Ward 8 - Greater Greater Washington

Vacancy at the Parkway Guest House abandominium

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:14:00 EDT

Perched atop a hill overlooking historic Anacostia, tucked behind a new condominium development is an abandominium from an era the city has left behind and this neighborhood is trying to forget.

A sign for new condos lays on the ground, the Parkway Guest House abandominium in the background.

From the 1960s until the last decade the Parkway Guest House was a gathering spot for drugs, prostitution and all forms of illegality. During the 1990s it essentially became "a cheap crack hotel," according to activist William Alston-El. "This was the place you could go to die if you wanted to. They had so much drugs up in here it was crazy."

According to tax records, Stanton View Development LLC purchased this abandominium (SSL 5807 0008) and the empty land around it in January 2012 for an even $1,000,000. A placard on the ground announces the coming of 46 new condos at River East at Anacostia Park and encourages folks to reserve their units. The website, however, advertises a less ambitious development that has yet to break ground. For now, this cracked-out abandominium abides, stuck between time awaiting its next guest or demolition.

A look inside the Parkway Guest House

No Vacancy at the Parkway Guest House. All photos by the author.

On a recent visit Alston-El and I found the building wide open. As we entered through the front door we found two handwritten notes to the left of the pay window.

One, bearing the date "5-8-97," reads, "Excessive smoke will set off smoke alarms. Anyone caught tampering with these devices will be banned from these premises. Fire dept. Detective The Manager!!" Beneath reads, "NO DRUGS POSSESSION OF DRUGS OR USE OF DRUGS ON OR IN THESE PREMISES IS PROHIBITED NO WARNING MGR." A concentrated layer of dust covers the yellow phone books on the counter. Alston-El picks up a "NO VACANCY" sign.

We move through the house makings odds on which we expect to find more of, drug paraphernalia or antiques. In a back room former guests have left their mark on the wood paneling.

Graffiti inside the Parkway Guest House.

"'Pootah Boo' from that South Side MOB MUGGIN HARD DRIKIN HENNESEY BUSTIN Off the Roof At My enemies Watch em bleed Till Im 6 feet DEEP" was here. So were "Frank & Rita '92" who proclaimed their love by drawing an arrow through a heart and two smiley faces.

Alston-El points to the floor at an empty green drug baggie. "Yep, that's crack. Yeah, this is still the place you can come and do your thing only now it's better, no room fare for an abondominium," he says with a laugh.

Out in the hall a mirror reflects the emptiness and darkness of this place as we move towards the back of the vacant building and past another reception area. The intercom next to the rear door emblazoned with "Parkway Guest House" in black trimmed gold-lettering stopped working years ago. We hit the stairs to rooms 6, 7, and 8.

Rooms 6, 7, and 8 of the Parkway Guest House abandominium.

Upstairs, a narrow hallway leads past three rooms. Much of the ceiling in each is now on the floor. Through the windows, sun refracts off the siding of the Grandview Estates, a 46-unit complex that opened nearly four years ago alongside hopes of local economic regeneration. Further down the hall in room 8, the roof has given in.

The roof of the Parkway Guest House is starting to collapse.

"You don't see this sort of craftsmanship anymore," Alston-El says as he unwinds an antique Ruby Red Glass Globe Exit sign from a light fixture above. Were you to follow the exit blindly, you would go out the door and fall to the ground below.

The upstairs exit of the Parkway Guest House leads to the ground below.

For Anacostia and the surrounding neighborhoods of Hillsdale, Barry Farm, and Ft. Stanton, the initial step towards sustained economic revitalization can be a doozy. The contrast of a new condominium complex filled with young professionals side-by-side with a vacant building equally accessible and dangerous to roving populations of the area's homeless, substance addicts, and prostitutes will continue to be the prevailing paradox east of the river, from Talbert Street SE to Brandywine Street SE, until greater public and private investment is joined by robust citizen activism and wherewithal.

The concentration of abandominiums from single family homes to apartment buildings to the Parkway Guest House presents a portfolio that with the right leadership, partnership and vision presents as much opportunity as challenge. Now that restaurateur Andy Shallal has announced his plans to open new franchises in Takoma and Brookland, it seems a logical location to begin expanding east of the river would be in an abandominium such as the Parkway Guest House.

25 comments

What school will go to St. E's?

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 08:50:00 EDT

by David Alpert

DC is looking for academic institutions for a tech hub at Saint Elizabeths. The city put bidding for mixed-use development on hold until it finds the right university first. (City Paper)

Comment

ANC commissioners, pay attention!

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 09:06:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Anacostia's ANC failed to support a liquor license for a restaurant trying to open there because some commissioners didn't bother to read the materials or pay attention. (City Paper)

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Parking minimums impede Anacostia

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 08:25:00 EDT

by David Alpert

One obstacle to Anacostia revitalization? Parking minimums. Getting zoning relief is costly and time-consuming, a large burden for businesses and nonprofits like the Anacostia Playhouse. (City Paper)

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Fire deaths in abandominium raise call for action

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:41:00 EDT

by John Muller

Two people died in a fire last week in a vacant low-rise apartment building in Fairlawn. Meanwhile, Mayor Gray pledged $100 million towards new affordable housing. The two together present a clarion call for solutions to the housing problems east of the Anacostia River.

Community activist William Alston-El outside of the former Parkway Guest House, 1262 Talbert Street SE. Photos by the author.

"Marion Barry told Gray the only way he's going to get re-elected, if the Feds don't get him first, is if he plays that affordable housing game," said community activist William Alston-El. "But it ain't a game, it's a matter of life and death. His pledge is too late for them two. [Mayor Gray] needs to come out to the neighborhood and see how people on the lower level are living."

