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I am repeating myself, but this is important. Simply put: what an incredibly poor use of space right next to a Metro Station served by two (soon to be three) lines! Did we really spend billions of dollars building Metro so that we could use valuable land adjacent to a station for a single use that is blocked off from adjacent neighborhoods, creates little vitality or economic activity and adds little to (perhaps even subtracts from)the District’s tax base?

The District already has an excellent plan for Reservation 13 to create a mixed-use development that will extend Capitol Hill’s street grid and:

* leverage and capitalize on our investment of billions of dollars in Metro;
* add residents, businesses and tax revenue to the city;
* create hundreds (thousands?) of units of housing with easy transit access (a one-seat ride!) to almost all major DC, Arlington and Fairfax employment centers, and
* finally give my neighborhood the businesses and services we so sorely lack.

It makes little sense for Mayor Gray to turn his back on years of planning and community involvement and turn this incredibly valuable land over to a billionaire sports team owner. (And not just any billionaire sports team owner, but a billionaire sports team owner who has a terrible track record on countless issues, has alienated most if not all Redskins fans and will probably block all non-paid public access to this property and the riverfront park beyond it.) Barney Circle and Hill East deserve better. Instead of a grocery store, some restaurants, a dry cleaner and some other services next to our Metro Station, we have a vast, poorly maintained surface parking lot that serves as a storage area for District Government vehicles, with abandoned and poorly-maintained District Government-owned buildings as a backdrop, all of it fronted by a high-speed, one-way expressway for suburban commuters who have little regard for pedestrians. Indeed, when looking at the design and urban fabric of 19th Street SE, one can only conclude that our elected officials care more about suburban motorists than about the neighborhood residents (and District taxpayers) walking to Stadium-Armory Metro. Stadium-Armory Station opened in 1977. Think of what Arlington, one of the District’s main economic development competitors, would have done with Reservation 13 by now!

To give (or even sell) this land to Daniel Snyder would be an incredibly short-sighted and unimaginative move.

by rg on Mar 2, 2012 10:22 am • link • report