Posting

The National Main Street Conference starts Sunday. I'll be traveling there as well as preparing to make a presentation. And I have some other things going on too, as well as the production of a "final" draft of a commercial district revitalization study for a community on Maryland's Eastern Shore. So I haven't been blogging much and I am not likely to for awhile (my laptop is replete with viruses that I haven't had a chance to get removed--a few iterations of Avast haven't been enough to rid the computer of the problems.

Brookland planning

I-395 at Massachusetts Avenue NE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

I have been meaning to write about the hearing from a couple weeks ago, but I didn't have the right photos to illustrate some of the points I wanted to make, and now the moment is passed so I am less inclined to write the overly thorough kind of entry that I am noted for.

One of the things that can bug me about citizen involvement in civic affairs has to do with agreeing to a set of facts. You know the line: you're entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own set of facts.

One of the things that keeps coming up is "decking" the Brookland Metro station and how the Office of Planning ignored that option. (Which they didn't. Even though they knew it wasn't feasible, they paid an extra $50,000 for a economic and basic engineering analysis of the possibility.)

This whole idea of decking is cockeyed, and anyone with a basic spatial sense should be able to figure it out.

1. From Rhode Island Avenue to the District line in Silver Spring, for the most part the CSX and WMATA red line subway tracks are at grade, even as it is slightly below or slightly above grade in various places on the route.

2. I wrote a long blog entry in the summer of 2007 evaluating the idea of the original proposal, which was to tunnel and put the Brookland station underground.

Frankly, I think that would be great, but would cost billions of dollars because the weight of the locomotive engines and train cars is such that you can't abruptly shift tracking grade. The entire Metropolitan branch tracks would have to be put underground to make this work--from Union Station in DC to some point in Montgomery County, I don't know how far.

Had this been done in the early 1970s when the subway line was constructed, this might have been feasible. It isn't now, even though it's a great idea and would allow for adding tracks to the subway line.

3. That led to the decking idea as an alternative. And people tout the fact that the National Capital Planning Commission is promoting decking of freeways in various places in the city.

But as you can see from this photo, I-395 is in a below grade ditch and can be decked at the normal street grade level.


When Union Station was constructed, many grade changes were made to accommodate the creation of the train yard, bridges for the tracks, and underpasses for the streets. This particularly impacted blocks between 2nd and 3rd Streets from about F Street NE to L Street NE. These houses on the 200 block of K Street NE were likely built with an even grade to the street, although now they are perched significantly higher than street level today.

4. Because the Met Branch is not under grade in a significant fashion, you can't deck it and create "new land" at street grade level in the same way that this has been done above I-395 already.

Looking east from the E Street overpass of I-395 you can see how buildings have been constructed between H and K Streets NW, on top of a deck over the I-395 freeway.

5. Therefore, if you create a "deck" in Brookland you create another obstruction, one that creates another problem.

And the whole point of putting the Brookland station and tracks in that vicinity underground had to do with trying to knit the east and west parts of the neighborhood together (oddly, this is somewhat problematic because for the most part, the west parts of the neighborhood are made up of institutional campuses and don't lend themselves very well to connection).


This isn't a perfect comparison. It's taken from 5th and Penn Street NE, at the top of Florida Market. While I like the quality of the apartment buildings constructed at Senate Square (the 200 block of I Street NE), there is no question that they have impacted the quality of the viewshed of the dome of the U.S. Capitol from various locations in the northeast quadrant. A "deck" at the Brookland Metro station would merely be a big building blocking views and acting as an obstruction.

6. Another point made frequently by the pro-deck faction is that lots of land would be created by decking and this would generate income.

But the reality is that for the most part, from Rhode Island Ave. to the DC-Silver Spring line, the railroad track right-of-way is about 150 feet wide maximum. You don't create all that much developable land, and certainly not enough to cover the cost of tunneling. (CSX would likely happily give up the revenue/rights to sale of the land in return for a tunnel that they wouldn't have to pay for, but building a tunnel might require significant service interruptions in the interim.)