Over the past year, Alston-El and I have toured the Anacocostia neighborhood's extensive portfolio of abandominiums. As dangerous as guns, HIV/AIDS, alcohol, and drugs, the accessibility of vacant properties is a public health concern.

What happened at 1704 R Street SE?

Anacostia High School just down the way, a group of women sit with a child on the front stoop of 1706 R Street SE, next door to the boarded-up middle row building, 1704 R Street SE, where a two-alarm fire took the lives of 2 squatters days before. Yellow tape surrounds the scene. Police cruisers idle across the street as we walk by acknowledging their presence.

Front of 1704 R Street SE in Fairlawn, the scene of the deadly fire.

The smell of smoke and burnt wood is still thick in the air. "It smells like death out here," Alston-El says before explaining his connection to one of the deceased; he boxed with her brother while imprisoned in Lorton. "There aren't too many Toogoods around." We walk around to the alley to investigate.

A large sandy colored cat bounds over a backyard fence and suddenly stops, plopping down in the charred remnants in the rear of 1704 R Street SE. "Get away from here," yells an onsite fire restoration specialist as the feline scurries away. He approaches us and asks our credentials, "We're reporters looking for the truth," Alston-El offers.

Rear of 1704 R Street SE.

At that the man who says he's been "standing next to dead bodies for 10 hours," begins to tell us the circumstances he knows.

"All indications are that the four-apartment building had been modified by the people who had been living here without permission," he says. "The bottom right dwelling, how you got into it, before the fire, was you opened the door but someone took a piece of plywood and sheeted that off from the inside probably for their own protection against someone injuring them while they were sleeping. That became the cause of death.

"When the fire started in this room here, in the back right, and I mean right because everything in construction is discussed facing the front of the building, so when it started in the back right and really started to spread it's really very difficult for the human mind to run through 1,400 degrees."

I ask if the cause of fire is known. "No, that's under investigation. So they didn't have a way out and were overcome by smoke. Passed out. There was no skin injury when we found them they just suffocated from lack of oxygen. The entire inside of the building is 100% unstable. My job is to structurally support the building so they can do an investigation to answer the question you just asked which is, 'How did it start?'"

Reports from the DC Fire Department corroborate the restorationist's details. "After the heavy volume of fire was knocked down, units re-entered the building, where they located two civilian fatalities. Two firefighters were hurt in the early stages of the firefight and taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries."

According to Alston-El, Toogood was an alcoholic with a bad leg and had been living in the abandominium for three years. "No wonder she didn't make it out. Somebody was firing up their drugs, something went wrong and they dipped out leaving that fire behind."

Police have been canvassing the neighborhood seeking information and any eyewitness accounts of a third party fleeing the blaze.

With a housing crisis, buildings should not remain vacant

Mayor Gray made it a priority in his State of the District address to provide more affordable housing. One place to start is to push for action on existing abandoned buildings the city already owns, or where bureaucratic hurdles are blocking owners' progress.

Take the sprawling Bruxton abandominiums at 1700-1720 W Street SE, still owned by the "DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUITE 317" according to tax records. A sign from the Department of Housing and Community Development announces "No Trespassing or Dumping."

City-owned abandominiums, 1700-1720 W Street SE.

In separate colors someone from the neighborhood has spray painted "FUCK" "CRuddy" just beneath the sign. The winter has slowed the ivy's growth which has begun to cover the banner advertising "spacious" 2 bedroom / 2 bath homes "coming soon."

The District has given affordable housing developer Manna the rights to redevelop the Bruxton, but it remains boarded-up and vacant to this day. A Manna staff member commented in March of last year:

SE Manna, Inc. is committed to making this property part of a vibrant Anacostia community. Manna was awarded the property in 2009 through the District's PADD program and began developing the property as the Buxton Condominium. Along the way, Manna has invested over $300,000 in pre-development costs and has encountered several "speed bumps" those in the affordable housing field would be very familiar with, including:
Permitting issues dues to lack of water availability;

The District's Department of Housing and Community Development terminated our contract on the building, though we were in compliance with all terms. This decision was reversed through the intervention of Mayor Gray, Deputy Mayor Hoskins and DHCD Dir. John Hall;

The units were originally priced from $170,000-$205,000. Manna soon realized that the market in this neighborhood could not bear that price, applied and received funding through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program to reduce prices to $95,000-$140,000.

Manna is currently in compliance with all terms required by DHCD and its private lender, including 9 units pre-sold. The Buxton is awaiting DHCD approval to move forward and we are eager to begin this project, and continue to market the available units to qualified buyers.

City needs help reporting abandominiums

Although the city owns its share of abandominiums or has initiated the long and involved litigious process of getting vacant or blighted properties back into productive use, the greatest number of abandominiums are held by tax delinquents, absentee owners, or dissolved companies.

"Because these vacant properties are privately owned, we are bound by very tight statute on what we can reasonably do," said head of the DC Office of Consumer and Regulatory Afair's Vacant Building Enforcement Division, Reuben Pemberton, respected in Anacostia for his responsiveness and attendance at civic meetings.

Pemberton works with 4 investigators. In order to classify a property as vacant or blighted it has to have two inspections.

"We have a lot of eyes out there in the neighborhood. People can send us an email at vacantbuildings@dc.gov or call 202-442-4332 to report a property," Pemberton said. DCRA's Vacant Building Enforcement division performed more than 4,200 inspections in fiscal year 2012 and is on schedule to do more than 5,000 this year.

