| | | Multiple meetings on Hine proposal planned | | June 19, 2009 |  | | | Staff Writer | | After complaints from community groups and a request from Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells, the city has pushed its deadline for community comment on the former Hine Middle School development to July 10.
Some community groups had requested a 90-day extension from the original July 1 deadline.
The city appears to be fast-tracking the mixed-use project, with a final decision on a developer expected from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development sometime this summer.
The finalists vying for the right to develop the site made their cases at a standing-room only community meeting last week. The Southeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission (ANC 6B) has scheduled meetings for July 23 and 30 to review plans and vote on its favored project. And the developers are still shopping their plans around the Hill. The National Leadership Campus will explain its proposal again this Thursday at the home of Thom and Barbara Riehle, 806 D St. SE, at 6 p.m. and the StreetSense/DSF group will be at Hill’s Kitchen, 713 D St. SE, on Saturday at 11:30 a.m. Hill’s Kitchen will host a forum geared toward business owners — sponsored by the Capitol Hill Business Improvement District and the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants & Professionals — for all four proposals on July 8 at 8:30 a.m.
The four development groups have presented both like-minded and competing visions for the prime Pennsylvania Avenue real estate that will also border 7th and 8th streets and a potentially reopened C Street.
All the developers offered, in some form, the retail and residential components the community had requested. And all expressed a desire to connect Barracks Row retail on 8th Street with retail on 7th Street at Eastern Market. The designs also featured a strip of retail starting on Pennsylvania Avenue and wrapping around down 7th Street.
But the concepts diverged in scale and plans for tenants. Different ideas included a hotel, a specialty grocery store, space for the Shakespeare Theatre Company or a nonprofit leadership-training center.
Seven Penn Partners, led by The Bozzutto Group and Scallan Properties, suggested a grocery store — possibly Trader Joe’s — to “provide things the community can’t get at Eastern Market,” and anchor the development, said Chris Bozzutto.
“Our vision is not to create an area on Capitol Hill, but to solidify that area,” said Drew Scallan.
The development would host 237 residences, 350 underground parking spaces, 56,000 square feet of retail and 30,000 square feet of office space. Like the other designs, it would feature a town house façade on 8th Street, and a rebuilt, reopened C Street that would host the current flea market on weekends.
The National Leadership Campus group offered the most divergent plan, though it came without detailed designs.
The group proposed a “dynamic, campus-like setting,” with multiple detatched buildings that would host nonprofit organizations, as well as live/work spaces for nonprofit employees.
“We didn’t bring a design … on purpose,” said one of the project’s leaders, Paul Yandura. “We’re bringing you a very sound concept.”
In addition to retail and restaurant space, the development would host a “nonprofit leadership campus,” that would include short-term housing (possibly a hotel), training and conference facilities, a multimedia center with a broadcasting studio, and leadership-development programs.
Citing the high cost of living for nonprofit employees and the District’s reliance on nonprofit workers, the developers said the space would be a place to nurture those workers, while also building new retail, restaurant and public space in its planned courtyard. It also promised a “large reservoir of shared parking.”
The group, backed by philanthropists, provided a very loose sketch that suggested it was considering multiple unattached buildings with walkways connecting them.
The StreetSense/DSF group proposed an 80-room boutique hotel and a restaurant headed by D.C. chef Robert Wiedmeier. The group also said it had commitments from Yes! Organic Market and the Busboys & Poets local restaurant chain to occupy space in the future development. And the developers said the Tiger Woods Foundation, which had previously put its own bid in for the site, was interested in working with them.
The plan includes 235 units of housing, 20,000 square feet of open space, 40,000 square feet of retail and an unspecified number of underground parking spaces. The designers emphasized that the entire complex would not be more than four stories tall, and most of it would rise to three stories.
A fourth potential development, led by the local Stanton Development, EastBanc and Hill architect Amy Weinstein, would house not only retail and residential space, but also the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
The building would allow the theater to centralize its storage, office and short-term living spaces, which are currently scattered mostly around the Hill.
An outside courtyard off C Street — which designer Weinstein is calling a “piazza” — could host both market space and the occasional outside theater performance.
The development would rise up to six stories on Pennsylvania Avenue, and four or five stories on 7th and 8th streets.
Reaction from residents was mixed.
“I like the Stanton plan,” said Christine Hiskey, a resident of the 200 block of 11th Street. “I think if the not-for-profit could’ve come up with drawings, they’d be in the running.”
Resident Marcia Salkin, who lives on the 200 block of 8th Street, directly across from the future development, also said she initially preferred the Stanton plan. Though the design was larger than the others, Salkin said she was happy to see it included step backs on the higher floors, which weren’t obvious in the other proposals.
“I understand they need [the massing] given the economics of the space,” she said.
The presentations are available in PDF form at dcbiz.dc.gov. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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