Georgia Ave. Post Office on List of Proposed Closures

Council member Jim Graham posted the following message to the Georgia Avenue listserv today. While I don’t necessarily like the current post office, it is critical to the neighborhood that we have a place to conduct our business. Perhaps the low usage at the Georgia Avenue station is in part due to the fact that it opens late and closes early on week days, giving many residents Saturday as the only real time they can use the station.

Graham’s message is below:

This morning I received a media call indicating that USPS was considering closing Georgia Ave P.O. at Georgia and Morton. It has been named “Columbia Heights” since USPS closed the former location–on the 1400 block of Irving– in the 1990s and relocated it.

We need a new post office back at 14th and Irving, and we also need to keep the post office on Georgia at Morton. The large number of elderly, alone, along the 14th St and Ga Ave corridors justify these actions! In addition, with its new residential and retail, 14th and Irving is vastly changed since a decade ago.

Please express your views on this to our Congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, by going to her website and sending an email. Click this link or copy and paste it into your internet browser’s address bar: http://www.norton.house.gov/

People Before Profit

I found this near 3224 Georgia Avenue.

Senior Wellness Center on Georgia Avenue and Other Ward 1 Development News

The following email was distributed by Jim Graham today. While it is good news for Ward 1, I think the Senior Wellness Center on Georgia Avenue is of particular interest to Park View and the redevelopement of Georgia Avenue.

Graham’s email reads as follows:

Three important contract awards have been submitted for approval to the Council for Ward 1. We appreciate the strong action by Mayor Adrian Fenty and his team for moving these projects forward.

Champlain Street opening under Marie Reed School–$1.7 million

We all know the tragic crimes that have taken place in the forgotten space under Marie Reed Learning Center. This project will bring new life by opening up this dangerous dead-end street.

Construction is expected to begin very soon. The project will dramatically improve this area with an open roadway, new sidewalks, street lights, trees, a bicycle lane, and improved traffic flow.

I authored $1.9 million over the past two budget years to make this project happen. After extensive involvement from Marie Reed Learning Center, the ANC, and area residents and businesses, we have a great solution on its way.

I continue to work with the Department of Parks and Recreation and DCPS to bring additional building improvements along Champlain Street.

Senior Wellness Center on Georgia Avenue–$4.35 million

Ward 1 Seniors will finally have a center in their own community on Georgia Avenue. This has been a longstanding issue…I have been involved for years, and we have had some false starts where DC had to fire the contractor. Seniors rallied to save this project for its original Georgia Avenue location. This Senior Wellness Center, at 3531 Georgia Ave, will include health education, exercise programs, and a pleasant refuge during hot summer months. The construction team is expected to complete this project within one year.

New athletic/soccer fields at Bell/Lincoln Campus–$1.1 million

This project will bring badly needed athletic field improvements. The project reportedly will be complete before the new school year.

These contracts–absent adverse action by the Council which surely will not occur–will take effect on July 18.

Update on the Bruce Monroe Elementary School Demolition Schedule

I got the following notice form the Georgia Avenue group listserv:

–Demolition of the Bruce Monroe School is supposed to start on/or around July 15, 2009. (A press conference is being planned at the site the morning that demolition starts.)

–Demolition will take approximately three (3) months. (Work will proceed every Monday – Saturday from 7 AM to 7 PM. Signs will go up around the site.)

–Solicitation of construction bids will begin on July, 15, 2009. It will take 60 to 75 after the closing of the bids to evaluate them. A contract may be awarded by the end of 2009. The contract has to be approved by the DC City Council.

–The site will be redeveloped as a school with commercial and/or residential construction on the Georgia Avenue side of the property through a public/private partnership. The school will have 75,000 to 100,000 square feet of space.

–The new Bruce Monroe Elementary School is tenatively scheduled to open in 2013. It’s educational programs will include grades Pre-K through 5 or grades Pre-K through 8 (to be worked out by the school system and the school community.)

***Active discussions are taking place between the Chancellor’s Office, DCPS, Bruce Monroe administrators, teachers, and parents, the DC Education Ombudsman’s Office, Councilman Gray’s office, Councilman Kwame Brown’s office, DC economic develpment officials, and the community.

Latest on Central Union Mission

At last night’s ANC1A meeting David Treadwell spoke to the group to let them know what the latest was on the future of the Central Union Mission.

The planned land swap with the Georgia Avenue and Gales School properties no longer seems to be on the table, as the ACLU is suing. It is their contention that such a deal can not be made because a religious organization and a municipal entity are not compatible.

This does not mean the downtown site has fallen through and it’s back to the original plan. Rather, the Mission still hopes to work with the District to reach a deal on the Gales School to place its homeless shelter there. Right now they are working through the legal issues.

Treadwell focused most of his time on the Georgia Avenue property. Since the Mission cannot allow the property to remain vacant with no plan of development whatsoever, they are proposing a mixed use building. Treadwell stated that the location would be a good site for the Mission’s administrative offices and counselling services. The other parts of the building would be for mixed income housing and commercial. If things go the way they are currently planned, the Mission would retain ownership only of the sections of the building they end up using, with other tenants owning their footprints much like a condo is organized.