10 comments

Tech will come before mixed-use at St. E's

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 08:02:00 EDT

by David Alpert

DC will hold off looking for a developer for a town center in St. Elizabeths East until they first look for a university and tech company (possibly Microsoft) to anchor a hoped-for tech campus. (WBJ)

Comment

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Barry Farm street names reflect post-Civil War history

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:42:00 EDT

by John Muller

For denizens of the Barry Farm community in Southeast Washington, the 19th century still holds strong at the corner—Charlie's Corner store. The neighborhood's street names memorialize Union generals and Radical Republicans who advanced the rights of black Americans during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Zabia Dews, the "Mayor of Barry Farm," outside Charlie's Corner store at the junction of Sumner and Wade Roads SE. Photo by the author.

"Look up at these street names," says Zabia Dews, 63, of the 2700 block of Wade Road SE, pointing to signs above for the junction of Sumner Road SE and Wade Road SE. "There's a history here people don't know about, or they forgot. We can't let it disappear."

The original names remain today: Howard Road SE, which runs past the Anacostia Metro Station, for General Oliver Otis Howard; Sumner Road SE for Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner; Wade Road SE for Ohio Senator Benjamin Wade; Pomeroy Road SE for Kansas Senator Samuel Pomeroy, an early member of Howard University's Board of Trustees; and Stevens Road SE for Pennsylvania Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, prominently featured in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln."

The James Barry farm

In 1801 the board of commissioners of the embryonic capital city wrote to the principal landholders "asking to be furnished with lists of lots sold by them." Benjamin Stoddert, the first Secretary of the Navy, Notley Young, a prominent plantation owner, and more than a dozen other men including James Barry, "one of the incorporators of the Washington Canal Company," received the letter.

"Mr. Barry was largely invested in business, both foreign and domestic, and he was very zealous as an advocate of the interests of the eastern section of the city, in opposition to the claims of the western section," according to the Records of the Columbia Historical Society.

Map of East Washington, circa 1870s. Photo from the DC Public Library, Washingtoniana Division.

More than 60 years later, in April 1864, the surveyor of Washington County (all land in the District east of the Potomac, outside of the L'Enfant Plan and Georgetown) was "instructed to stone the new road between the northwest and southwest boundaries of the Barry Farm, known as the Stickfoot Branch road," reported the Daily National Republican.

In September young men were drafted off the farm to fill President Lincoln's call for a half million more Union troops. By now the Barry Farm, across the Eastern Branch from the Washington Navy Yard, was sandwiched between the United States Government Hospital for the Insane (Saint Elizabeths) which saw its first patient in 1855 and Uniontown (Anacostia), the city's first subdivision.

At this time, during the Civil War, the city was brimming with "the floating colored population" of runaway slaves from "Maryland, Virginia, and farther South," according to General Oliver Otis Howard's autobiography. In 1865 Howard became Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, a government agency established to aid freed slaves and their families.

General Oliver Otis Howard. Photo from the Library of Congress.

Riding through congested areas of Washington north of K Street, between 13th and 17th, Howard came upon a large group of freedmen.

"What would make you self-supporting?" asked Howard.

"Land! Give us land!" several replied.

In the spring of 1867, Howard used $52,000 in Freedmen's Bureau funds to purchase all 375 acres of the Barry Farm. He sold 1- and 2-acre lots. Within 2 years, 266 families called Barry Farm home, including the sons of Frederick Douglass.

Old Barry Farm develops

"The land all the time was constantly inquired for by working freedmen," Howard recalled. "It was taken with avidity, and the monthly payments, with very few exceptions, were promptly and regularly made. The prospect to the freedmen of owning a homestead was a great stimulus to exertion." A schoolhouse for 150 pupils was quickly erected. Barry Farm was a self-sufficient, self-contained community.

An 1894 Hopkins map (plate 34) of Barry Farm shows streets names still in currency today. Photo from the DC Public Library, Washingtoniana Division.

Today, Barry Farm is almost exclusively associated with the faded 26-acre Barry Farm Dwellings, a 432-unit (nearly a third vacant) property of the DC Housing Authority. The name association hasn't always been that way, says Dews, known as the "Mayor of Barry Farm" for his familial roots on Wade Road SE for nearly a century and his mentorship of neighborhood youth. "It's been a long time since we've been a tribe. But that's what we were and it's important for the younger generation to know this history."

As the city restarts its redevelopment planning process for Barry Farm Dwellings, at an estimated cost of $400 million over a timeline of two decades, the Barry Farm Resident Council, with assistance from Empower DC and local activists, has communicated to the DC Housing Authority that alongside issues of public safety, displacement and employment, a heritage preservation plan is a key concern. 140 years ago, Barry Farm residents and the city were similarly at odds.

According to the Baltimore Sun's Washington correspondent writing in the summer of 1872, "The board of public works propose to open streets in the village and as the residents there have each a deed of one acre of land for his cottage, they are not disposed to surrender any portion of their homesteads for streets or anything else without compensation." When a contractor "appeared in the village to cut up the lots, he was beset, the horses taken from the street plows, the wagons upset, and the laborers driven away. In the afternoon the work was begun under the protection of the police."

Then as now, self-preservation and kinfolk survival is the indigenous creed of Barry Farm, Dews says. "These street names are what's left of the tribe that represented the hard work and sacrifice necessary to build families and businesses. We need to get back to the old way of living."

5 comments

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Will economic renewal reach Anacostia in 2013?

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:41:00 EDT

by John Muller

Farm vehicles no longer have their own parking privileges in Historic Anacostia. A weathered sign offering them special treatment is now gone; a new perimeter fence and fresh asphalt recently appeared on a site where, in 2008, a developer envisioned a $500-700 million mixed-use project.

The 2200 block of MLK Jr. Ave SE. Photos by the author.

