Posts about Buzzard Point

The current Metropolitan Police Department headquarters at Judiciary Square is outdated and needs to be replaced. It's in such poor shape that MPD employees would have to move somewhere else if the building were renovated.

Meanwhile, the Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services and the Department of Corrections are temporarily moving from their obsolete facilities on Vermont Avenue to the Reeves Center. All three government agencies are in need of new permanent headquarters, but the catch is that there are currently no funds allocated to building them.

Slate business and economics correspondent Matt Yglesias recently argued that this site should be used for affordable housing instead. While he's right that DC needs more housing, the Buzzard Point site doesn't make sense for housing under current market conditions. Akridge bought the land that currently sits idle as a parking lot in 2005. They hoped to build an office building but the GSA refused to lease space there, saying the 15-minute walk from the Navy Yard Metro was too far.

There was a residential construction boom when Akridge bought the land in 2005, and there's one happening now due to limited supply and high rents. If they thought that they could sell or rent new homes there, they would have already done so. The Buzzard Point site is a vacant parking lot because there simply isn't enough economic incentive to build there.

If DC United moved to Buzzard Point, the land would become more valuable, much like the Capitol Riverfront after Nationals Park opened. The District could gain tax revenue from surrounding vacant properties as they were developed. Now in private hands, the highly valuable properties at Judiciary Square and 14th and U could also raise tax revenue for the city.

This gives DC more funds that could be used for affordable housing programs. Meanwhile, the market rate housing supply would increase due to new residential buildings at 14th and U and Buzzard Point. (The Judiciary Square site would presumably be used for commercial uses.)

The increase in housing supply would help stabilize rents. Individual buildings may not do much to stabilize rising rents, since they are only a small part of the new supply needed to meet demand. However, every little bit counts.

While the District of Columbia needs more market rate and affordable housing, it can accomplish those goals without throwing around money to induce development where there's no demand for it. Perhaps that was the only option available to our forebears in the second half of the 20th century, but the present situation is different with a growing, desirable city and private investors like Akridge and DC United falling all over themselves to invest in the District of Columbia.

It appears that the District government understands the present circumstances and is negotiating to indirectly use this private investment to improve city services, increase its tax base, and increase its housing supply without having to issue debt that would affect its bond rating. That's exactly how a growing city should operate.

Disclosure: I'm a member of the Barra Brava, an iconic independent DC United supporters' group.

Top: The Spirit of False Creek 3. Bottom left: Cape May-Lewes ferry.
Bottom right: NY water taxi. Images from Wikipedia.

An operator stands on a platform in the center and drives the boat with a few joysticks and handles, while passengers sit around the edges. It operates a lot like a bus; in fact, the drivers even cruise past some of the docks and won't stop if nobody's waiting to get on or off.

The False Creek ferries only ply a route about 2 miles from end to end as the crow flies, or 3 route miles, zigzagging back and forth across the waterway.

Besides Granville Island and the science museum, they stop at a maritime museum, science museum, and a space museum with a planetarium and observatory. A stop in Stamps Landing takes you to a neighborhood with a lot of restaurants, and another, Yaletown, is a district with many new condo towers.

False Creek Ferries route map.

Each stop is only about 2-5 minutes apart, and costs $3.25 to $6.50 CAD depending on how far you go. The most popular route, the aquatic center to Granville Island, runs every 5 minutes from 7 am to 9 pm, or 10:30 pm in the summer. The other routes run every 15 minutes from about 9 am to 5-6 pm (depending on destination) in the winter and 7-9 pm during summer.

Best of all, the ferries actually operate completely self-sufficiently. In fact, there are 2 ferry companies that compete with one another!

Is this relevant to DC? It turns out that False Creek is about the size of the Anacostia:

False Creek (top) and Anacostia River (bottom) at the same scale. Images from Google Maps.

While not very wide, the Anacostia is a mighty gulf separating two sides of the river. For a long time, there was little on the banks of the Anacostia, on either side. But that is changing. We already have the ballpark, and Yards Park. Buzzard Point could get a soccer stadium.

