Metro's Underutilized Resource: Its Real Estate

Map It:  Capitol Heights   Cheverly   Naylor Road 

SOME VISIONARIES IN PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY see a Chicago-like skyline rising from a piece of undeveloped land near Andrews Air Force Base — a mini-city that would contain millions of square feet of office and residential space. But with no Green Line extension to Westphalia in sight, that plan could sit on the drawing board for years.

Might developers concentrate on land already adjacent to existing Metrorail stations? There's land available and Maryland officials, peeved at Metro's real estate development practices, want the transit agency to reform the way it promotes development at stations, as The Post's Lisa Rein and Lena H. Sun reported on Sunday. A new report details the problems with Metro's development protocols. Write Rein and Sun:

The report blames Metro's hands-off approach for a "paucity" of interest from developers, confusion in communities near stations because of "interminable reviews often at odds with community concerns," and "frequent disconnect" with local governments. It calls Metro's process broken.

While some areas around Metrorail stations have been touted as real estate success stories — like Arlington County's Ballston-Rosslyn corridor with its high- and mid-density developments clustered near transit centers — other station areas, particularly in Prince George's County are relatively undeveloped, with quite a bit of Metro-controlled property sitting barren or being used for surface parking lots.

Let's take a look at some aerial photography of some of the problem stations, courtesy Google Maps. Above is the Cheverly station on the Orange Line, where we noted you can't get a pint of beer at a local watering hole, because there isn't one. Below left is Capitol Heights on the Blue Line and below right is Naylor Road on the Green Line. They may be friendly to commuters, but in their current form, are not friendly to transit-oriented development. If things change, there is the promise of millions in new revenue to the cash-strapped agency.

» "Metro Fails to Nurture Development, Report Finds" [WaPo]

EARLIER:
» "Green Line to Westphalia?" [Free Ride/Express]
» "Prince George's Sees Andrews As Hub of Development" [WaPo]

A Few Hours ... Walking 6 Miles in 3 Quadrants

Map It:  Capitol South   L'Enfant Plaza   Navy Yard   New York Ave   Union Station   Waterfront 

Photo of the Florida Avenue Market area by Melina Mara/The Washington Post

NOW THAT IT'S MAY, the risk of any random springtime snow (like last month's freak wintry mix) is essentially nil and the entrenched seasonal temperatures makes now a great time to explore the city — before it gets hot, humid and miserable. So taking a six-mile trek through three of the District's four quadrants — which is what this writer did on a recent Saturday — might be better done now versus, say, mid-August.

During the walk, which snaked between the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University station in Northeast and the Navy Yard station in Southeast, we stopped by places as varied as the Joshua Bell experiment site, the Bartholdi Fountain and the Union Station food court.

And more importantly, we explored a place we've written about many times before this: D.C.'s "other" market, which might be the next best place to get that Eastern Market-in-exile feeling.

So follow along as Free Ride takes you on a tour of what's happening where ...

For the full tour, read onward. To explore the route, click on the Wayfaring map below.

Continue Reading "A Few Hours ... Walking 6 Miles in 3 Quadrants" »

Notes From Around Town: Shark Attack

Map It:  Capitol Heights   Gallery Pl-Chinatown   Silver Spring 

YOUR EYES are not deceiving you. Yes, Discovery Communications is advertising its Shark Week programming by transforming its Silver Spring headquarters into a massive shark. We thought that Shark Week was just a way to capitalize on the strings of shark attacks that have drawn publicity in recent summers, but according to Discovery Communications, this is Shark Week's 19th year. Who knew? For the record, Silver Spring's newest landmark — on display through Aug. 4 — is "113 feet tall from his belly to his dorsal fin and 200 feet wide from tip to tip of his side fins." That's one big fish. There's also 6.65 miles of fabric that's inflated high above Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, all stitched together with 36.7 miles of thread. When we were up in Silver Spring this past Sunday, we wondered whether there would be increased traffic accidents at that busy intersection. That shark is quite distracting.
Photo courtesy Discovery Communications

» ARLINGTON COUNTY: Money magazine has named Arlington the most educated city in the country, based on new national rankings. About 37 percent of its residents hold masters degrees. A question, though: Can Arlington really be the nation's most educated city when it's a county, not a city? [Examiner]