Vacant storefronts, social service providers, treatment centers, art galleries, city government agencies, carry-outs and liquor stores, barber shops and beauty salons, cash checking spots and branch banks, small contractors and creative class incubators, a coffeehouse-bar hybrid and a progressive radio station roughly define Anacostia's commercial strip. A flower shop and faded grocery store recently shuttered.

By spring, new management plans to open a restaurant in former Uniontown Bar & Grill space. The Anacostia Playhouse, leaping across the river from H Street NE, will pull back its curtains in a former training center on Shannon Place SE.

Through fits and starts, more than 5 years after President Obama spoke nearby on his way to becoming the first black President (although widely reported as being in Anacostia, Obama spoke at THEARC, a short walk from the Southern Avenue Metro), Ward 8's Anacostia remains on the periphery of the city's economic renewal.

Will the neighborhood, more than 2 decades after its own Metro station opened, finally begin to attract sustained investment this year?

Can new retail take root?

A sleepy Sunday morning in Anacostia.

What happens to the former Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket at 14th and Good Hope Road SE will demonstrate if the neighborhood economy can move from government-subsidized service delivery, such as a dialysis center and childcare, to support places of commerce such as a restaurant, bookstore, hardware store and grocery.

The former Yes! Organic Market, now the Fairlawn Market, over on Pennsylvania Avenue SE in Ward 7, has endured many struggles, perpetuating the perception of the area as being a difficult market for retail. (Chipotle turned down free rent in 2010 to serve as the anchor tenant on the ground floor of The Grays, where the Fairlawn Market is.)

The corner of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, July 2011.

Ground zero in historic Anacostia remains Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE, the same corner where John Wilkes Booth met Davy Herold on his escape to southern Maryland. In the summer of 2011, renderings were released that teased at the intersection's potential. Since that time, despite the backing of Victor Hoskins, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, and other city agency heads, no development of note has happened at the corner.

A public art installation has been planned for nearly a year; it would replace an art installation that was previously torn down. The waiting game continues.

Stanley Jackson, now head of the Anacostia Economic Development Corporation, predicted in 2005 when he was Mayor Williams' Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development that Anacostia would be "one of the hottest markets in the city" by now. Not yet.

In 2008 the Department of Housing and Community Development, whose signs adorn dozens of vacant properties in the neighborhood, moved into the $18 million Anacostia Gateway development at the northeast corner of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Initial plans were to relocate the city's Department of Transportation here but that did not materialize.

Across the street from Anacostia Gateway, the iconic "ANACOSTIA" neon sign continues to light up a corner that at night is an economic dead zone.

Anacostia's Business Improvement District is slowly coming to life; the pop-up arts festival LUMEN8Anacostia will return this June and storefront renovations are planned to begin in the coming months. In December of this year will Anacostia's BID have more members than it does now?

1300 block of Valley Place SE; preservation and demolition by neglect

To walk the residential streets of the city's first sub-division is to see up close and personal a shining example of preservation and regeneration next-door to an eyesore of demolition by neglect and neighborhood decay. On the 1300 block of Valley Place SE five homes remain that were developed in the mid-1880s by real estate investor and president of the local streetcar line, Henry A. Griswold.

1300 block of Valley Place SE in Historic Anacostia.

Over the past few weeks the exterior of 1328 Valley Place SE has been fully renovated, in part through a popular grant program coordinated by the Office of Planning that targets 14 Historic Districts citywide. Next door, 1326 Valley Place SE, is one of the properties DHCD owns. The crumbling building is literally going to seed, as nature attempts to reclaim what's left.

According to tax records, 1326 was sold in 2005 at a foreclosure auction for a throw over $2,000. Local residents provided documents in 2011 from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs indicating that Darwin Trust Properties, LLC acquired the property at that time.

Darwin Trust's CEO was incarcerated while the city pursued legal action against the company under the demolition by neglect statute. Through the litigation, the city was able to get a court order to let DCRA abate the property. After half a decade of further deterioration, the city finally bought the property in a November 2011 foreclosure sale for just under $12,000. According to a 2013 preliminary tax assessment, the land is worth $116,410 and the total value of the property is $118,520.

Based on the valuations alone, the city got a steal, purchasing the property for less than 10 percent of its assessed value. But the time to take advantage of this bargain is running short. The 2013 assessment is down nearly 15% from the 2011 value of $135,900, as the building continues to crumble.

Given the home's historic character, we can hope the city finds a way to restore what's left and continue to rejuvenate this old street in Historic Anacostia.

Abandominiums abide

Keeping a watchful eye on the vacant properties around her youth center, Hannah Hawkins has seen hundreds of squatters come and go in and out of the surrounding abandominiums over the 2 decades she and her volunteers have supported the community from 2263 Mount View Place SE. On a recent morning Hawkins caught a woman going into the Southeast Neighborhood House. Hawkins asked what she was doing. "I'm looking for artifacts," the trespasser announced before Hawkins chased her off.

The Southeast Neighborhood House, organized to combat poverty is now an "abandominium."

The portfolio of abondominiums in the neighborhood is well-known both throughout circles of the city's chronic homeless as well as real estate agents, developers and city officials. While housing prices continue to rise across the city, in Anacostia they have remained flat. Abondominiums shelter the homeless and criminal class for free while suppressing property values and property tax revenues for the city.

Big K site, 2234 & 2238 MLK Jr. Ave SE.

After demolishing 2228 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE last year, DHCD selected a developer for the Big K site. According to a press release, plans are to "construct a new office building that features commercial and retail space, as well as restore the existing historic houses on the site." Time will tell when this block, first developed by coach painter James Beall in the early 1880s, finally comes back to life.

