Posts about 16th Street Heights

The plan covers the 20-block stretch of 14th Street NW from Spring Road to Longfellow Street. It includes three distinct commercial nodes: Spring Road to Shepherd Street, Webster to Decatur Street, and Jefferson to Longfellow Street. (This portion of 14th Street has been referred to as "upper" 14th Street for as long as I can remember, but the Office of Planning is now referring to it as "central" 14th Street.)

The 2010 population of the study area was 14,370, showing an increase of about 300 people since the 2000 census. The population growth is encouraging, but the plan notes that because the population hasn't reached the level of the mid-20th century (the high population was 16,736 in 1960), the corridor has too much commercial space for the number of people that the spaces are meant to serve. That means greater density is necessary to make new businesses viable.

The plan points to Longfellow Flats, a newly renovated 14 unit condominium at 14th and Longfellow Streets, as one of a few projects that will help to attract more residents to the corridor. The site of the CK Motel, and 14th and Quincy Streets, is also slated for residential redevelopment.

Can the bus barn move?

The site with the largest potential for both commercial and residential redevelopment is the WMATA bus barn, along the eastern side of 14th Street from Buchanan to Decatur Street. Redeveloping the bus barn as a mixed-use project would likely catalyze the rest of that node and perhaps the rest of the corridor, but to redevelop the barn, WMATA has to find another location for the 175 buses that are currently housed there.

One idea, to construct a new bus barn on the site of the old Walter Reed hospital, has been an issue of much contention between residents of Ward 4's 14th Street and Georgia Avenue corridors. Both Mayor Gray and Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser have voiced opposition to that idea. As an alternative, the plan recommends excavating a level beneath the existing bus barn to house the buses, allowing for the above-ground structure to be redeveloped.

Another complication is that the bus barn is quite an attractive structure. Constructed in 1907 and designed by the prominent Washington architect Waddy Wood, the building is likely eligible for historic designation. Between this and the dilemma of finding an alternative for WMATA, the bus barn is likely to stay for at least the next decade.

In lieu of redeveloping the bus barn, the plan identifies 3 sites in the Webster-Decatur node that could serve as catalysts.

• The WMATA bus barn parking structure on the northern end of the bus barn property. This is not eligible for historic designation and therefore could be redeveloped for mixed-use within the next 5 years.

• DSK Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which owns the entire 4500 block of 14th Street with the exception of the Exxon gas station, has plans to construct a new sanctuary that will face 14th Street. It will include an Ethiopian cultural center on the Buchanan Street side.

• The Value Furniture store, the former home of the Park Theater, which opened in 1924 but shut its doors just four years later. As the second largest site (75,000 square feet) in the study area with single ownership, it has the best potential for redevelopment within the next 5 years. It could easily become 2 or 3 floors of residential space above ground floor retail, an ideal spot for a neighborhood-serving grocery store.

The plan recommends focusing on attracting unique retail, such as second hand shops, specialty food shops, and culinary incubators (the plan includes a photo of Boston's Crop Circle Kitchen culinary incubator as an example of what could be). The goal is to fill niches between the chain stores to the south in Columbia Heights and the proposed Walmart to the north in Brightwood.

Affordable space for artists?

The Jefferson-Longfellow Street node has its wide sidewalks, some as wide as 20 feet, that are perfect for pedestrian-oriented activities, such as a farmers' market. However, there's also a high commercial vacancy rate, which the proposed Walmart store on nearby Georgia Avenue will likely exacerbate.

The plan recommends focusing on arts-related uses in this area, with a focus on artists who have been priced out of other neighborhoods and who might be attracted to the area's relatively large spaces. OP recommends designating this area as an Arts Cluster and listing the node's vacant commercial spaces in the DC Creative Retail Space Bank in order to advertise their availability.

The area can build on its existing positive features, such as the mature tree canopy, attractive housing stock, and walkable neighborhood atmosphere. The plan makes several recommendations for improving the area's aesthetics while strengthening pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure, as well as connectivity between the three commercial nodes.

