Posts about Adams Morgan

The crowd was as diverse as the community, with life-long residents and newcomers alike speaking in opposition to the moratorium. Fewer than 10 people spoke in support of the moratorium. Comments were impassioned, but civil.

According to the meeting announcement from the ANCs,

The moratorium, as proposed, would seek to prohibit all future liquor licenses with the exception of full service grocery stores, it seeks to cap CT and CN licenses as well, and has been requested to be a 5-year moratorium. The boundaries of the moratorium as proposed and filed with ABRA, extend 1800 feet in either direction from Ben's Chili Bowl. This goes north to Clifton Street, south to R Street, east to just before Georgia Avenue. between 7th and 8th streets, and west to just west of 16th Street. overlapping New Hampshire Avenue. NW.

The community discussed a liquor license moratorium for the neighborhood in 2009, when a committee of residents studied the "ARTS" zoning overlay for 14th and U streets and made recommendations to modify it. There were 8 public meetings, and the 27 area ANC commissioners advised increasing the number of liquor licenses in the area.

Moratorium brings harm in Adams Morgan

Business leaders in Adams Morgan are now preparing for an upcoming March 2014 review of the moratorium in their community. A major nightlife destination, Adams Morgan is often invoked as a sort of boogeyman for policy impacting commercial districts, a warning of what might happen on U Street if something is not done to curb issues of noise, trash and crime.

But along 18th Street, the heart of Adams Morgan, a moratorium means that the kinds of businesses that might actually mitigate some of these issues—like higher end restaurants—aren't able to move into vacant spaces unless they wish to purchase an existing liquor license, something that can cost up to $75,000 in the market the moratorium has created. In 2010, the Alcoholic Beverage Control board unanimously lifted a similar moratorium in Georgetown.

There are better solutions than a moratorium

Those of us who have served the U Street community understand that there are serious issues that need to be addressed as our commercial district continues to thrive. But a liquor license moratorium serves as a blunt instrument in a situation where more precision is needed.

There will certainly be cases when a proposed liquor establishment is not the right fit for the space it wishes to occupy. The community will often support an establishment but with certain caveats that can go in a legally-binding "settlement agreement," which serves as a rider to the liquor license. We already have tools to address these issues. But we also need to pursue long-term solutions to the other impacts when residents and businesses are situated so closely.

We should seek funding for hospitality initiatives that train and support business owners. We should support opportunities to create more daytime foot traffic that would support retailers such as offices or hotels. And we should come together around green initiatives that would reduce trash, noise and pollution.

A liquor license moratorium is not the solution to all of our problems. The community has spoken on this issue in the past as it did last night, and it's time to put it to rest so we can focus our attention on real solutions.

Real collaboration is what helped U Street begin to thrive more than 10 years ago and it is what will help us continue to grow in a way that fosters business growth while also making our neighborhood a great place to live.

The Washington City Paper has chronicled many incidents over the years at this rather infamous corner, tucked behind Adams Morgan's main commercial strip. A Maryland teen was recently killed at the Woodley Park Metro station after a fight ensued from an earlier robbery that took place in this immediate area.

More than 5 years ago, the Metropolitan Police Department installed a closed-circuit TV camera here. Whether that is responsible for scattering activity elsewhere, or just changes in the neighborhood, the corner is now quiet. The Euclid market has been demolished, and the shell of the coming condos is yet another subtle sign of change and transition in the neighborhood.

The average [such] trip is 2 hours, 48 minutes. 76.1% of [these] trips generate usage fees. Breaking that down between casual and members, 86.0% of casual incurred fees on these rides while 18.8% of members incurred fees.

4) Casual vs. members usage fees. 40.7% of casual rides incur fees. 3.3% 3.3% of member rides incur fees.

*Using GPS elevation data so all caveats apply. And it only factors in station-to-station elevation change.

Corey added in an email, "I've already taken the time to clean the data and get it into a usable database. So if there are specific questions you'd like to be answered I can easily put together a query to get those answers (and I'm sure the others can as well)."

What would you like to know about Capital Bikeshare usage? He can't necessarily investigate everyone's questions, but if anyone posts some interesting questions that catch Corey's eye, maybe he will analyze them for us.

