Good Afternoon,
So, I just want this conversation be more complete. There is a difference between what is "affordable housing" whether it is rent or ownership and the current "affordable housing" being offered by Non-Profits who builds houses. This is an issue that needs to be addressed at Council as developers are getting away with the abuse of this term just like City Planners get away with using the term "under-served".
Like I told our City Planner Jeff (ndc), there is a huge difference between the terms "under-served" community and the "under-previleged" community. Somehow, developers and City Planners use the term "under-served" to smoke and mirror the conversations.
If developers are going to receive City Dollars/incentives/tax credits/etc, then they should be incorporating units that are REALLY AFFORDABLE rather than 80% of "Market" -- the market rate that they are now setting. EG. Rhode Island Row -- A Two Bedroom a year ago was $2,370 -- "assuming this does not including utilities". An "affordable housing" rate (80%) would be $1896. Not sure who this is affordable to? Maybe our City Council could understand the intent of the "affordable housing" designation years ago was to align with the THEN living Standard/Cost of Living.
This was one of the issues with 901 Monroe getting the designation C2B instead of C2A -- C2B only has a 8% requirement vs a 10% with C2A -- regardless, again I must ask -- Affordable to WHO? It does not provide for the individuals who this program was intended to serve.
Our Council Member should be putting forth the necessary Legislation for this. That is what true Gentrification should be all about -- not replacing but uplifiting.
Rob Ramson
On Thu, May 16, 2013 at 12:09 PM, Peta-Gay Lewis <petagaylewis@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: KPW <WKPW3@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [ward5] WCP HC: "Hecht's Appeal" [the promise of the Ivy City project]
To: ward5@yahoogroups.com
Could credit be a problem, income levels, or size of family?
Sadly, though some of these units built in 2010, 2011, 2012 are STILL vacant not because of affordability (as you would think) or even asthetic appeal but instead residents are not choosing to purchase them so while you would think everyone would jump on these opportunities it is not always the case.
-----Original Message-----
From: Peta-Gay Lewis <petagaylewis@yahoo.com>
To: ward5 <ward5@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thu, May 16, 2013 11:48 am
Subject: Re: [ward5] WCP HC: "Hecht's Appeal" [the promise of the Ivy City project]
From: KPW <WKPW3@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [ward5] WCP HC: "Hecht's Appeal" [the promise of the Ivy City project]
To: ward5@yahoogroups.com
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2013, 11:23 AM
This sounds promising. What is important now is to ensure that there is affordable housing in the area for those long term residents that take pride in the area. Embracing change in a neighborhood with mixed incomes may be a good thing. New development has a tendency to displace exciting residents and higher income residents tend to replace them.
`All ships rise when the tide comes up,`` says Jemal.
The promise of the project is such that neighbors are speaking in unusually
positive terms about a developer breaking ground in their midst. ``The
neighborhood is thrilled with it,`` says Peta-Gay Lewis, the Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner for Ivy City. ``Douglas Development has been working
with the community,`` says Ivy City resident Andria Swanson, who was a
plaintiff in a recent lawsuit to prevent the city from creating more bus
parking in the neighborhood.
If the Hecht Warehouse District, as it`s billed, meets Douglas` lofty ambitions,
it could truly have a transformative effect on Ivy City. But only if Douglas
can find tenants willing to fill it.
-----Original Message-----
From: scott <scott@scott-roberts.net>
To: ward5 <ward5@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wed, May 15, 2013 9:42 pm
Subject: [ward5] WCP HC: "Hecht's Appeal"
See Washington City Paper Housing Complex reporter Aaron Wiener's story on Ward 5's landmarked Hecht`s Company Warehouse.Hecht`s Appeal
Posted by Aaron Wiener on May. 15, 2013 at 9:09 pm
[http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2013/05/15/hechts-appeal/]
Photo Slideshow: Hecht Company Warehouse
At a time of when cranes are proliferating across the city, Ivy City can feel like
the kid who didn`t get picked.