Traditional Metro tunnels cost $400 million/mile--and with this idea by contrast we are talking about double stacked tunnels with the CSX railroad tracks on the bottom, but wider than Metro tunnels, since we would likely want to increase by at least one the number of tracks for both the railroad and the subway line. So the cost would be significantly higher.

Why can't the PhDs and the architects and other professionals in Brookland understand these conditions and constraints? These "facts"?

(Sadly, why didn't the subway station at Brookland get designed better in the first place, recognizing the possibility of extending the grid, and maintaining the idea of Newton as a through street? This would have solved many problems. The thing is that the planning proposals for changes to the Metro station likely will never happen because they are too costly, and the development rights around the station aren't valuable enough to generate the amount of money required to do even this, let alone contribute significant revenue to WMATA from land sales.)

Very large rowhouses constructed around 2002, on the west side of the500 block of 6th Street NE

I did the post the other day on historic preservation and new construction, but didn't have all the illustrations I wanted to use. These rowhouses on the 500 block of 6th Street NE, in the Capitol Hill Historic District, tower over their neighbors, and the overexuberant use of alternating courses of white bricks calls far too much attention to the house. Straight up red bricks, with the stone lintels, would have been preferred, because the house would have then fit in better, blending in as a more subdued addition to the neighborhood.

Very large rowhouses constructed around 2002, on the west side of the 500 block of 6th Street NE
Originally uploaded by rllayman

A colleague calls this the "clown" house.

Irving Street 6 lane highway to Brookland from Petworth

Irving Street 6 lane highway to Brookland from Petworth
Originally uploaded by rllayman

This is one of the only connecting-supporting pieces built for the proposed interstate highway that would have bracketed the CSX-subway tracks running north from Union Station. It's way out of character and infrastructure built "far too robustly" for traffic volumes far beyond what the area generates. What that means is that the prevailing speeds are far higher than the posted 35 mph limits.

Chinatown double happiness bicycle rack, Victoria, BC

chinatown double happiness
Originally uploaded by Luton

Washcycle, the region's unparalleled blog about bicycling issues, blogged this photo about a place-appropriate bicycle rack installed in Chinatown in Victoria, BC. The rack has Chinese language characters saying "double happiness" and is the new standard design for that section of the city.

I feel strongly that rather than standardize street furniture and other place accoutrements across a city, that there needs to be room for different treatments calling attention to different places, to help strengthen the unique characteristics of place.

Bicycle rack in the Pearl District, Portland, paying homage to Portland's bridges crossing the Willamette River.


Art deco styled trash can in the vicinity of Rockefeller Plaza, New York City.


Why not have bus shelters more appropriate for historic districts located in historic districts, different kinds of pole standards for streetlights, not just "historic old" streetlight styles but what about Art Deco, etc., different kinds of benches and trash cans, and street signs.

This bus shelter is in Berlin, but has a design comparable to the old carriage and trolley waiting stations on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol abutting 1st Street SE.


E.g., I am big on street signs that identify neighborhoods and/or historic districts, to help strengthen the spatial qualities of place.

This is an example of an ordinary street sign in Pittsburgh at an intersection, but generally these signs identify the neighborhood, in this case Highland Park.

This is one in Alexandria, showing a neighborhood historic district.


And this one, in Brooklyn, does the same, but a little more distinctively.


This is from Petersburg, Virginia, which also color codes the signs according to the historic district. For example, the Courthouse district has powder blue signs and the Poplar Lawn district has green signs.


Prescott, Arizona


Chinatown, Vancouver. Flickr photo by Madame Lemon


I hate the DC historic district sign. It's unmemorable. And the sign isn't placed on every block as a matter of course (but considering the design, that's a good thing).

"Passion, invention and joy are actually possible in public buildings" ...

if they were built a long time ago. Not today, usually, when the buildings are value engineered, satisficed, "over programmed," and not focused enough on thinking about how people use the spaces and how buildings contribute to urban form beyond the confines of the lot on which the building sits.

It's always fun to read coverage of DC issues in other places. The Boston Globe architecture writer has a piece on the new Capitol Visitors Center, "Architecture highs and lows in D.C.."