The real estate site DC Curbed recently featured listings for 8 condos, townhouses and single family homes in the neighborhood and nearby. Asking prices topped out at $229,000 with a low of $43,000 for a condo in Barry Farm.

On the fringes of each end of the Anacostia Historic District are multi-unit residential complexes, the Bruxton Condos and a cluster of 3 vacant apartments on High Sreet SE, whose development has been too long in coming. While most eyes are focused on Anacostia's exterior, its commercial strip, the interior, the integrity of its housing stock, continues to be endangered.

Based on responses the city received at a handful of Ward 8 summits and town halls in recent years, cleaning up existing vacant residential and commercial properties is a top concern of citizens, taking precedent over new development. Multiple reports released over the years by city government and think tanks list strategies to deal with the area's blight, but if there's been any implementation of these methods, the blight largely remains. A 2004 study noted, "The area's combination of natural beauty, waterfront access, transportation resources and cultural heritage is unrivaled in the city, however, it is important as well to note challenges in existing conditions."

Now that the days of old Anacostia's farm vehicles are bygone, can the neighborhood move beyond the limitations of its past and attract new residential and commercial investment?

35 comments

Demolition by neglect plagues Anacostia (Aug 8, 2011)
Anacostia loses another 19th century home from neglect (Jan 31, 2012)
Old Anacostia's spirit unshakable despite vacant properties (Aug 9, 2011)
Then & Now: Valley Place, a slice of 19th Century Anacostia (Apr 23, 2012)
"Abandominiums" house Anacostia's resentment (Mar 21, 2012)

Where could a small grocery store thrive in Ward 8?

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 10:29:00 EDT

by Chris Dickersin-Prokopp

The Yes! Organic Market in DC's Fairlawn neighborhood has struggled to survive, and Anacostia's only grocery store recently closed. Why can't grocery stores thrive here? Mainly, economics. But one spot could work.

There are many factors that determine the success of a retail enterprise, including marketing, accessibility, visibility, competition, demographics, and location. Yes! Organic may have been difficult to access for westbound drivers, and it could certainly have benefited from an improved outreach campaign, but the fundamental challenge for the store is that it is located in an area with low aggregate income, a result of relatively low household incomes and the presence of relatively few households.

Much of the area around Fairlawn's Yes! is undeveloped (Anacostia Park and River, Fort Dupont Park, etc.), and the developed blocks are low- to medium-density. The graphic above helps illustrate how the purchasing power the store's service area compares with those of other grocery outlets in the city.

The Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket closed its doors because the former owner sold the property. The buyer is optimistic about the site's potential, but in a presentation to the Historic Anacostia Block Association in February of this year, he all but ruled out the possibility of bringing in another grocery store. He said that the potential grocery tenants he spoke with were deterred by the presumed arrival of Walmart at Skyland, just up the street.

Does the eventual presence of two full-service grocery stores at the top of the hill mean that Ward 8's flatland neighborhoods will be forever without their own market? If there is a location best suited for a store to fill the gap, it is at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Ave SE and Howard Rd SE, immediately adjacent to the Anacostia Metrorail station and Metrobus hub, and the meeting point for the Anacostia, Hillsdale, and Barry Farm neighborhoods.

The ideal, and most feasible, site for new development at this intersection is the vast lot owned by Bethlehem Baptist Church, currently used as parking. It is not uncommon for churches, often major landowners, to develop the land they own for a purpose consistent with their mission.

Matthews Memorial Baptist Church, two blocks from Bethlehem, recently oversaw the development of a new affordable housing complex on one of their parcels. Across town, at 10th and G Streets NW, the First Congregational United Church of Christ was part of a redevelopment team that delivered a new facility for the church on the ground floors of an office building.

Bethlehem Baptist lot. Photo by the author.

By developing their vacant land as housing, office space, or a community or spiritual facility, with ground floor retail including a grocery store to replace the shuttered Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket, Bethlehem Baptist Church, and its pastor Reverend James E. Coates, DC's inaugural Ward 8 councilmember, could cement a legacy in the District while doing a huge service to their neighbors in the heart of Ward 8.

Cross-posted at R. U. Seriousing Me?

43 comments

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Yes! changes

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 08:31:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

It turns out that Ward 8 won't be losing its Yes! Organic Market. The store will get a name change to Healthy Gourmet Market in hopes that dropping "organic" from the name will help dispel the perception of high prices. (Post)

Comment

Who�s commuting to east of the river DC neighborhoods?

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:04:00 EDT

by Chris Dickersin-Prokopp

WMATA's latest data release confirmed what we already knew: most Metrorail riders take the train from the suburbs into DC. But relatively few ride to the District neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. Where are they coming from and going to?

About 75% of total trips in the AM peak terminate at one of the 42 stations in or immediately adjacent to the District (within 500 feet). Only 2% of these riders, or 1.5% of all trips, get off at one of the 7 stations in or bordering the portion of the District east of the Anacostia River.

Of the more than 3500 riders who make up the numerator of this statistic, 40% get off at Anacostia and 20% at Minnesota Ave, affectionately known as the downtowns of their respective wards (8 and 7). The reason nearly 5 times as many people take the train to Farragut North as to all East of the River stations combined is obvious: Land use.

The Anacostia and Minnesota Ave station areas offer fairly similar non-residential uses, which include a limited number of destinations one would commute to on a weekday morning. Both have a few schools nearby, one relatively new District government office building, a smattering of small retail stores and restaurants, mostly carryout, and a number of light industrial sites.

Anacostia has a couple additional office or medical buildings, while Minnesota Ave boasts a grocery store. For those who do commute to work or school in these neighborhoods, parking is cheap or free, and buses often offer a superior option to rail for those who are traveling between East of the River neighborhoods.

