Reservation 13 Update – Long Term Development

DC Office of Planning

While social services sprawl understandably took up a good portion of the time at last week’s Reservation 13 meeting, the original purpose had been to discuss the longer term developments of the site.

For those catching up, Reservation 13 is the large block of land south of the Armory and east of 19th Street SE along the Anacostia River. From 1846 until 2001, a public hospital on that site, eventually known as DC General, operated here until it was finally shut down by the Williams Administration. While the hospital was city run, the land itself was owned by the Federal government. The site sat in limbo for some time, but eventually was turned over to the city for the purposes of transforming it into a mixed use development.

The draft plan of the site was originally authored in 2002, and remains the operating framework for the development. Put briefly, it calls for extending the grid of streets down to the waterfront, with retail, housing, and office space all included in the plan. In 2008, the Mayor’s office announced that bids would be taken for a master developer for the 67 acre site. In April of this year, the Mayor announced that instead of one master developer, the site will be built in stages. With the financial crisis drying up credit nationally, and the huge Popular Point development blowing up in a hot, sticky mess for the city’s development folks, the appetite and/or capacity for another large development petered out as well. For much of 2010, we were told to expect a decision on who the developer would be any day now.

Well, of course, local politics has gone through a bit of a shift recently, and any decision on the site has been put on hold due to the transition between the Fenty and Grey administrations. Which is where we sit now, and addressing this situation was the putative reason for the community meeting with Councilmember Wells last Thursday. With him, was the Project Manager for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Planning and Development, Jose Sousa.

So, while the more immediate concerns with homeless shelters and methadone clinics were clearly the hot button issues, frustration at the stalled development was a noticeable undercurrent at the meeting.

There was concern expressed that the dumping of social services at the site would inhibit or preclude the development. Councilmember Wells and Mr. Sousa both indicated this was not the case, and that while development had several hurdles to overcome, the current tenants of the site was not one of them.

Councilmember Wells acknowledged the community’s frustration, and seemed frustrated himself, but cautioned against haste. As he put it, “Frankly, we have economic development for the sake of economic development near the ballpark and it’s been disappointing.” He raised the concern that breaking up the development into smaller parcels raises the issue of loosing some of the community amenities such as lower density, a public park, etc, and wants to make sure that the current process keeps those elements.

No good time line exists for development. The main thing we’ll be looking for in the near future will be an announcement of a developer to begin construction of the first two parcels, F1 and G1, near the current St. Coletta’s  Thanks to the transition, it could be some time before this is decided. In fact, Mayor Elect Gray had only named the head of his economic development component of his transition team the day before, and it could be months before this pops up on his radar. Baring a lame duck announcement by the Fenty Administration, this may have to wait until after the January 2nd Inauguration.

Don’t expect bulldozers to roll immediately upon this news, however. Once selected, the developer and the city will have to negotiate terms, and this could take 3-6 months.