The review starts with this:

If you're an architect who doesn't have a single bright idea, here's what you do. Impress everyone by spending $621 million. Make every room twice as big as it needs to be. Finally, slather every available surface with a thick, gooey coat of warm-toned marble.

Murals, public art, art expression, arts as economic stimulus

The Wall, Falls Road, Belfast
Originally uploaded by rllayman

(Image of The Wall, Falls Road, Belfast by flickr photographer bk86a.)

Many murals done as public art projects aren't very good. And you're stuck with them for many years. Plus they have to be maintained.

A legitimate complaint of artists is that public art projects focused more on what I call "community building" and engaging un- or under-trained "artists" can produce average projects and cheapen the perception of artists as people who work, get paid to work, and have skills.

This image from Belfast shows us you can have provocative murals as public art.

The Boston Globe has had a bunch of coverage of Shepherd Fairey, because there is an exhibition of his work at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, as well as the fact that he was arrested before a scheduled event he was to participate in at the said museum.

There has been back and forth in the letters to the editor about Fairey's work as expression and art vs. vandalism. This is the conundrum I have at times with graffiti.

The reason that I do like Fairey's work is as a letter writer says "The greatest impact that this guy has is that he is indeed, like the best of street artists, making people think, talk, and argue. He's a catalyst for change." (Patsy Munden, Savannah, Georgia)

I guess typical neighborhood-oriented mural projects can be catalysts at the neighborhood level, even if the impact remains extremely localized.

See "Street Smart" and "A Long Tradition of Bending Images," from the Globe.

These questions are also relevant to national discussions on whether or not the nation "needs an arts czar" (see "Thanks, but we don't need an arts czar" from the Boston Globe and "Arts czar position has merit" from the Louisville Courier-Journal) or whether or not the National Endowment of the Arts and arts generally is a worthy conduit for stimulus money (see "Arts organizations may try for a share of the stimulus package" from the Winston-Salem Journal).

The funny thing about arts and tourism is that they do in fact have significant economic impact. The sad thing is that the average legislator, either at the national or local level, doesn't seem to be too clued into "what makes money" and "what costs money," as well as what are called the direct and indirect economic impact of expenditures.

Spending* by attendees of arts and cultural events

Graphic on economic impact of arts event "consumers" from the Economic Imact studies conducted by the Americans for the Arts. * Additional spending beyond the initial cost of admission.

Economic impact of travelers, and cultural heritage travelers

Tourism data from the Travel Industry Association and the Maryland Office of Tourism Development. (Sorry, this graphic was produced for a Maryland planning study I am working on, so it doesn't have comparative data for Virginia and DC.) Graphic produced by Christopher Taylor Edwards.

First month paid ridership of light rail in Phoenix

Is high. See "Light-rail ridership exceeds expectation" from the Arizona Republic. From the article:

About 30,600 people rode trains on weekdays, Metro's board of directors learned from CEO Rick Simonetta on Wednesday. That average was 17.8 percent greater than Metro's monthly target, during its first year, of 26,000.

Weekend numbers were even better: On Saturdays, ridership was more than 31,300, compared with Metro's goal of 20,800; the average passenger count on Sundays and holidays was 23,800 -- more than double the target of 11,270...

• It's common to see large school, church or elderly groups ride the trains on excursions. Simonetta called it the "discovery and novelty effect." After the newness rubs off, it is unclear how many casual riders will make light rail part of their routine.

• Metro's first weeks of operation were during the Valley's busiest time and lowest temperatures. In the summer, snowbirds will have returned north, school will be out and temperatures will hover above 100 degrees. Metro expects a seasonal drop in riders but doesn't know how sharp the drop will be.

I think that, especially during these times of greater awareness of the cost of having multiple cars, this is a trend that will continue--if fixed rail transit systems are routed correctly, linking residential areas and activity centers, without dropping rail lines and stations into freeways and other places not located where people are or where they want to go.

It's the rare bus system in the U.S., that generates higher numbers than projected, especially so soon into the launch of the system.