"To me, Wheaton should be more of an Adams Morgan, more of a village-like environment," said Greenberg, who added the many apartment projects were an encouraging sign. "The reasons why places like Adams Morgan are popular is that they are high-demand areas where there's lots of activity. You have young people living in accessible locations. Wheaton needs to be a place where people want to go, not just go to work and leave at the end of the day."

But let's be clear: The the real Adams Morgan is shops and restaurants at street level (most of which are locally-owned), apartments above, buildings hugging the street. The result is lots of activity and lots of people, just as Leonard Greenberg describes.

That's quite different from the things Leonard Greenberg has built. More specifically, below is an image of just one of several one-story, single-use strip malls he's built around downtown Wheaton over the past 25 years.

I'm sympathetic with Greenberg's argument that the county dropped the ball on allowing more development in Wheaton when the economy was strong. He understands that you need housing and retail to make a neighborhood vibrant like Adams Morgan.

Nonetheless, Greenberg still went ahead and built not one, but several new retail buildings in downtown Wheaton, all of which have several vacancies and whose former tenants complain of unfairly high rents. That wouldn't be a problem if, when the market improves, you could just drop apartments on top of his strip malls. But it's not that simple.

Instead, we have sizable chunks of downtown Wheaton that are stuck as strip malls and parking lots, and which will continue to be until those buildings wear out, which is probably several decades from now.

The Gazette article makes another interesting point about the Computer Building, which is located on Georgia Avenue south of Reedie Drive. Developer Lowe Enterprises wants to convert that building from offices to apartments, which would require displacing current tenants:

Stuart Cohen would have to move his Environmental & Turf Services company, which he said relies on its proximity to the Wheaton Metro station for access to Washington, D.C. Michael Trembley runs the American Career Institute, a vocational school and one of the Computer Building's biggest tenants. Trembley said finding new office space near a Metro station would be a top priority for the school's nearly 300 students.

It's ironic that the move would displace existing offices, given that the county and developer B.F. Saul, which have partnered to develop several acres around the Wheaton Metro station, want to build nearly a million square feet of new offices in the downtown. That space, however, will likely command higher rents than offices in the Computer Building, making it difficult for Environmental & Turf Services or the American Career Institute to relocate there, resulting in a possible net loss of the kinds of business, at least in part, that Wheaton development projects are trying to attract.

Vibrant urban neighborhoods come from a mix of uses like housing, retail and offices. Hopefully, the new Wheaton Sector Plan and zoning code rewrite will allow Leonard Greenberg to build what he wants, not just strip malls.

Vibrant neighborhoods also come from a mix of old and new. If we want downtown Wheaton to become Montgomery County's answer to Adams Morgan, we should retain existing businesses, be they a pupusa shop or a vocational school. Perhaps the county and B.F. Saul could work out some kind of subsidy for displaced businesses who'd like to locate in a new office building.

If we can do all of these things, we can ensure that Wheaton becomes an even better place to live or visit without sacrificing what already makes it so great.

By the 1960s, the neighborhood was changing. After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April 1968 and the ensuing riots, the theater's old clientele were virtually gone. The following year, the theater switched to a Spanish-language format, the first theater in DC to cater to the burgeoning Latino community.

By the early 1970s, Sunday afternoons at the Ontario became the social center of the Latino community. Extended families would show up every week; for recent immigrants, spending Sunday at the Ontario represented a chance to attend an enjoyable, affordable social event on the one day of the week they had free.

This stability was threatened in 1977 when new owners took over and tried to convert the theater back to its former first-run format, on the theory that Adams Morgan had been taken over by yuppies. "There is no Spanish Community here any more," one of the new owners was quoted as saying. In response, Latinos picketed the theater, issuing a statement asking, "Who says we don't exist?" The Spanish-language films were soon restored to the all-important Sunday afternoon time slot.

Throughout the rest of the week, the Ontario took on a new life as the venue for some of the leading rock and punk bands of the era, including The Clash, Blondie, U2, and the Police. The promoter who booked these and other artists would go on to organize the celebrated 930 Club downtown in the mid 1980s. At that time, the Ontario was sold yet again, and the new owners tried to re-establish a first-run movie format.

