The winner is…The Deputy Mayor’s Office for Economic Development today selected the Stanton/Eastbanc proposal as the winning bid among a winnowed list of three to develop the Hine Jr. High School site.
Stanton Development is well known and well-entrenched on the Hill, and responsible for a significant amount of projects and new construction. Its emphasis was on bringing workday businesses, not just retail, into the Hine space because, they say, without more people in the area Monday-Friday, the entire business community will continue to suffer. Conversely, others worry about gridlock from extra traffic during the week.
Their plan includes a large amount of space for the Shakespeare Theater Group, affordable housing suitable for aging in place for older Hill residents, and a piazza with a fountain that can also be used as a stage for musicians or Shakespeare Theater performances. Additionally, the International Relief and Development organization is one of their larger tenants for office space, and they are in talks with Inter Continental for a small hotel. The Stanton/Eastbanc plan for parking, which includes 391 spaces (150 private and the rest public) and 77 bike spaces, provides space for vendors to park their trucks, allowing the trucks removed from 7th Street on the weekends. This plan is also the tallest of all of proposed designs. The facade on Eighth Street will be the same height as the existing houses across the street, but the full development will be 6 floors at its highest point.
Stanton/Eastbanc beat out contenders StreetSense/DSF/Menkiti Group, which had generated a lot of buzz in the neighborhood and was supported by a group of residents living in the vicinity of the site who organized to review the proposals, and SevenPenn Partners.
See overview of the plans and proposals here.
woohoo!!
Agreed- this was the best choice, by a nudge, over the Mentiki team. My worry with the Mentiki team was that they don’t have the financial wherewithall to complete the project. Stanton has Eastbanc on its side for the financial muscle to get this done.
My only concern about Stanton/Eastbanc is the plan for C St. The open pedestrian plaza is my favorite element of their plan, but businesses around EM have been extremely vocal about their desire to reopen C St to auto traffic 7 days a week. I hope community stakeholders don’t target this component for change. It would be a fantastic public square 7 days a week, especially if the ‘do nothing’ plan materializes for the EM Metro Plaza.
The proposal calls for C Street to be open to traffic during the week and closed on the weekends for the flea market (all four proposals had this so I think it was at the request of the city). It wasn’t totally clear that was the case in their drawings but they did clarify that point in the community meetings I attended. There will be a public space next to the street that can be used throughout the week that may have a fountain and an outdoor stage for performances.
I suspect that the EM Metro Plaza proposals will see some revisions once the plans for the Hine site are more finalized.
I think it will be closed on weekends, for sure. Demolition, the principals said, is still aways off-not even next spring- because bids must be made for the work after RFPs, and the building is still being used for various purposes. They don’t want an empty field sitting around for months either while they get the other contracts for building in place. At press conference, most applause came from mention of Shakespeare Theater offices-even Fenty lauded it. Stanton worked with Shakespeare for 14 months on their needs!
Liz, what is it being used for? By DCPS, I assume?
What’s the timeframe for demo and completion?
What’s in there now? I have heard “some programs,” and also storage for DC Dept. of Transportation. Waiting to hear more. Demolition–I asked, in the Spring? And got a big No. First, there will be RFPs for demolition, a bidding process, etc., and as noted above, they want to get a plan in place before they bring the wrecking ball and let the area become a vacant lot for months. There are going to be very public zoning meetings and historic preservation meetings where the public can work with the city and the developers and argue, say, against a six-story high building, and bring it down to five stories, as the Capitol Hill Restoration Society president noted.
I think it would be great to have some sort of grocery store/convenience store there at Eastern Market. Granted there is Okay Organics, but they are very expensive and not everyone wants organic food. Eastern Market needs a place where people can buy foods that are not available at the market (cereal, wine, paper products, etc). I think a store like Trader Joe’s would be an excellent addition to Eastern Market.
Trader Joe’s?!? No! The last thing we need is a corporate take over of Eastern Market.
I’ll gladly take an Trader Joe’s at Eastern Market. I’d rather go to “corporate” Trader Joe’s than the un-Safeway.
are you kidding me? You are worried about a corporate take over of Eastern Market? It has already happened! Each booth in the Market has a monopoly and the stuff they sell. There is no competition and never any new booths. What happened to a free market? Plus look at the stores there: Marvelous Market, Le Pain, Yes! Organic Market. They are all chains, they are all corporate. I say let Trader Joe’s move in. I prefer it over Safeway.
Trader Joe’s is a different kind of store: they make the effort to adjust their offerings to suit their local community to offer us everything WE need…that sounds good to me! You want to amp up local businesses? Give us a reason to shop close by!!
I agree with Bayls above. TJ is not your average corporate store. Bring TJ to Eastern Market.
B, I share your concerns about C Street opening to traffic. After the press conference, I was speaking with the developer. He explained that the reopened C Street would be paved with cobblestones like the ones on 7th Street. Not sure how much that will stop/slow traffic but it’s something.
I would like a firm, public commitment that it will be closed to traffic on weekends. I don’t think that’s a done deal.
How weird to look back more than a year later and see this comment:
“Agreed- this was the best choice, by a nudge, over the Mentiki team. My worry with the Mentiki team was that they don’t have the financial wherewithall to complete the project. Stanton has Eastbanc on its side for the financial muscle to get this done.”
Kind of ironic as we sit here waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting while the project gets delayed and delayed … why?
FINANCING.