Another reason to support an elected Attorney General in DC

rather than a mayorally appointed toadie and attack dog, (courtesy of DCWatch) comes from a letter from DC Attorney General Peter Nickles to DC City Council Chairman Vincent Gray, and the response by Councilmember Philip Mendelson, who also chairs the City Council Committee on Public Safety and the Judiciary. From the conclusion of the Mendelson letter:

As the city's chief attorney it is your duty to work with both the legislative and executive branches of government, not to bypass the legislature by fiat — acting unilaterally to change the law because you could not get your way collaboratively last year on this matter.

The curfew is an issue, for you, of inconvenience. It is not a constitutional issue. It has a sound basis and there is an alternative the Executive should pursue with the courts. Regardless, it is not for you to decide and direct what laws will be followed.

Halfway but not quite there

An op-ed in today's Post, "Prince George's Stadium Plan Merits a Yellow Card," suggests that independent bodies should evaluate economic impact claims when it comes to government subsidies or other use of government power when it comes to private development.

In 2005, in the aftermath of the Kelo decision by the Supreme Court, which held that making more money in terms of public finance was in the public interest and therefore justified taking private property to give to another private entity for redevelopment, a couple professors wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe outlining ways to strengthen the openness, transparency and fairness of the eminent domain process. From "Make Eminent Domain Fair for All":

• Requiring, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested in his Kelo concurrence, that any exercise of eminent domain for economic development have a primarily public purpose rather than a merely incidental one.

• Requiring the government to demonstrate the public benefit through a full-scale financial analysis that could be challenged in court.

• Requiring that eminent domain not be used for a solely fiscal purpose and that it instead must be part of a comprehensive land use plan.

• Requiring that the affected neighborhood have adequate participation in the planning process, a right that would be backed up by state-provided technical assistance upon the neighborhood's request.

I think that these principles should be applied to all situations when the government uses its power and authority (for providing land, tax subsidies, tax abatements, etc.). (As mentioned in a variety of past blog entries.)

And I think that there should be an independent evaluation process. But unlike Colin Helmer, writer of the op-ed in today's Post, I don't believe that local universities, especially public universities, can be fully independent in such evaluations.

Mr. Helmer suggests that the University of Maryland, located in Prince George's County and fully aware of the need to keep elected officials from PG County serving on both the county and state government happy, will be an independent party evaluating the economic impact of a soccer stadium proposed in PG County. I think not. Similarly, because the University is reliant on state appropriations, they only have so much social and political capital that they can expend promoting independent judicious academic analysis that can be at odds with what the politicos want. And the politicos have the means to reward or to punish the University.

The same goes in DC. Local universities seek to use the city's tax exempt bonding authority for construction projects, want zoning benefits, have to get approval of campus plans every 10 years, etc., and they are not likely to be willing to challenge the status quo too significantly.

New York City funds the Independent Budget Office, somewhat comparable to the relative fairness and nonpartisan activities of either the Congressional Budget Office or the Government Accountability Office, which advise Congress, and conduct analysis (and/or audits) of various government activities, in response to Congressional directives.

From the IBO website:

The Independent Budget Office (IBO) is a publicly funded agency that provides nonpartisan information about New York City's budget to the public and their elected officials. IBO presents its budgetary reviews, economic forecasts, and policy analyses in the form of reports, testimony, memos, letters, and presentations. IBO also produces guides to understanding the budget and provides online access to key revenue and spending data from past years.

Such an entity should exist to provide a similar kind of service for state and county and center city governments.

And if you're going to hire a university to evaluate economic impact, even though it's impolitic to not spend the money locally, it makes sense to contract another university outside of the state, because the university will not likely have the kinds of potential conflicts typical of a local institution.

Historic preservation and new construction

I am late in writing the follow up entry to "Historic Preservation," where the great comment thread made me remember something I forgot to include in the entry, a short discussion on the issue of new construction in historic districts.

This is an ongoing problem. The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and The Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation don't specifically discuss the design of new construction within historic _districts_ so much, as the standards concern individual buildings.

But the point in the Rehabilitation Standards:

3. Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.

generally has been interpreted to mean that new construction in historic districts should be of the current time, rather than a copy of the old.