On the east, Poplar Point is slated for development, possibly including a boulevard from Anacostia Metro to the water's edge. Historic Anacostia is not far from the river. Plus, if DC builds the 11th Street Recreation Bridge, we could have a significant attraction right on the river.

A ferry bouncing back and forth across the river, with stops at all of these attractions, could bring the two sides closer together than ever before and make the water a public space. These 7 stops cover a route about 2 miles long, or about the same length as the part of the the False Creek Ferries route network east of Granville Island.

Potential ferry stops on the Anacostia. Image by the author on Google Maps.

The Buzzard Point stop would be near a future soccer stadium and the Poplar Point stop at the end of a retail-lined avenue leading to Anacostia Metro. A stop at the 11th Street recreation bridge would connect directly to the streetcar and to all of the activities on the bridge, as well as being a short walk to Historic Anacostia.

A set of office buildings is going in the triangle east of the 11th Street Bridge and south of the freeway, and once the freeway segment to Barney Circle gets turned into a boulevard, there could be a pedestrian connection from the water up to Capitol Hill and Potomac Avenue Metro. Sadly, the CSX railroad bridge is too low for boats to travel under, so the ferries couldn't reach Hill East.

None of this precludes other types of ferries, like the longer-distance water taxis from places like Alexandria or Georgetown, or even farther south in Virginia, if those make sense. Those would use larger boats, running much less often.

Could this ferry system work here? I'll give my take in Part 2. Meanwhile, what do you think?

No surface parking

Parking garages are extremely expensive. Neither Buzzard Point nor the Florida Market have the space for acres of RFK-style surface parking. Without any government support in the form of road building or eminent domain, it wouldn't make fiscal sense for DC United's ownership to spend lots of its own money on parking structures when both sites are proximate to Metro stations.

It took government intervention back in the late 1950's to subsidize building all the parking lots at RFK Stadium. Other un-urban stadiums like Detroit's Ford Field took government support in the form of zoning and road building. Neither DC United site would require altering the existing street grid and both sites appear to be selected because they wouldn't require road costs to the District.

Integration with the street grid

Because the District has no interest in offering subsidies in the form of rebuilding streets, the new soccer stadium would have to be designed around existing infrastructure. The celebrated human-scale L'Enfant Plan would be largely undisturbed.

Proximate transit access

The Florida Market site is a five minute walk from the NY Avenue Metro station on the Red Line. The Buzzard Point site is a 10-15 minute walk from the Waterfront and Navy Yard stations on the Green Line.

Pedestrian-friendly connection to transit

South Capitol Street is too wide in places with too-fast traffic. However, it is safe to cross at M St. because the faster traffic is in a trench. The walk from the Waterfront station down Delaware Ave. SW and 2nd St. SW is very safe. They are small neighborhood streets with 25 mph speed limits. The Florida Market site is along Florida Avenue NE. It's a little wide but the there is enough activity to slow down the traffic. It's not a suburban arterial or a partially grade-separated street.

Frequency of events

Between its Major League Soccer regular season games, U.S. Open Cup, CONCACAF (North American) Championships, and friendlies, DC United holds approximately 30 games during the season. Other events would want to use the facility too, such as the U.S. National Men's and Women's soccer teams, concerts, college sports, other pro sports, etc. 60 events a year is a reasonable estimate. The schedule for the Los Angeles Galaxy's soccer stadium, the Home Depot Center illustrates the diversity of events held.

Vibrant surrounding urban area

The Florida Market site is within close proximity to the H Street, NE nightlife area. The coming streetcar on H Street will better connect the stadium with existing popular restaurants and bars.

On the other hand, Buzzard Point is a largely forgotten corner of the city. It's been cut off by I-395 since the 1960's. Because of its remote location, it would be politically easier to build there because of the lack of potential anti-neighbors. This location represents an opportunity to bring attention and real estate demand to a forgotten corner of the city.

The Buzzard Point site has many things in common with the area around the Navy Yard Metro before the construction of Nationals Park in Near Southeast. While the area surrounding the baseball stadium hasn't magically become Dupont Circle, it is no longer forgotten. Real estate demand near the Navy Yard Metro is now far greater than before it hosted the ballpark.