Better transportation

A number of recommendations would improve mobility, including:

• Upgrade bus service. 14th Street is one of WMATA's Priority Corridors. Improvements like making traffic signals adapt to the buses, having people pay before boarding the bus, and more could speed up travel and make buses more reliable and productive.

• Add Capital Bikeshare stations. OP recommends placing a Capital Bikeshare station at or near the intersection of 14th and Kennedy Street during DDOT's next round of station installations.

• Increase car sharing options. To give residents a choice not to have to own or drive personal vehicles, OP recommends collaborating with DDOT to target off-street locations for car sharing companies. Two possible locations are the parking lot of DSK Mariam Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the parking lot of the Children's Medical Care Center (14th and Kennedy Street).

OP plans to create a task force of community residents and stakeholders who will help determine which recommendations are the highest priority. Community and business associations can also help find resources, programs, and grants to bring specific recommendations to fruition.

To give your comments on the plan, mail them to OP or (more likely) email Gizachew.Andargeh@dc.gov by February 3, 2012.

Cross-posted at The Brightwoodian.

Mike DeBonis recently highlighted an even bigger failure: Upshur Park, where the grass actually caught on fire. DPR opened the park to great fanfare earlier this year, but then again didn't water the new trees and grass.

DPR followed up with DeBonis to tout Walter Pierce Park, which looks green and verdant. However, DeBonis noted, that might be because it isn't open yet.

DPR is also putting in irrigation at several of its playing fields. But this highlights what many parks advocates say is the issue: a focus on the recreational facilities, like pools, indoor rec centers, and athletic fields, over parks. Ironically, says a former DC government employee, under Mayor Williams the department was renamed to put parks first. Apparently the semantic change didn't translate to policy.

There's been a lot of upheaval at DPR in recent years. Mayor Fenty had 4 separate directors for the agency, one of whom Council refused to confirm amid controversies over contracts that were allegedly improperly routed through DPR. The Williams administration saw similar turnover rates in the job.

Perhaps the biggest cause of problems is funding. Over the last 5 budget cycles, DPR's budget was cut by 47%. It's hard to keep up maintenance of a growing set of parks and rec centers in that climate.

Now, park maintenance is slated to transfer to the new Department of General Services, which could mean it'll get the attention it needs, or it could mean it slips through the cracks entirely.

Perhaps parks slip through the cracks so much because DC has so little actual parkland that's not run by the National Park Service. Maria Barry, the volunteer president of Friends of 16th Street Heights Parks (including Upshur Park, the one that caught on fire), says that many calls to 911 about crime in the park end up routed to the Park Police, even though Upshur and nearby Hamilton Park are not federal and MPD has jurisdiction. Since almost all parkland is federal, dispatchers sometimes erroneously assume that all parkland is.

Tommy Wells now has oversight over DPR on the Council. Will he be able to make any changes? He could fight for more budget, though everyone else has pressing budgetary needs as well. Should he push for any structural reform? Some have suggested creating a separate park division, which could ensure some staff focus on parks, or it could simply rearrange the org chart to no real effect depending on how it's implemented.

When Kwame Brown announced he's open to an income tax increase, he stipulated the money go to maintaining schools, rec centers, and parks. That's a change from earlier promises to use extra money for affordable housing, but could alleviate DPR's woes.

Parks are a significant piece of building a good city for neighborhoods of all types and for all residents. We need to show that DC parks can be great. Failings at DPR aren't an excuse for NPS not to do better, but if DC could make its parks a model for urban parks, it would certainly help set an example for other, federal parks around the city.

14th Street between Spring Road and Longfellow Street contains three main retail nodes identified in the study. From the south, the first is between Spring Road and Shepherd Street; the second, centered on WMATA's bus barn, is between Webster and Decatur streets; and the third, between Jefferson and Longfellow streets, is centered on the intersection with Colorado Avenue.

