Posts about Stronghold

Residents in these camps concerned about development at the site have organized two groups, Friends of McMillan Park and Sustainable McMillan. The groups' leaders claim that Envision McMillan virtually ignored the ideas community members presented in the various public listening sessions.

In fact, the team has significantly altered the plan based on community feedback. It now has much more open space, with 13.55 acres overall, including a 4-acre central park and 8 acres of large, public, open spaces. The team also added a grocery store, a library and a community center.

The plan mixes preservation and growth

Envision McMillan comprises 9 architecture, design, landscape architecture, and consulting firms selected as the site's developer by the DC Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The District government bought the site from the federal government in 1987 and has sought to develop it ever since.

The majority of the existing above-ground structures on the site would be retained and repurposed. The plan calls for preserving more than one of the underground sand filtration cells for visitors to explore. The historic McMillan Fountain, currently in storage at the adjacent federally-owned McMillan Reservoir, would sit in a prominent location in a public plaza on the site.

The southern row of cylindrical sand silos would form the border between the project's central park and a cluster of row houses, which would match the architecture of the surrounding neighborhood. Stormwater runoff from the site would be completely captured on site by using state-of-the-art runoff management techniques.

Envision McMillan seeks to draw a grocery store and an eclectic mix of local retailers. Developers hope to create approximately 4,000 jobs at all levels as part of new healthcare office space on the northern end (adjacent to the VA hospital and Washington Hospital Center).

Additionally, the city plans to sponsor job-training programs to help District residents qualify for these jobs. 100 housing units will be designated as "affordable senior housing," and a mix of workforce and market-rate housing will be available throughout the site.

The team responds to community concerns

The next step for Envision McMillan and project supporters is to win the public-relations battle by convincing residents of the area, and the entire city, that the current plans represent the most appropriate balance of competing community needs and desires.

Traffic has been a central area of concern for nearby residents. First Street NW, in particular, is often bumper-to-bumper at rush hours between Michigan and New York Avenues, and Bloomingdale residents fear this will get worse once new homes, offices, and shops open up at McMillan. Envision McMillan analyzed current traffic to help create a plan to efficiently move people to and from the site, both by car and by other modes.

The study showed that there are no safe pedestrian crossings of North Capitol Street between Michigan Avenue and Channing Street. The restrictions on left turns from North Capitol onto Michigan from both directions cause more traffic to flow onto neighborhood streets. Cut-through traffic also overtaxes the alleys in the neighboring Stronghold neighborhood.

Envision McMillan's traffic plan calls for building 2 new through streets across the site from North Capitol to First NW, reducing traffic flow on existing neighborhood streets. It also recommends 2 new signalized intersections along North Capitol, and widening the North Capitol and Michigan Avenue intersection. Almost all of the parking on the site would be below ground.

But perhaps more importantly, the plan would enhance access to the site by non-automobile modes, thereby reducing the number of cars that will have to move through the surrounding neighborhoods. It proposes a transit hub on the north end with frequent Circulator buses connecting to the Brookland Metro station, a hiker-biker trail along North Capitol for the length of the site, several new sidewalks, and two Capital Bikeshare stations on the site—one near the grocery store and one in the middle of the mixed-use medical office/retail complex.

Yes, the surrounding neighborhood will feel growing pains as new residents, shoppers, and medical clinic patients move in. But maintaining the site as it is, empty and off-limits to the public, benefits nobody.

The only viable alternative to the status quo is some form of development. Putting this residential and business development in an urban neighborhood where people can take advantage of existing infrastructure at modest incremental cost makes the most economic and environmental sense. The long-term benefits to the region of developing the site in a conscientious way far outweigh the short-term costs.

Envision McMillan has proposed a plan for intelligent development and adapted it around reasonable concerns from the community. The plan will create a desirable place to live, work, and shop that retains both the character of the neighborhood and the uniqueness of this historic site.

The design team presented three very basic plans, all of which include a mix of retail, office, open space, row houses and multi-family residential (condos, apartments and/or senior living). Reflecting community feedback, the taller office buildings are located to the northwest corner of the site, near First Street, NW and Michigan Avenue. The plans call for lower buildings and setbacks in the east to match the row houses across North Capitol Street in Stronghold.

All plans include a grocery store, likely facing North Capitol with parking on the roof or below ground, as well as probably some protected angled or parallel parking, like on Connecticut Avenue in Cleveland Park. Developer Jair Lynch, however, offered some words of caution in his remarks on the grocery store. Comparing statistics of Bloomingdale and surrounding areas with Georgetown and Barracks Row, he made the case that the site is not yet at the point where locating a grocery store there would an obvious choice for a retailer based on include median income, dollars per mouth spent on groceries, and dollars spent dining out.

A representative of DC's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development assured one group that there would be space for community activities in the site as well, probably located within the retail areas.

The southern half of the site will have approximately 150 row houses and open space, the configuration of which was the focus of much of the discussion. Residents voted with stickers on sheets of paper to indicate what they'd like to see reflected in the final design.

Popular choices included an "outdoor amphitheater, rain gardens/stormwater management, reuse of silos/cells, [and] relocation of [the] McMillan fountain, reported @evoque. One group, apparently unsatisfied with the choices, created an additional choice, "MUCH more open space," which received a good number of votes/stickers.

Talk of "daylighting" Tiber Creek, which runs dozens of feet below the southeast corner of the site, seems to have been deemed unworkable, although water features that recall the creek were discussed.

Area residents seemed split on how to configure the row houses and open space. Some prefer houses on the south portion of the site, in order to continue the Bloomingdale neighborhood, others would like to see the open space separate the new from the old, to delineate the difference between traditional Bloomingdale and the historic McMillan site.

The most iconic element of the McMillan site is the silos and the two brick "service courts" that surround them. All three designs seem to using the north court for a driveway, while keeping the silos. The south court seems to be destined to be more open, probably integrated with adjacent open space.

Again reflecting community feedback from prior meetings, of some of the underground historic cells that once housed sand that filtered DC's water will be preserved and possibly integrated with open space or used for retail.

Each cell is about an acre, or about twice the square footage of the entire Spy Museum. The general talk seemed to be around preserving two or three of the approximately 25 cells on the site.

Residents seemed to appreciate this open, collaborative process, but at times displayed disdain that so much of the site (approximately two-thirds) would be used for new buildings. Other lingering criticisms of redevelopment include the increased traffic the development is sure to bring and storm water runoff issues, because Bloomingdale has a history of flooding downstream of the site. It also remains to be seen what effect, if any, the transfer of power to Mayor-elect Gray would have on site plans.

The next and final community meeting is set for Saturday, December 4th where presumably more detailed plans will emerge.