The main thing holding it back from progressing towards its potential is the tight global financial environment. While I'm not a baseball fan and think the District got a bad deal on the financing of Nationals Park, I think it's unfair to say that the redevelopment of the stadium's surrounding environs "failed." The redevelopment process is going to take years and will ultimately be for the better.

Looking back into history, some of the best pre-WWII stadiums in the United States also displayed excellent urbanism. They added a sense of place to their surroundings and were considered jewels in their cities. Those great stadiums were built under similar circumstances to a new DC United stadium; they received little government support. They had to use existing infrastructure and squeeze their footprint into existing city blocks. In both the pre-war stadiums and a new DC United stadium, necessity is the mother of invention.

Disclosure: I'm a member of Barra Brava an iconic independent DC United supporters' group.

Images from Google Maps

Both of these sites have positives and negatives to them.

The Buzzard Point site is currently an underused parking lot in an area that has not seen the development it was promised during the planning stages for Nationals Ballpark. Of course, this underdevelopment is likely at least partially due the site's biggest downside: relative remoteness.

The nearest Metro stations are about 8 blocks to the north, and the site is served by a single rush-hour only bus route, the 71. Across from the site is historical Fort McNair—beautiful, yet completely off limits.

The Florida Market site, on the other hand, is only a few blocks from the New York Avenue Metro station, and along several major bus lines, but currently sees significant use, which would ostensibly be displaced.

The current market is a major hub of wholesale food sales for area restaurateurs and, as Richard Layman and Frozen Tropics have written, has resisted development attempts before.

Ward 2 Council Member and Finance Committee Chairman Jack Evans has expressed his desire to work with the team "to build and finance a new soccer stadium," though it's unclear if that means the District would cover any of the costs. If the city were to pony up any funds for a stadium, it should use them as leverage to ensure the best outcomes for whatever neighborhood the venue ends up in.

What does this mean? First, it means guaranteeing that what is built is a truly urban stadium. Cavan examined the characteristics this requires the last time DC United was searching about for a new venue, and we discussed it more recently when Evans let slip that he'd like to bring the Redskins back to the District some day.

Most purpose-built MLS arenas hold 18-25,000 fans. The beauty of a smaller stadium is that meeting these criteria is much easier than with one of the 100,000 seat monstrosities that professional football teams demand these days.

If the District and the team can work together to create a small-scale stadium that fits into the urban fabric of its host neighborhood, reduces or eliminates surface parking and is part of a mixed-use development that can be used more than 30 times a year and promotes a lively streetscape outside of event days, they might produce a project worth the city's investment. Of course that's a big if.

They recommend having the DC government buy the Coast Guard property once it becomes vacant and turning it primarily into a park, marina, or other open space, and pushing for 100 V to become housing, perhaps for military families and federal employees.

To improve access to the site, the PAT suggests reroutting the planned streetcars. Current plans have them traveling along M Street from the east and west and turning south on 1st Street SW. The team instead suggests an alignment that leaves M Street between 1st St SE and 4th Street SW, traveling past the ballpark, along Potomac Avenue to Ft. McNair, then along P Street to Southwest Waterfront. They'd extend Potomac Avenue one block to the Ft. McNair gate and create some commercial development like stores to serve people at the fort. The Potomac Avenue and P Street route could also become a primary pedestrian connection to the adjacent neighborhoods.

Finally, the team cautions DDOT to take care when designing the future traffic oval at South Capitol and the Federick Douglass Bridge to ensure it is welcoming and safe for pedestrians rather than another forbidding zone with nothing but speeding cars.

The PAT is supposed to put their presentation online and later a final report. For those of you who are planners, please stop the annoying practice of showing a snazzy PowerPoint at a community meeting, then taking weeks to put it online. I know that there's always something you want to fix or you'd like to create explanatory Web pages accompanying the presentation, but it makes it very hard for interested people to discuss your ideas. If the presentation is good enough to show the community, it's good enough to put online.