The attempt didn't work this time either, and the theater closed in 1987. The building was then divided up for various retail businesses, including a drug store, discount store, and other shops. The theater has been vacant for the last several years.

The Historic Preservation Review Board is scheduled to consider a landmark nomination for the Ontario at its November meeting. The current owners are reportedly considering redeveloping the property as condominiums.

It would certainly be a shame if nothing can be saved of the Ontario. Besides its rich cultural history, the theater is also unique architecturally, representing a mid-century modern aesthetic as expressed by one the leading movie theater architects of the 20th century, John J. Zink, who also designed the Uptown Theatre.

The Ontario, of course, isn't nearly as beloved as the Uptown, and it has several potential strikes against it. Many people just don't care for the mid-century style, which has far fewer followers than does the art deco design of the Uptown. Additionally it's been decades since it was actually in use as a theater. An entire generation hasn't had the chance to see a movie there. Furthermore, it's run-down and simply looks ratty.

There have been other occasions when historic buildings were destroyed because they were decaying and dilapidated. Perhaps the most notable was Rhodes Tavern, one of the most historic buildings in the city at the time, which was torn down in 1984 despite a citywide referendum endorsing the need to preserve it.

Built around 1800, the little tavern at 15th and F Streets NW, had been one of the first meeting places of the young city's new government. Designated an historic landmark, it was the subject of an intense effort at preservation. But it was in bad shape. Part of it had been torn down in the 1930s, and the remainder looked out-of-place and even "ugly," in many critics' view. So in the end it came down and was replaced by a large, respectable-looking office building.

Will the Ontario share this same fate? Should it? Isn't there some way to develop this underused property without completely obliterating the old theater?

The InTowner strongly warns against this project:

With the proposed Florida Avenue project towering over the adjacent Strivers Row Historic District, a new neighborhood organization in Adams Morgan called Square 150 has come into being, particularly in response to the prospect of a seven-story behemoth to be constructed across the street from this historic district of small, two- and three-story row houses on V Street and Seaton Street.

Viewing Florida Avenue elevations of the proposed 1711 building—where one would be looking north and up the hill—versus looking south and viewing the modest, late 19th century houses of Strivers Row, one is provided with dramatically different perspectives. The immediate question thus raised concerns the issue of compatibility of the proposed new building's height and massing with the existing topography and built environment.

The building is currently a 3-story garage with some small retail shops on the ground floor. The owners would keep some of the parking and add additional housing on top, including 10% affordable housing, as well as expanding the retail bays.

Having mid-rise buildings in close proximity to historic townhouses is a common occurrence in DC. My own house is directly across an alley from a building 3 times the height. The ends of many blocks, or the edges of neighborhoods, often have height transitions. Just because this proposal is a bit taller, but still not that tall even for DC,

The InTowner article also notes some disagreement over the community benefits. Planned Unit Developments such as these require a developer to offer amenities to the public in exchange for zoning relief. Like many proposals, it counts architectural quality as one benefit. While this building looks perfectly fine, it's not going to become the most beloved building in the neighborhood.

Besides that, the developer is offering to build a Capital Bikeshare station and include some electric charging stations at low rates in the garage. According to the InTowner, they also have expressed a desire to fund some undefined improvements to the nearby Marie Reed recreation areas and set up a jobs agreement to hire local workers.

The owners also have offered to include covenants prohibiting tavern-class liquor licenses, the kinds of alcohol-serving establishments that many feel Adams Morgan already has in overabundance. Still, the project would require exempting the property from the Reed-Cooke Overlay, which limits overall building heights more strictly.

In their filing, the developers argue that "ironically," the project better fulfills the stated purposes of the overlay, including bringing in affordable housing, without the zoning restrictions of the overlay, and that it's less appropriate to keep this property in the overlay whose convoluted shape centers around more central neighborhood areas farther north.

The Zoning Commission should insist on top-quality design and meaningful community benefits for this project, but denying it or trying to shrink it because it would be a "towering" "behemoth" shortchanges the neighborhood in the long run and would just keep more residents of all incomes out of DC.

To get the detailed documents, search for "11-11" on the Office of Zoning case search. Unfortunately, it's not possible to link to an individual case or its component documents.