But what about the chosen few who do take Metrorail to these 7 stations? In contrast to the system-wide statistics, 63% of trips ending east of the river originated in DC, 28% in Maryland, and 9% in Virginia. The share coming from the suburbs is certain to increase when the federal Department of Homeland Security campus at Saint Elizabeths is completed.

Interestingly, 9% of riders traveling East of the River boarded at the Columbia Heights or Georgia Avenue-Petworth stations. Without additional data, one can only hypothesize why so many people (relatively) are making this specific commute. One driver may be the schools. For example, Thurgood Marshall Academy, a high performing public charter high school across the street from the Anacostia metro station, draws students and teachers from all over the city.

Perhaps WMATA could release a subset of their data showing trips made with discounted student passes? That would make it possible to further explore this hypothesis.

Cross-posted at R.U. Seriousing Me?

19 comments

Why is Capital Bikeshare usage low east of the river? (Jan 31, 2011)
Proposed Circulator will connect Ward 7 to the rest of DC (Nov 22, 2010)
East of the River won't be changing so fast, so soon (Dec 23, 2010)
GGW discusses: The focus on Anacostia (Feb 21, 2011)
Should east of the river Circulator go to Shipley or Teeter? (Jul 15, 2011)

No rentals at St. E's?

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:27:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

Marion Barry is trying to block any rental housing at St. Elizabeths and instead wants any housing to be owner-occupied. He's concerned with Ward 8 having the lowest ratio of homeowners in DC. (Post)

Comment

Washington's economic future depends on more housing (Oct 17, 2012)
Rally questions Barry's leadership in Ward 8 (Dec 30, 2011)
For Ward 8 Council: Jacque Patterson (Mar 22, 2012)
Long-term homeownership does foster civic engagement (Aug 21, 2012)
Gaston: Move Ward 8 forward, together (Jan 30, 2012)

Vacant Congress Heights building holds relics of the past

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 10:00:00 EDT

by John Muller

"Look at that thing! That's an antique!" says William Alston-El as two workers in yellow vests and hard hats emerge from the long-vacant Wilson Courts in Congress Heights. The men carry an aged band saw.

Workers take a 19th century band saw from the Wilson Courts. Photo by the author.

"Man, I've been working with tools my entire life and I've never seen anything like that," Alston-El observes with reverence as we angle for a closer look.

"That has to be from Saint Elizabeths. We're nothing but a couple blocks over," Alston-El says. "There are probably tools, medical equipment, diaries, and who knows what else that's been lost in this community and still hasn't been found. Who knew Ward 8 is filled with hidden treasures?"

An innovation of the early 19th century, the band saw could cut both wood and metal. Its original design is little altered today, albeit with current materials. More than one hundred variations of the modern band saw sell today at Home Depot from companies such as DeWalt, Steel City, and Rockwell.

The band saw.

The former Wilson Courts, 523-525 Mellon Street SE, a 4-story multi-family apartment complex with a faint art deco touch outside the building's two respective front entrances, was sold in September 2008 to Affordable Housing Opportunities Inc. for just under $1.5 million, according to tax records. (The value of the building's inventory of antiques is unavailable.)

A year later a firestorm broke out within Advisory Neighborhood Commission 8C when a local non-profit introduced plans to develop transitional housing units. Many old-time residents joined neophyte arrivals in opposing the plans, arguing the neighborhood was over-burdened with similar facilities and a further concentration of social service agencies would do more harm than good.

The vacant Wilson Courts at 523 - 525 Mellon Street SE. Photo by the author.

Now, a couple years later all seems to be forgotten as the building has remained uninhabited. Per the permit posted by the DC Office of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs since February, after demolition of interior walls, there are plans to convert the building's existing 20 units to 43.

However, before redevelopment happens an untold number of relics from late 19th and early 20th centuries remain in the basement, according to the demolition crew's foreman.

Together with the 6-man crew, William and I speculate what the band saw might be worth—not just for scrap parts, but to collectors of antiquarian tools. The foreman thinks it could bring a couple hundred dollars. Weschler's, the long-time downtown auction house, could probably help with an estimate, I suggest.

An engraving around the arc of the base will surely provide clues of its provenance for an appraiser specializing in 19th century tools. (Comparable antique band saws on Ebay list for $250 to $500, often selling for more.)

Through preservation groups and local media work, I have toured the campuses of Saint Elizabeths a handful of times over the past 3 years. What little I have seen of the abandoned halls, rooms, basketball courts, and book cases show most of the remnants of the past are gone, cleared out over the years by former employees and recent contractors.

2 comments

Holiday spirit illuminates a Congress Heights street (Dec 23, 2011)
"Abandominiums" house Anacostia's resentment (Mar 21, 2012)
Old Anacostia's spirit unshakable despite vacant properties (Aug 9, 2011)
100-year old Anacostia abandominium houses crack addict (May 24, 2012)
Ward 8's Parklands a model for neighborhood revitalization (Oct 15, 2012)

Ward 8's Parklands a model for neighborhood revitalization

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:20:00 EDT

by Elizabeth Falcon

As the federal government returns control of St. Elizabeths East and Walter Reed to the DC government, the District has an opportunity to re-envision those neighborhoods. The Parklands in Ward 8, a neighborhood that has seen dramatic improvement over the last 2 decades, offers a successful model of equitable development.

Photo by DG-rad on Flickr.

The Parklands succeeded with a combination of a for-profit developer, passionate residents, a community development corporation, nonprofits, newly-opened federal land, and federal investment incentives. Hey, no one ever said this stuff was easy.

