge. That is because the restaurants that occupy the NCRC land now hold long-term ground leases for the sites. NCRC will have to give the restaurants sufficient financial incentive to agree to terminate their leases -- perhaps by assuring them a place in the new buildings. If those negotiations are unsuccessful, NCRC would attempt to force out the holdouts.
"We're having ongoing discussions with the businesses in what the development will look like, trying to understand what part they want to play in it," said Theodore N. Carter, chief executive of NCRC. "There'll be an ongoing dialogue. But we do have the ability to use eminent domain with council approval."
Many of the businesses affected are enthusiastic about the plan, but not all of them.
"I think people feel like development is necessary," said Thomas J. D'Amato, president of the Washington Waterfront Association and vice-president of Odyssey Cruises, located on the Southwest waterfront. "But there is no plan that will ever be unanimously approved by every individual involved with the waterfront. It's a business impossibility."
In addition, the District must figure out how it will pay its estimated $25 million bill for public improvements, which include eliminating Water Street and improving other public space, all in a time of tight budgets. Some residents of the apartments just east of the waterfront oppose the project, moreover, because they feel the apartment towers would obstruct their views of the Potomac.
"This may not go forward exactly as the council has approved the plan, in the height of the buildings and how many buildings are built on the Water Street property," Ambrose said.
Then there are the economic risks. The entire project is contingent upon the idea that private developers will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in an area they have long ignored. The waterfront redevelopment effort will be competing with the big new redevelopment of the former convention center downtown and other projects. If real estate developers believe the District is attracting more retail and residential development than its economic growth can support, even advocates of the redevelopment acknowledge it could be a tough road.
Planners remain confident, however, that the plan has enough flexibility and is slated to occur over a long enough time that it will succeed. That leads to the bigger question of whether Southwest, built 40 years ago as a merely functional neighborhood, can be transformed into one with more spice.
"The way it is now, cars are given precedence over people," said Andrew Altman, director of the D.C. Office of Planning and one of the architects of the plan. "We can make this into a unique space for the city where people want to gather."
Neil Irwin writes about commercial real estate and economic development every week in Washington Business. His e-mail address is irwinn@washpost.com.
By Neil Irwin - Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 13, 2003; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17996-2003Oct12.html
Southwest Washington is a rarity -- a 1960s urban redevelopment project that actually created a functional neighborhood.
That era produced innumerable sterile, wind-swept plazas and stark concrete buildings around the country. The area just south of Interstate 395 contains townhouses and apartment buildings that may look a bit dated but comprise a generally safe and comfortable middle-class neighborhood.
Comfortable, but not vibrant.
A short distance away is a waterfront of restaurants and nightclubs. To get there, however, a resident of Southwest has to walk several blocks and then cross 11 lanes of fast-moving traffic on Maine Avenue SW and Water Street SW, and then compete with the busloads of tourists who are dropped off at those establishments.
The D.C. Council last week approved a plan that seeks to change all that by turning the waterfront into a more bustling commercial center strongly connected to the neighborhood around it.
Now, city planners and the quasi-public National Capital Revitalization Corp. must navigate a thicket of economic and political challenges to execute the redevelopment. Even under the most conservative estimates it will take five years and cost $275 million.
"It's quite a ways before we get a shovel in the dirt over there," D.C. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) said.
The plan calls for the warehouse-style restaurant and nightclub buildings along the Washington Channel to be razed and replaced by bigger buildings with retail and restaurant space on the ground floor and apartments reaching six to 12 floors above. The area surrounding the open-air fish market at the northwest end of the waterfront would be refurbished; arts uses might be added at the southeast end, near Arena Stage theater. Parking lots would be placed underground.
To make room for those bigger waterfront buildings, Water Street would be torn up. The idea is to make Maine Avenue as pleasant for pedestrians as Connecticut Avenue. Planners envision tourists strolling down from the Mall or from the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, now under construction near the 14th Street Bridge.
In total, the plan would comprise 700 to 900 residential units, perhaps 20 percent reserved for people with moderate incomes; a new hotel; and more than 230,000 square feet of retail.
One of the key hurdles is land. The D.C. government owns 40 percent of the 47 acres along the waterfront, mainly the land now occupied by Water Street. The National Capital Revitalization Corp., an organization chartered by the District that operates somewhat like a private developer, owns another 40 percent, mainly the land now occupied by the row of restaurants. The federal government owns the rest.
Even though the land is all under some form of public control, gaining the right to redevelop it could still be a challenge. That is because the restaurants that occupy the NCRC land now hold long-term ground leases for the sites. NCRC will have to give the restaurants sufficient financial incentive to agree to terminate their leases -- perhaps by assuring them a place in the new buildings. If those negotiations are unsuccessful, NCRC would attempt to force out the holdouts.
"We're having ongoing discussions with the businesses in what the development will look like, trying to understand what part they want to play in it," said Theodore N. Carter, chief executive of NCRC. "There'll be an ongoing dialogue. But we do have the ability to use eminent domain with council approval."
Many of the businesses affected are enthusiastic about the plan, but not all of them.
"I think people feel like development is necessary," said Thomas J. D'Amato, president of the Washington Waterfront Association and vice-president of Odyssey Cruises, located on the Southwest waterfront. "But there is no plan that will ever be unanimously approved by every individual involved with the waterfront. It's a business impossibility."
In addition, the District must figure out how it will pay its estimated $25 million bill for public improvements, which include eliminating Water Street and improving other public space, all in a time of tight budgets. Some residents of the apartments just east of the waterfront oppose the project, moreover, because they feel the apartment towers would obstruct their views of the Potomac.
"This may not go forward exactly as the council has approved the plan, in the height of the buildings and how many buildings are built on the Water Street property," Ambrose said.
Then there are the economic risks. The entire project is contingent upon the idea that private developers will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in an area they have long ignored. The waterfront redevelopment effort will be competing with the big new redevelopment of the former convention center downtown and other projects. If real estate developers believe the District is attracting more retail and residential development than its economic growth can support, even advocates of the redevelopment acknowledge it could be a tough road.
Planners remain confident, however, that the plan has enough flexibility and is slated to occur over a long enough time that it will succeed. That leads to the bigger question of whether Southwest, built 40 years ago as a merely functional neighborhood, can be transformed into one with more spice.
"The way it is now, cars are given precedence over people," said Andrew Altman, director of the D.C. Office of Planning and one of the architects of the plan. "We can make this into a unique space for the city where people want to gather."
Neil Irwin writes about commercial real estate and economic development every week in Washington Business. His e-mail address is irwinn@washpost.com.