In the field, there is a debate about this, whether architecture should be "of its time" or "of its place." One of the reason that the "of its place" argument is so important is that you can see how the inclusion of new construction of different design tends to cheapen the whole of a district, certainly of its block, as it tends to be out of character and it shows.

My point about this has been you shouldn't hold fire, rioting, disinvestment etc. resulting in the loss of quality buildings, against the character of a neighborhood, that context sensitive new construction should fit in with the old, rather than be allowed to excuse new construction of dreck.

New construction on the 900 block of 12th Street NE (not in the Capitol Hill Historic District).


Of its place represents the position that the quality of the overall built form matters the most, when it comes to livability and maintaining the qualities that make neighborhoods great places. I've been fortunate to hear Steven Semes speak on this and he's also written about it, in "New Buildings Among Old: Historicism and the Search for an Architecture of Our Time."

Semes' paper lays out all the arguments for why the way these issues have been interpreted lead to the "decontextualization of historic buildings—they become museum artifacts instead of remaining part of our living world." His concludes that:

This growing dissent within the architectural and preservation communities represents the paradigm shift now in progress as the grip of historicist doctrine is gradually broken. In its place, a new conservation ethic is emerging, drawing together traditional architecture, new urbanism and historic preservation in pursuit of a built environment that is beautiful, sustainable and just. In the new paradigm, the architecture of our time will be the result of a critical engagement with the architecture of place, seen as a continuously self-renewing field of character and civility.

There are some good examples of new construction that fits in quite well, and other that doesn't, in Greater Capitol Hill, in the historic district there. If you're out, check out buildings at:

-- NE corner of 5th and East Capitol Streets NE
-- west side, 200 block of 7th Street NE
-- north side, 600 block of Maryland Avenue NE

for quality examples.

There are other examples that don't work well, such as the houses with way too many different colored courses of brick on the west side of the 500 block of 6th Street NE, and there are many places that have been allowed to have secondary quality materials (of brick or siding) on rears of buildings that are still visible from parts of the street.

This is a building not in the historic district, but in an area of equivalent building stock, on the 1300 block of Maryland Avenue NE. It's hard to get a good photo of the building, because of a tree in the front yard, but even this photo shows the significant difference in style, placement of windows, etc. It's pathetic really, and another example of why design review should be required everywhere, whether or not areas are designated as historic.

Plug in electric vehicles overstating the current case

City of Seattle photo.

According to Danny Westneat, columnist for the Seattle Times, in "Reality check on plug-in cars." From the article:

You may have seen the city's cars around town, painted with an eye-catching claim on the rear bumper: "This plug-in hybrid gets 100+mpg." Also, a greener boast: "150+City MPG!" Not exactly, it turns out. Not even close. Try 51 miles per gallon, city and highway combined. Not counting the cost of the electricity.

It's what 14 plug-in Priuses averaged after driving a total of 17,636 miles. The pilot project is one of the few in the nation to subject plug-in hybrid cars to regular motor-pool duty, as opposed to being driven by hypermilers or alt-energy enthusiasts.

"We're not putting these cars on a test track," said Scott Thomsen, a spokesman for Seattle City Light, which has three of the plug-ins. "We've got them on hills and wet streets, in the cold and the hot, on short trips and long — all the conditions that real people deal with every day."

Getting 51 miles per gallon sounds fine compared to most gas cars. But it's a black eye for a technology that trumpets it will get twice that. And which doesn't pencil financially unless it hits at least 80 miles per gallon.

That being said, in the beginning, new technology isn't as efficient as it may be later. But there is no reason to overstate (a/k/a "lying") the benefits.

Also see, from 2008, the Seattle Times blog piece, "Seattle City Light to test plug-in cars' appetite" and the City of Seattle press release, "News Release: Mayor unveils city of Seattle's first 100 mpg plug in hybrid car."

A tax on VMT (vehicle miles traveled) is theoretically interesting but a waste of time

Re: reporting on Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood's discussion of a tax per mile driven, see "Mileage-Based Tax Idea Nixed" from the Washington Post.