In the early 1990s, the Parklands in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast, DC was a 1,400 apartment complex with a rate of a murder a month per block. "But in 1991, in the midst of a drug and crime wave that had hit Southeast especially hard, the high rate of casualties was hardly unprecedented" writes Tony Proscio, author of Becoming What We Can Be: Stories of Community Development in Washington, DC.

The book then goes on to chronicle the magnificent turn-around of first the Parklands, then the neighborhood as a whole. Despite the blight and crime, a number of residents were determined to work together to make it a better place. Even before redevelopment occurred, community leader Brenda Jones founded the Parklands Community Center to provide youth with a safe space to learn and play.

Then in 1991 William C Smith & Co. acquired the Parklands apartment complex and renovated it to include "smaller scale clusters of 'villages' within the wider area. The renamed 'Villages of Parklands, which formally opened in 1994, made room for the humanizing lawns and walkways that contribute not only to social interaction and recreation but, just as important, to safety."

It became clear amid the rejuvenation of the neighborhood that children needed a place to grow and learn. William C Smith & Co teamed up with the nonprofit Building Bridges Across the River (BBAR) to create a community center for Ward 8. Through generous contributions from local philanthropic organizations and the District of Columbia government, and the hard work of BBAR, the Town Hall Education, Arts, and Recreation Campus (THEARC) was born.

THEARC sits on a site formerly used by the Department of the Interior, which was returned to the District after sitting vacant for years. Today, it houses the Washington Middle School for Girls, Boys and Girls Club, a Children's National Medical Center clinic, the Washington Ballet, Corcoran College of Art & Design, and the Levine School of Music.

By 2007, a grocery store opened in the neighborhood, the first in two decades. The Giant at the Shops at Park Village was made possible through the city's use of land that had previously been Camp Simms Military Base, investment leveraged by the New Markets Tax Credit, the advocacy of the East of the River Community Development Corporation, and William C Smith & Co. Today, a neighborhood once ridden with crime and blight now has a grocery store, a sit down restaurant, a world class community center, and truly mixed income housing; from subsidized housing, to rental, to single family homes.

This large-scale redevelopment was made possible because of the commitment of the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. It was the ability to leverage investment in a multitude of ways that made redevelopment of the Parklands inclusive for all levels of income. The redevelopment of St. Elizabeths and Walter Reed should look to emulate this model.

For more stories of community redevelopment in Washington, including Columbia Heights, Edgewood Terrace, and H St, check out Becoming What We Can Be: Stories of Community Development in Washington, DC by Tony Proscio.

6 comments

The plight of the blight: River East liquor stores (Jul 10, 2009)
Ward 8 development founders, may lose $4 million in grants (Mar 9, 2012)
Little-known Kenilworth-Parkside is neighborhood to watch (Feb 17, 2012)
East of the River won't be changing so fast, so soon (Dec 23, 2010)
Vacant properties delay neighborhood reinvestment (May 14, 2012)

Still no love for Calvary

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 08:16:00 EDT

by Steven Yates

While renovation work nears completion on the Calvary Women's Services building in Anacostia, neighbors are still opposed to the project and think Calvary is being a bad neighbor. (CHotR)

Comment

Homeless shelter with no retail will hinder Anacostia (Aug 2, 2011)
Anacostia shelter ignores community, starts construction (Dec 14, 2011)
Rally questions Barry's leadership in Ward 8 (Dec 30, 2011)
"Abandominiums" house Anacostia's resentment (Mar 21, 2012)
Then & Now: Anacostia's Saint Teresa (Apr 6, 2012)

And...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 09:23:00 EDT

by Thaddeus Bell

Obama declares DC a disaster area after the derecho on June 29. (Examiner)... Mayor Gray broke ground on a new clinic in Ward 8. (NBC4)... DCist imagines the 2012 Olympics in DC. (DCist)... JDLand has pictures of construction at Canal Park.

Comment

Go to Gray's town halls (Sep 29, 2010)
Have DC's black unemployed become invisible? (Sep 8, 2011)
The scandal's serious, but the city's solid (Jul 14, 2012)
Vince Gray talks IZ, New Communities, and rent control (Jul 7, 2010)
Gray keeps Harriet Tregoning! And others (Dec 17, 2010)

Wards 5 and 8 get largest slice of the pie

Fri, 27 Jul 2012 08:13:00 EDT

by Thaddeus Bell

Wards 5 and 8 got the most public development money in next year's budget, mostly from St. Elizabeths and schools for Ward 5. Ward 7 is scheduled to receive the least. (Post)

Comment

Ward 2 now too large, wards 7 and 8 too small (Mar 24, 2011)
No 2:00 am budget surprises please, Kwame Brown (May 23, 2011)
Now you, too, can redraw DC's wards (Mar 25, 2011)
Schwartz to run as a write-in; at-large race gets more interesting (Sep 16, 2008)
Klingle rebuild probably dead (Apr 26, 2008)

DC tech execs ask for better spaces for startups

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 10:15:00 EDT

by Ken Archer

7 owners of DC technology companies sent a letter to the DC Council and Deputy Mayor Victor Hoskins today proposing aggressive new initiatives to build the DC tech sector. The executives ask DC to prioritize helping startups find space and to create vision like New York's Innovation Island.

Flanders Technology International 1988 logo via FotoBart on Flickr.

The letter comes as the DC Council prepares to give final approval to property and income tax breaks for LivingSocial and capital gains tax breaks for investors in tech companies. Greater Greater Washington and tech blog InTheCapital sat down with the executives to brainstorm ways to best help the tech sector, and this letter is the result.