» CHINATOWN: It's said that all of D.C.'s Chinatown has been reduced to one "Chinablock" on H Street NW between 6th and 7th streets — and even that block's identity is in question. But evidence of the Chinatown of old remains. Photoblogger Ohad Ben-Yoseph took a really nice shot of the 800 block of 6th Street NW. Note the authentic Chinese lettering. [Ohad Online]

» CAPITOL HEIGHTS: Back in May, we took a look at the redevelopment of the formerly drug-ridden, poverty-stricken East Capitol Dwellings public housing project near the Capitol Heights Metrorail station, right by the District-Prince George's County line. The Common Denominator reports that last night, District zoning officials voted to eliminate a community center that had been planned for the new Capitol Gateway complex of townhouses on the north side of East Capitol Street. In its place will be 12 market-rate townhomes. [Common Denominator]

Notes From Around Town: Park Road Pizza

Map It:  Capitol Heights   Columbia Heights   Georgia Ave-Petworth   L'Enfant Plaza 

WE ALWAYS ENJOY RESTAURANTS WITH OUTDOOR GARDENS, but they're few and far between in the District. One more could soon join the ranks, though: A wood-fired pizza joint called Red Rocks, featuring a summer garden that could accommodate 25 people, is slated to open in Columbia Heights, at 11th Street NW and Park Road — two blocks east of Tivoli Square and two blocks north of Wonderland. That is, of course, if its Class C liquor license gets approved at a hearing scheduled for Aug. 16. The place would be open until 1:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and 2:30 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The news has already sparked a discussion on Petworth News about what makes a good pizza.
» "Application for Liquor License RedRocks" [Georgia Avenue Yahoo Group via Petworth News]

» WARD 7: On Saturday, District officials will break ground on a wave of improvements to Watts Branch Park. The narrow park, now known as Marvin Gaye Park, had a more sinister informal name: Needle Park. Along with 78 abandoned cars and 2 million pounds of trash, 6,000 hypodermic needles have been cleared out of the park. [Examiner]

» L'ENFANT PLAZA: About 10 days ago, a dog being walked by its owners was stabbed by a man at 7th and D streets SW, in the vicinity of the headquarters for the U.S. Department Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Says The Post's Animal Watch:

Police recounted that a Secret Service agent had been following a man who had started a fight earlier and had seen him stab the 14-year-old dog. The agent held the man at gunpoint until police arrived. The man admitted to stabbing the dog and told the [Humane Society] officer that he had done so because he was afraid the dog could have gotten his clothes dirty.

Rebuilding D.C.'s East Capitol Street Gateway

Map It:  Capitol Heights 

THE EASTERN END of Metrorail's Blue Line, which runs under East Capitol Street and into Prince George's County, remains a mystery to those who confine themselves to areas west of the Anacostia River. Until the extension to the shopping complex at Largo Town Center opened up two years ago, there was little reason for non-residents to take the Blue Line out to its old terminus at Addison Road-Seat Pleasant in Prince George's County. Even today, the mainly residential stretch offers few commercial options to draw visitors.

But if you go by the Capitol Heights station, which sits at the District's Southern Avenue border with Maryland, you'll see signs advertising new condominiums, a clear modern-day signal of a neighborhood in transition. Looking westward on East Capitol Street toward the far-off Washington Monument (at this point you're about 60 blocks east of the Capitol), you'll see a barren field of dirt on the right. On the left you'll see the shell of Capitol View Plaza (seen at right) a shuttered housing tower and shopping mall that looks like it had its facade ripped off by a hurricane, its innards exposed to the outside.

Up until recently, the District's eastern gateway had another name: East Capitol Dwellings, where the problems of drugs, death and violence dwelled for much of the past 25 years. The Capitol View Plaza is one of the remaining physical reminders of the area's ugly past. The rest has been demolished or cleaned up through a HOPE VI program for distressed public housing, in advance of what D.C. planners and developers envision will be the mixed-use Capitol Gateway complex.

Continue Reading "Rebuilding D.C.'s East Capitol Street Gateway" »