A gasoline excise tax is simple to administer. You charge it per gallon. People pay it when they buy gas. The gas station owner remits the tax to the State. Then it's done.

To tax individuals based on vehicle miles traveled you have to have an account for every person who drives + rental cars, what is that, 100 million cars vs. about 115,000 gasoline stations, of which more than 80,000 are convenience stores. So that's 115,000 tax accounts if you charge an excise tax on the sales of gasoline vs. 100 million accounts necessary for charging a tax per mile driven. Plus you need real-time GPS and the communication of that data to the state, and extremely robust accounting, collection, and clearance mechanisms.

Why spend all the time and money (it sounds like Hillary Clinton's health insurance plan, very convoluted) when you can just increase the gasoline excise tax, but significantly rather than piecemeal?

Just because the technology exists to get all complicated doesn't mean that it's worth doing.

Retail planning and the Florida Market

In an aggravating development, there is some kind of graduate school retail case study competition sponsored by some organization leading to my being barraged by students from a variety of local universities, asking similar questions. (It's not that I don't like talking with students, I just wish that the competition organizers would have had the courtesy to notify likely interviewees in advance--and I would have organized my participation with all the students at once, rather than in bits and pieces.)

But it brings up something I created last summer, a draft retail plan for the Florida Market, in response to the rezoning matter concerning property at 4th and Florida Avenue NE. Sure I testified in the July hearing, but it was only during the hearing that I realized in response to the various testimonies provided by different representatives of the developer that mostly what was offered was speculative and not substantive enough.

The "problem" with zoning matters is that they are legal matters, with strictly defined procedures and participation processes. After the public hearing, you can only submit additional information if the Zoning Commission asks you specifically to do so. But participants with party status have a broader capacity to submit additional information, based on the testimonies as submitted, and a longer time frame to do so.

So what I did is suggest to one of the parties that "you asked the Citizens Planning Coalition to submit to you a proposed retail plan for the Florida Market." And I wrote a broad-brushed plan--broad-brushed because I wasn't paid to do it, so what I was able to provide in terms of hard data was limited.

In view of the complaints of the folks concerned about development at the McMillan Reservoir, I offer the Florida Market retail planning vision as an example of what could be done in planning efforts. Similarly, I have suggested that the Foggy Bottom/West End civic groups need to commission a similar kind of "policy document" to help shape their efforts to attract retail to their neighborhood, and to be able to be more forceful in response to the various representations made by developers, as thus far representations (such as for the retail in the Four Seasons Hotel) often don't come to pass.

Note that the document mostly uses examples of chains, even if locally-based, because it makes the ideas and concepts easier to grasp. Likely because of this submission, the Zoning Commission directed the developer to provide $2.5 million of assistance to independent retailers as part of the Gateway Residences mixed use project. Previously, the provision of such assistance had not been discussed within any of the proceedings.

-----------

Destination development planning for the Florida Market District
a report submitted to ANC6C by the Citizens Planning Coalition

8/18/2008
(subsequently revised)

As part of Case 06-40, ANC6C has requested a brief report from the Citizens Planning Coalition on destination planning issues for the Florida Market. Technically, destination development is a concept from the hospitality and tourism field. In reality, all destinations, regardless of their intended audience (neighbors, city residents, visitors from the region, visitors from outside the region) need to be managed.

Unlike a shopping mall, which has a single owner and consolidated management, including standard retail lease agreements yielding common hours for all tenants and required financial payments for coordinated marketing, a traditional commercial district is comprised of many different property owners, and lacks consolidated management and marketing. This is definitely an issue with the Florida Market, despite the existence of committed property owners and a newly revived property owners and merchants association.

In a number of commercial districts across the city, commercial district assistance programs have been created in association with the National Main Street Center of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the RestoreDC unit of the DC Department of Small and Local Business. These programs work to market and improve the commercial district as a whole, focusing on public space improvements, facade and building improvements, retailer improvements and the attraction of new retail and service businesses, and marketing and special events. The Florida Market district could be enhanced through the adoption of a similar program (whether or not it is affiliated with the Main Street program at the city or national level).