Perhaps most encouraging is that Treadwell indicated that the City has been working with the Mission toward the same goal and is assisting as much as possible to sort this out.

(My thanks to M.V. Jantzen for the use of the Mission image)

Central Union Mission on ANC1A Agenda

From the Georgia Avenue listserv, at tomorrow night’s ANC1A meeting,

David Treadwell from Central Union Mission will be presenting their proposal for development of a mixed income apartment building at 3510-3512 Georgia Avenue, and the lots immediately behind on Newton Street. Please come out and find out about this proposal. As you probably know, they were proposing a 170+ bed mens shelter, but have opted for something different after the neighborhood objected to such a large overnight mens shelter on Georgia Avenue. The meeting starts at 7:00pm at 3101 13th Street Northwest (the cafeteria of Harriet Tubman Elementary School).

Police Helicopters Wednesday Night

For those of you that live in northern Park View or southern Petworth, you may have wondered what was up with the police helicopters last night. It’s my understanding that a liquor store on Georgia Ave. was robbed there was a robbery and the helicopters were part of the police response.

If anyone knows more about this incident, please share what you know.

Georgia Avenue Great Streets/O Street Market Among Possible Victims to Convention Center Hotel Deal

The Washington Business Journal reported on June 16th that the D.C. Council is considering withdrawing millions of dollars in subsidies from stalled city real estate projects to publicly finance the convention center hotel. You can read the entire article here>>

The article continues by stating that …

D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi met with members of the D.C. Council on Monday and discussed the list of projects with $704 million in subsidies that have already been passed and could be diverted to the hotel. The list provided by the CFO’s office includes the Southwest waterfront, the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg residential development on the Capitol Riverfront, the mixed-use O Street Market in Shaw and seven other economic development incentives.

The entire list of already approved projects at risk includes:

• Southwest waterfront, $198 million;
• Housing Production Trust Fund, $190 million;
• Great Streets retail priority area (neighborhood tax increment financing), $75 million;
• Capper/Carrollsburg payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, $55 million;
• O Street Market, $46.5 million;
• Skyland Shopping Center, $40 million;
• The Yards payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, $30 million;
• Great Streets, $20 million;
• Downtown retail priority area, $16.05 million;
• Fort Lincoln retail priority area, $10 million;
• Arena Stage, $10 million;
• Rhode Island Place retail priority area, $7.2 million; and
• Broadcast Center One, $6.4 million.

I’m particularly concerned about Georgia Avenue, as this would not be the first, but second time that funds allocated for its renewal have been redirected.

At the last ANC1A meeting, a representative from the Deputy Mayor’s office stood before the assembly and admitted that the money originally set aside for Georgia Avenue had be redirected to pay for H Street, NE, redevelopment. He continued that nearly all of the funding needed to replace that allocation had been secured so that Georgia Avenue could get back on track.

Now, it seems that those statements may have been premature. After contacting Councilmemeber Graham, he stated that he was unaware of any plans to redirect Georgia Avenue Great Streets money and that we would be opposed to any plan that did so.

Georgia Avenue Great Streets Update

I wish I had more news on this than I do, but I’ll share what I know.

Last night, representatives of DDOT came to the ANC1A meeting to give an update on the Georgia Avenue Great Streets project.

The only thing that was learned officially is that the money that was initially set aside for Georgia Avenue was used for H Street, NE, construction. The city has since been trying to find ways to replace those funds and thinks that they have nearly been able to do that. It is their hope that funds will be secured by the end of this summer, with a Fall 2009 start date for construction.

What is confusing to me, and to others that were at the meeting, is that the representatives at various times reminded folks that there is an upper, middle, and lower Georgia Avenue plan … and then said that those designations no longer applied … only to reverse that statement and state that there are three areas.

Lower Georgia Ave. is designated as between Otis and Florida Avenue. When a question was raised about the Otis to Rock Creek Church Rd. section, we were told that that is part of the Middle Georgia Ave. Plan, a Ward 4 project, so we shouldn’t be too worried about it. The DDOT representatives were reminded that south of Rock Creek Church Rd. IS in Ward 1.

As confusing as all of this is, information is available from the DDOT Web site, but I’m sure it won’t be any clearer than what was discussed last night as its dated. To get to the DDOT Georgia Avenue documents, go here>>

Park Morton & Georgia Ave Great Streets

For those who live in ANC1A, and especially those who live in 1A08, 1A09, and 1A10, the next 1A meeting will be of particular interest.

Next Wednesday, starting 7:00 pm at the Harriet Tubman Elementary School, 3101 13th Street NW, the ANC1A meeting will have two item on note.

1. Park Morton: The three Developers who are seeking to redevelop Park Morton will present their proposals.
2. Georgia Avenue Great Streets Project: David Jannoroni, deputy mayor of economic development, will come to address questions on the stalled Georgia Avenue Great Streets Project

The Developers presentations should be a close copy of the presentations held May 12 at Howard University. You can read my earlier post to get an idea of what they are about.

The Georgia Avenue Great Streets project has been on the books for a while, and was planned prior to other projects that now in progress or have received the green light to proceed. Mr. Jannoroni will explain the current status of the project. Some information is available from DDOT here>>