The diminutive Northeast neighborhood is hemmed in by New York Avenue and the
railroad tracks to the north, Mount Olivet Cemetery to the southeast, and
Gallaudet University to the southwest. Retail is scarce; the only new
businesses generating buzz are a marijuana cultivation center and a gin
distillery. Any bustle is largely confined to the crowds spilling out of Love
Nightclub on weekends and people lining up outside the homeless shelter at New
York Avenue and Fenwick Street. The D.C. government has a large presence in Ivy
City, in the form of lots for garbage trucks and school buses—which have led
some residents to complain the area has become the city`s ``dumping ground.``
According to a 2011 survey by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition,
the median household income among the neighborhood`s 860 residents is $23,700.
But there`s one development that could change the face of the neighborhood,
bringing a huge commercial and retail presence to an area that has neither. If
Douglas Development has its way, an Ivy City lot that`s long sat fallow will
soon have 500,000 square feet of office space, a grocery store, and a big-box
retailer or two—growth that could bring bikers, pedestrians, and, most
ambitiously, a streetcar into the neighborhood.
The site in question is the old Hecht Company distribution center at 1401 New York
Ave. NE, a six-story Art Deco warehouse alongside a large empty lot and two
smaller vacant buildings. The warehouse was built in 1937 to serve Hecht`s
department stores but has stood vacant since Macy`s took over the chain in
2006. The only bidder in a 2011 auction, Douglas bought the property for $20
million. The developer`s founder and president, Doug Jemal, says he thinks the
property is soon ``gonna be worth $200 million,`` and that the neighborhood
will change with it.
``This could be the Meatpacking District,`` Jemal says, standing in the middle of the
Hecht`s lot. ``This could be the coolest part of town. But this``—he sweeps his
arm back toward a city-owned lot full of parked garbage trucks across Okie
Street to the south—``is a mistake.``
Jemal and his head of construction, Paul Millstein, think they can help reverse the
years of neglect from the city and private developers by bringing people, jobs,
and attractions to the Hecht`s site. Millstein compares it to the People`s
Building that Douglas bought in NoMa back when the neighborhood was itself a ``dumping
ground,`` an acquisition he says helped jump-start the area`s evolution into
the hot office market it is today.
``All ships rise when the tide comes up,`` says Jemal.
The promise of the project is such that neighbors are speaking in unusually
positive terms about a developer breaking ground in their midst. ``The
neighborhood is thrilled with it,`` says Peta-Gay Lewis, the Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner for Ivy City. ``Douglas Development has been working
with the community,`` says Ivy City resident Andria Swanson, who was a
plaintiff in a recent lawsuit to prevent the city from creating more bus
parking in the neighborhood.
If the Hecht Warehouse District, as it`s billed, meets Douglas` lofty ambitions,
it could truly have a transformative effect on Ivy City. But only if Douglas
can find tenants willing to fill it.
***
The Hecht`s site doesn`t look like much. During a recent visit, the only activity
at the center of the site is an excavator that repeatedly picks up and drops
I-beams to shake loose dirt. On the margins, the demolition of a historic wall
facing New York Avenue is in its final stages, opening up views of the
long-hidden lot to the streams of cars passing by. Inside the old warehouse is
nothing but rows of support columns in a spectrum of bright colors.
But Douglas has a big vision for the property. Renderings show a new ``Hecht Avenue``
running from New York to Okie, featuring a plaza with a fountain and lined with
retail that includes a supermarket and a cafe. Farther east is a small surface
parking lot and a big-box retail space whose name (``Sunnymart``) and logo (a
yellow star nearly identical to Walmart`s) in the renderings make clear the
kind of retailer Douglas is looking to attract. Another big retail space will
be topped with a 1,000-car garage that`s convertible to housing if residential
demand or transportation options improve in the future. Jemal says the huge
roof of the office building will have a running track, basketball court, dog
park, and swimming pool to go along with views of the Capitol and Washington
Monument—and foreground views of the railyards, bus parking lots, and traffic
jams on New York Avenue.
For the New York Avenue corridor, the big-box component isn`t new: The District`s
first Costco recently opened two miles to the northeast, and a Walmart is
planned just a few blocks away. The Hecht Warehouse retail could likewise serve
shoppers as they commute home to Maryland. But Millstein says he wants to make
Hecht`s a ``dual-threat site`` that caters to both the commuter corridor and
the adjacent neighborhood.