Note that in many cities, the municipal government or affiliated organizations are often involved in the management and support of public markets and/or market districts. In DC, the District Government owns the Eastern Market and the land under which the Maine Avenue Seafood Market is located, but development and marketing support mostly is not part of arrangement. The DC Government has been involved in improvement programs for the Capital City/Florida Market, but they have been sporadic, more focused on specific parcels of land. It was aimed to change this with focused small area planning efforts, beginning with the Cluster 23 Economic Planning Study in 2003.

Through participation in various commercial district revitalization efforts, programs and planning efforts, the Citizens Planning Coalition believes that the next stage in commercial district revitalization requires the focused creation of retail vision plans, and the linking of these plans to zoning and building approvals, complemented by prioritization of community benefits agreements and a focus on the provision of benefits that directly improve the impacted commercial district and/or the acquisition and retention of quality retail businesses.

Without retail plans in Small Area Plans and development projects (and zoning orders), for the most part, everything is just talk. (emphasis added)

Generally, retail plans are not created during the zoning process. Instead, developers make various statements and communities express desires, but rarely is a focused plan created or discussed. As a result, in the end, most projects fail to achieve the promises made. Without a building-specific retail plan as part of the zoning order, it is difficult for the community to achieve goals concerning positive retail and street activity.

Note that a building-specific retail plan or vision should be developed out of a broader retail plan or vision for a commercial district. In short, commercial district retail planning efforts concern: (1) the overall commercial district; and (2) building-specific projects.

At the June 5th hearing on this matter, when the Office of Planning replied to a question posed by the Chair of the Zoning Commission on the fact that the Small Area Planning process for the Florida Market was still underway and whether or not this would have negative impact on the matters before the Commission in Case 06-40, the reply was no.

The Citizens Planning Coalition respectfully disagrees. The fact that the Small Area Plan isn’t finished means that there isn’t a proposed retail plan for the Market area. Additionally, because priorities haven’t been determined for various aspects of the Market in terms of desired retail and amenities, this means that decision-making concerning the determination of what may be considered quality "community benefits” may also be stunted. In any case, it hasn't occurred.

This report offers guidance on community benefits and retail priorities for the Capital City/Florida Market district as a whole, and then utilizes this guidance to lay out a retail attraction "vision" for the Gateway Market project.

If properly executed, the new retail and restaurants located within the building should serve as anchors for the entire market district, improving the perception level of the quality of the retail offer, and attracting new and increasing numbers of patrons to the Market District.

Community Benefits and the Florida Market District

The appendix to this report includes a paper on the community benefits process in DC [not included in this blog entry]. For some time, the CPC has recommended that the process needs to be overhauled, with a more defined structure for what qualifies to be considered a “community benefit,” the determination of a community’s priorities and needs, that community benefits be directed to the satisfaction of these needs, in a structured fashion, and that monetary value of the value of increased FAR be calculated and benefits “assessed” accordingly.

Separately from Case 06-40, the developers have legislation before the DC City Council asking for a 14.5 year tax abatement on the property. Negotiations with the Ward 5 Councilmember have yielded expected benefits of a community meeting space, to be managed by ANC5B, and a substation for the Metropolitan Police Department. The process of determining and awarding these specific benefits appears to have been conducted outside of the normal process for determining community benefits.

While these proffers are well-intended, it’s recommended that “community benefits” from building projects within the Florida Market District be directed toward substantive improvements within the Florida Market commercial district, directed towards intermediate and long term structural improvements that stabilize and improve the Market District.

City trash cans have not been placed on streets in the Florida Market. Instead of rectifying this omission, many city officials and others turn have criticized the Market District for having litter problems.

It is not clear that the “negotiated” benefits jibe with recommendations for improvements, priorities, and needs that would come out of the Small Area Planning process that is currently underway.

Suggested priorities for improvement of the Florida Market District include:

• public space improvements including waste receptacles, bicycle racks (neither trash cans nor bicycle racks are available in the Market district at present), erection of directional/wayfinding signage, and treebox maintenance, creation of a small public space (or the utilization of the DCPR space on the east side of 6th Street NE);
• incentive and support programs for façade and signage improvement;
• marketing programs (brochures, advertisements, the development of public events and programming);
• financial support for a commercial district management program comparable to a Main Street program; which could include
• BID-like cleaning and ambassador services;
• employment training for local residents;
• retailer support and development programs; including
• retail rent abatement and reduction programs,
• build out assistance programs;
• safety and comfort enhancement.