Owners of tech startups expressed that District office rents make it hard for them to locate in the city and network with other founders, engineers and funders. Small startups have to pay the same rents as law firms and lobbyists, and won't benefit from property tax breaks like LivingSocial's.

One way DC could help is to promote below market rate rents for tech startups. This could include using office spaces that are more temporarily empty, as startups often need space for short timeframes as they are getting off the ground or growing rapidly before they rent larger spaces of their own.

This could also bring startup founders together in a large space that creates opportunities for networking, collaboration, and getting to know potential investors. DC could help a large number of small startups, and if a small percentage survive to become larger DC-based companies, it will have been worth the investment.

But should this happen downtown? Much of Washington has lower rents than downtown. The second idea is to create an innovation center in one of the large unused parcels in DC, such as St. Elizabeths or Poplar Point.

Mayor Bloomberg offered a large portion of New York's Roosevelt Island, between Manattan and Queens, for a university to build a graduate technology campus. Cornell University submitted the winning proposal, and New York hopes the new campus will anchor technology growth in New York as Stanford or MIT have in Silicon Valley and Boston.

The St. Elizabeths East Campus master plan already notes that one section of the 183-acre campus would make an ideal academic quad. The growth there would also create job opportunities for Ward 8 residents, from software engineering for the most highly skilled to administrative or maintenance jobs at the school and tech companies for the least skilled.

The St. Elizabeths East plan suggests the Maple Quad for an educational institution.

Will start-up founders and employees be willing to commute to a location like St. Elizabeths? It's actually right near Congress Heights Metro. Plus, a critical component of Innovation Island is $100 million to increase transit and pedestrian links to and within Roosevelt Island. DC's planned streetcar line from St. Elizabeths to Anacostia Metro, downtown Anacostia, and over the bridge to Capitol Hill and beyond, could become a Tech Line serving just this function.

The letter is below.

Dear Council members and Deputy Mayor Hoskins,
The purpose of this letter is to thank you for your recent support of the growing technology sector in Washington DC, and to offer some encouragement and feedback as owners of DC technology companies.
As the contraction of federal agencies and contractors begins to affect the DC economy, we believe the DC tech sector is well situated to replace lost jobs and demand for office space. Your efforts to support and invest in the growth of the DC tech sector are therefore very much appreciated. The legislation currently before the DC Council, which provide property and income tax breaks to LivingSocial and capital gains tax breaks to investors in DC tech companies, demonstrate your leadership in this regard.
As the DC government's investment strategy in the technology sector matures, we would endorse an even more aggressive strategy that supports a broader array of companies at multiple stages of growth. An aggressive, transparent, policy-based strategy that targets companies at all stages has the best chance of growing a real ecosystem of technology firms that would provide long-term economic stability for the District.
DC attracts young, talented innovators who are driving this growth. This is a strength to build on, but unfortunately the current Net-2000 incentives provide minimal support to startup technology firms.
Below are some proposals for your consideration that may provide more targeted support to a broader range of DC's tech sector.
Minimize entrepreneurial overhead Finding affordable places to work and network is a central obstacle faced by startups in DC. While large companies can take advantage of property tax breaks, startups pay the same rents as law firms, lobbyists and federal contractors.
The Mayor is able, through his ability to sign master leases, to sublease commercial office space to selected companies at below-market rates. By leveraging this ability to slash office space costs for startup tech firms in the District, conceivably hundreds of startups could receive the type of real estate subsidies that are currently only available to large property owners. If a small percentage of these startups grow, the city would generate a substantial return on this targeted investment.
Replicate NYC's Innovation Island in DC Universities around the world bid for the opportunity to build a world-class technology campus on NYC's Roosevelt Island, what Mayor Bloomberg called Innovation Island. The winner, Cornell, will develop this campus on city-owned land, which will be upgraded with $100 million of public transportation improvements.
DC is currently evaluating options for the development of St Elizabeths, Poplar Point, and other parcels of city-owned land. A major strategic investment like Innovation Island would bolster the city's supply of talented engineers and entrepreneurs. DC's own innovation campus could be used for technology education, startups, incubators and co-working spaces.
Incentivize IT innovation in sectors with local customers and acquirers The IT executives of many sectors, particularly hospitality and law firms, are in Washington DC or its inner suburbs. Just as DC's new workforce intermediary will target workforce development investments in the hospitality sector, we should target technology business development investments in sectors with clusters in the DC area.
We should consider expanding our economic development relationships with major DC sectors like hospitality and law to support IT innovation in those sectors. These are the natural replacements of technology providers to the federal government whose contraction will challenge our economy.
We are excited about your leadership in initiating a private-public partnership to build our tech sector, and provide these proposals for an aggressive, broad-based investment in this sector in the spirit of that partnership.
Sincerely,
Michael Goldstein, Principal
Endeavor DC
Dave Sandrowitz, Principal
Fortify
Jonathan Lunardi,CEO & Co-founder
VeteranCentral.com
Stephanie Hay, Co-founder
FastCustomer.com
Andrew Mason, Co-founder
Eventstir.com
Daniel Kleinman, Founder
MegaPixel Software
Navroop Mitter, Co-founder & CEO
Gryphn Corporation
Lindsey Mask, Founder
LadiesDc.com

Update: Michael Goldstein, principal at the Endeavor DC accelerator, has added his signature to the letter.

43 comments

What is a tech company? How do you build a tech sector? (Jul 16, 2012)
Will LivingSocial help build a tech hub in DC? (Apr 24, 2012)
What would you ask LivingSocial or DC officials? (Jul 5, 2012)
LivingSocial tax deal needs stronger hiring requirements to grow a tech hub in DC (Jun 14, 2012)
Let's attract companies with our workers, not with subsidies (Jun 21, 2012)