“The riverfront is an incredible advantage to us…. There’s just not a lot of waterfront [in D.C.] where you can live, work and play.”
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further stranding the community from amenities and branding it a dangerous place. Meanwhile, industrial activity in and around the Navy Yard was withering and buildings that were once sites for manufacturing began to fall into disrepair, fueling the vicious cycle of Anacostia’s decline. With few residential buildings, and no longer drawing a robust daily workforce, the area around the Navy Yard essentially became a deserted quarter of the city. On either side of the river, life in Anacostia and the Navy Yard was on the wane.
WATERFRONT RENAISSANCE Today, visitors strolling west from the Navy Yard will come across the sculpted walkways, fountains and manicured gardens of Yards Park, a 5.5-acre waterfront recreational area that opened last year to complement the torrent of development that has transformed what was once a no-man’s land into an up-and-coming destination in less than a decade. The Capitol Riverfront aims to capitalize on its prime location and natural appeal — notably one and a half miles of waterfront stretching north to the U.S. Capitol, which is just blocks away. Anchored by the Washington Navy Yard, the 500acre project is designed to preserve the area’s distinct industrial heritage while incorporating state-of-the-art green building technology (including more than 30 LEED-certified existing or planned buildings and the largest green roof in the city atop the Department of Transportation). In short, it’s a grand, multibillion-dollar, public-private endeavor that could finally fulfill Pierre L’Enfant’s original vision for Washington by creating a true hub of activity along the water’s edge. Already, the mixed-use community attracts 35,000 daytime employees in 6.5 million square feet of office space — including the Washington Navy Yard and U.S. Department of Transportation — along with nearly 2,500 residential units housing 3,300 people. “The riverfront is an incredible advantage to us,” said Michael Stevens, executive director of the Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District. He points out that the area boasts a stop on the Metro’s popular Green Line and is walking distance to Capitol Hill — and, for baseball fans, is a stone’s throw from Nationals Park. But its distinguishing feature, he says, is the combination of accessibility to transportation and the scenic backdrop of the river. “There’s just not a lot of waterfront [in D.C.] where you can live, work and play.” Though Washington is positioned at the fork of a great waterway, it has been relatively slow to fully develop this real estate asset, and that has played to the Capitol Riverfront’s advantage, experts say. “Here we had the capital of the country, and yet it didn’t have much of a waterfront to speak of. There’s Georgetown waterfront, but that’s pretty new, and then there was all of this other waterfront that was under-utilized,” said Will Smith of UrbanTurf.com, an online real estate guide.“The whole idea of the Capitol Riverfront was to recapture this under-utilized waterfront land and make it into a great neighborhood, and there was a concerted effort by the city and the development community to do that.” The biggest component of the revitalization in the neighborhood has been the development of The Yards, which is expected to be completed over the next five years. The project, which sits on more than 40 acres of land — bounded by M Street in Southeast, the Navy Yard, 1st
Street, SE, and the Anacostia River — calls for Forest City Washington Inc. to create 2,800 residential units for sale and for lease, 1.8 million square feet of new office space and 400,000 square feet of retail space, while grooming new swaths of parkland and recreational waterfront. In doing so, the developer is tasked with converting existing historical structures from their industrial past for modern-day use. According to people in charge of the project at Forest City Washington, that’s a job the development company relishes. “We liked the fact that The Yards was going to be a combination of some historic buildings, adding authentic character and also new buildings to create this great synergy between old and new,” said Ramsey Meiser, senior vice president of development for Forest City Washington. “Typically, the company likes mixed-use urban redevelopments, and we’re very comfortable redoing historic buildings, so this fit right within our comfort zone.” Meiser cited Forest City’s work in the 1990s on Tobacco Row, a redevelopment of six abandoned tobacco warehouses on the James River in downtown Richmond, Va., as an instance when his company created a new mixed-use residential district that incorporated historical structures. The final result at The Yards, according to Meiser, will be an assemblage of historic buildings that maintain their original character, other structures that are a meld of historic and modern design, and new buildings styled with a nod to the area’s industrial past. “We’re going to work within the existing structures of the historic buildings, and the designs that we have in mind for a couple of the new buildings will be very consistent,” he said. Meiser noted that the Boilermaker Building — a historic structure beside the Department of Transportation headquarters that will serve as a main retail hub with six to eight shops and restaurants — “is going to remain consistent with what it looks like today.” “On the other hand,” he said, “there’s also a pavilion building that stands in the park where we tore the non-historic metal siding off and fixed up the concrete. That building is going to be wrapped in glass and pretty much look like a glass cube.” The Foundry Lofts, a 170-unit apartment building created from a four-story structure dating back to 1918, will keep much of the original feel intact, Meiser said, while adding two new modern stories on the rooftop. Although these projects have gotten many people to take a fresh look at the area, the Capitol Riverfront is years away from completion. Moreover, the recent economic recession and subsequent credit freeze hurt the ambitious project, which only picked up steam again in 2010 thanks in large part to a $40 million infusion from the D.C. Housing Finance Agency. In the meantime, if there is one frequent complaint from Capitol Riverfront residents and visitors, it’s that there just aren’t enough amenities right now. For example, there’s only one bar — Justin’s Café, which doubles as a spot for happy hour and takeout pizza in the first floor of the Velocity building at 1st and K Streets, SE. But that hasn’t detracted some residents who see the long-term potential. “This area is really a coming area — it’s convenient to get to almost anywhere you might work in the city.And if we could get a little retail it would be phenomenal,” said Peter Ufland, as
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LUXURY LIVING April 2011
The Washington Diplomat Page 43