Project consultants presented on residential and non-retail potential, retail conditions and concepts for streetscape possibilities.

Streetsense's Heather Arnold talked about retail strategies for the corridor. She performed an inventory of existing retail services in the corridor and analyzed spending habits by residents, area employees, and visitors to see what types of purchases currently being made outside the neighborhood could instead be made on 14th Street.

Arnold noted that retail along the corridor should serve a different purpose than Walmart or Target. Instead of competing on price or selection, retailers must serve a different need by being representative of the neighborhood and offering convenience and quality service. There is little market demand to construct new retail space in the area, Arnold said, but there will be normal retail turnover in the next decade.

The retail node near the WMATA bus barn seems strongly positioned to fill neighborhood needs. A small grocery could serve as an anchor for the area to keep more retail dollars in the neighborhood.

Because it is a local-serving retail strip not far from big-box retailers, this node shares many parallels with Mt. Pleasant Street, a revitalization project Arnold and Ferretti are also working on with DC Office of Planning. Arnold noted that attempting to attract customers from across the city "would cause more problems than it would solve," leading to potential parking and noise issues. In addition to neighborhood residents, employees at the bus barn already form a base of customers for retail in this area.

Analysis for the northernmost node, centered on Colorado Avenue, had to be reset after the plans for Walmart were announced. Because proximity to Walmart would significantly impact what kind of retail could be successful at this end of the corridor, Arnold recommended that the area build upon the relocation of renowned artist Sam Gilliam to the neighborhood and build an arts cluster, creating a destination for unique products that have no overlap with Walmart's offerings.

This concept for this type of arts cluster is consistent with Office of Planning's own Creative Action Agenda, which seeks to foster artistic and creative industries within the District.

Abby Ferretti of Partners for Economic Solutions presented a study on the market in the corridor. Her analysis examined supply and demand for residential and non-retail commercial space within the corridor.

Ferretti identified three market demographics that might play an increasingly important role in the neighborhood: millennials drawn to walkable urban neighborhoods; Latino families that expect to see increased income in the coming years; and single women looking to purchase residential units.

In the next decade, Ferretti forecast that the 14th Street corridor would see 300 new rental units and 120 new for-sale residential units, created through either new construction or conversion. Because the area is not a regional office or retail destination, Ferretti expects that the corridor would see modest growth in the amount of non-retail commercial space, growing by 18,960 square feet over the next decade.

Since the area is a quieter residential neighborhood that is convenient to downtown but off the beaten path for tourists, one possibility for new non-retail businesses is bed and breakfasts. Ferretti cited a cluster of B&B's along 12th Street NE in Brookland as an example for the corridor.

Otto Condon of ZGF Architects & Planners. Photo by the author.

There are specific sites within the three retail nodes that offer opportunities for streetscape improvements, such as parking lots near the WMATA bus barn, surface parking and traffic islands near Colorado Avenue and some building facades north of Spring Road. Specific streetscape recommendations will be made later in the study process.

The study's southern boundary is Spring Road. The commercial zone in this area—of Tivoli North controversy fame—extends south to Monroe Street in Columbia Heights. This plan will address the connection to Columbia Heights, even though it is officially focused on an area entirely within Ward 4.

Heather Arnold noted that the commercial area south of Shepherd Street attracts customers from Columbia Heights. "While we aren't suggesting that this area becomes some kind of Columbia Heights North, we are suggesting it would be foolish...not to benefit from that customer draw a couple blocks to the south," she said. The major challenge to drawing customers northward, she noted, is the derelict block between Meridian Place and Oak Street.

Despite stopping short at the Ward 4 boundary, the 14th Street Revitalization Strategy is taking a holistic approach to revitalizing retail nodes that are not usually in the spotlight of the city's economic development agenda.

If you are interested in getting involved as this plan progresses, contact Giz Andargeh, Project Manager, at (202) 724-4314 or Malaika Abernathy, Ward 4 Neighborhood Planner, at (202) 442-7600.