The latter ``threat`` could deliver some of the most intriguing developments,
particularly on the transportation front. Millstein says Douglas plans to help
bring an off-street bike trail to New York Avenue and hopes the office or
retail tenants might chip in to provide a shuttle from the NoMa Metro station.
He also says he`s in talks with the Office of Planning and the District
Department of Transportation to bring a streetcar spur up from the H Street
line along West Virginia Avenue to the Hecht`s site. (Office of Planning
Director Harriet Tregoning and a DDOT official familiar with the Hecht`s
project both say they haven`t heard anything about a streetcar spur; Millstein
says the project may be in too early a stage to allow discussion by city
officials.)
A streetcar may be a longshot, and Lewis and Swanson are both skeptical that it`d
help Ivy City residents. But up to now, the neighborhood has been taunted by
transit it doesn`t benefit from: the Amtrak tracks that box in a neighborhood
that lacks easy access to any Metro or intercity rail stations, and the
whizzing cars along New York Avenue that rarely have occasion to pull off in
Ivy City. Adding destination retail, a community-serving supermarket, greater
transportation options, and jobs in the office building—Jemal says there could
be up to 5,000 people working there—could change all that. Tregoning says the
kind of retail the Hecht`s project might be able to attract would ``allow that
community to punch above its weight.`` And Millstein hopes that it could
motivate the city to find other locations for bus and truck parking as those
Ivy City lots become more valuable as potential retail or housing development
sites.
``With the developers moving into the neighborhood,`` says Lewis, ``the government is
realizing that the area does have some value to it.``
***
But before any of that can happen, Douglas needs to find tenants. ``We have no
tenants today,`` Millstein says. ``We are completely spec. That`s how much we
believe in this site.``
Behind that confidence, there`s sure to be some unease, given the history of the
place. The previous owner, Patriot Equities, likewise hoped to bring a big-box
store and other retailers to the site but got nowhere, and eventually the
property fell into foreclosure.
Douglas has a few advantages: It spent considerably less on the site than Patriot`s
$78.5 million purchase in 2007, Patriot already put some work into the
property, and as far as anyone knows, we`re not about to enter a deep
recession. Likewise, Millstein says, the arrival of the Costco just off New
York Avenue makes the Hecht`s site easier to market. ``We`re now an infill
site,`` he says.
Still, Douglas has a reputation for sitting on properties if the right retail tenants
don`t come along—a prospect that could consign the neighborhood to years of
purgatory.
The Douglas brass is heading to Las Vegas this weekend to pitch the site to
retailers at the annual International Council of Shopping Centers conference.
But it`s the office space that could be a tougher sell, as employers
increasingly seek spaces near public transit.
Millstein says he`s hoping for a federal government tenant through the General Services
Administration—after all, it`s hard to fill 500,000 square feet of office space
without a big lead occupant—and that Douglas has hired a consultant with
experience in GSA leasing. The consultant advised them that because GSA is ``becoming
more value-conscious,`` the Hecht`s space (at around $25 per square foot,
compared to double that downtown) could be attractive, and that in order to
compete for a government agency, the transit-starved site would need lots of
parking—hence the 1,000-car garage. But even with all the parking, the site
could be a tough sell: GSA generally requires leases in the D.C. region to be
within half a mile of a Metro station; otherwise, shuttle service must be
provided.
Millstein says he would need a tenant to sign up for at least 50,000 square feet to get
things started; Douglas would then open up another floor to smaller office users.
``We need a 50 to open, and I think we`ll get it,`` he says.
As Millstein and I drive back to Douglas` downtown offices in his monstrous red
Ford F-250 truck, he looks around at the pricier but easier-to-market office
buildings around us. ``You have to work very hard to explain the vision,`` he
says of the Hecht`s project. ``You don`t have to do that here.``__._,_.___
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R. Ramson
3744 12th Street, N.E.,
Washington D.C., 20017
202-438-5988
"We must become the change we want to see" - Mohandas Gandhi-
(Together, for a Brighter Tomorrow)
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