Proposed historical information sign for the Florida Market, produced by the Citizens Planning Coalition. Such signs could be erected as part of a comprehensive wayfinding signage program for the Florida Market district. Art director: Christopher Taylor Edwards, Storytelling by Design.

Suggested Community Benefits (proffers) from the Gateway Market project

A community meeting space, as offered currently, would likely be used sparingly. In the current plans as submitted by the developer, this space occupies a prominent and highly visible location on the ground floor at the corner of 4th and Morse Streets NE.

For the success of the Market more generally, this space should be used for an active retail business. If a non-revenue producing community space is located in what would be a high value retail location, this means that asking prices for retail rents in the other space in the building will have to be significantly higher, to make up for lost income. This will make it much more difficult to attract and retain independent entrepreneurs (current rents in the Market district are less than $20/s.f. and new leaseable space likely would rent for in excess of $35/s.f., and probably much higher). If a community space should remain as part of the program, it should be relocated to an interior location.

While a police substation could be seen as desirable, if it does not match the current force structure and program of the Police Department, then it is a wasted proffer. It is our understanding that the MPD has not requested the provision of space in the Florida Market to serve as a police substation.

Instead, CPC recommends that proffers from this project be directed to activities that will improve the Market District and will improve the success of the retail program of the Gateway Market building specifically:

• Support of public space improvements in the Market District;
• Support of marketing programs for the Market District;
• Support of a management program for the Market District such as the creation of a Florida Market “Main Street” commercial district revitalization and management program;
• Attraction of locally-owned businesses to the Gateway Market building specifically; which could entail the
• Provision of build out assistance to independently-owned businesses locating in the Gateway Market building;
• Rent reduction from what would otherwise be prevailing market rents, with first priority for locally owned businesses, and second priority for national chains; and
• Incentive payments for high-quality in-demand retail tenants.

Retail Vision/Planning for the Florida Market District

First, a retail plan for a commercial district should mandate that appropriate pedestrian-centric retail architecture be constructed. While the image below is of a historic building, the appropriateness of the design remains, and is no less applicable to new construction.

The discussion below presupposes that facades will be appropriately designed to support retail architecture. (Too much new construction treats retail space as if it were office and impermeable.) It is presumed that the final version of the Small Area Plan would include urban design guidelines covering the Market District (comparable to guidelines produced for other areas in the city such as the Mount Vernon Triangle District, or the storefront design guidelines covered in the Thrive: A Guide to Storefront Design in the District of Columbia publication published by the Office of Planning).


Anatomy of the architectural/design components of a commercial retail storefront. Image from the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.


Produce shop, Astoria, Queens. One way to reactivate street-side locations in the Florida Market district would be to reopen buildings to the street at the ground floor, such as how many groceries still operate in New York City. Over the decades, most of the similar kinds of sheds that had once been present in front of buildings in the Florida Market have been enclosed.

Second, the Citizens Planning Coalition compiled a retail business directory for the Market (submitted separately to the Zoning Commission). By comparing this list of businesses to other market districts (such as the Strip District in Pittsburgh, the Italian Market in Philadelphia) and public markets (Lancaster Central Market, Reading Terminal Market, the six public markets in Baltimore, Los Angeles Farmers Market, etc.) it is possible to identify evident gaps or “holes” in the retail offering at present.


By addressing these gaps in a purposive manner, the end result would be a significantly stronger, more competitive, and successful Market District.

CPC suggests that a broad retail plan for the Market be created (and presumes that one will be created as part of the Small Area Plan) and in turn be considered when new building projects are planned, and applied to new building projects when they are reviewed by either or both the Office of Planning and the Zoning Commission/Office of Zoning, to ensure the stabilization and improvement of the overall commercial district.

Gaps in retail offerings include:

• organic food vendors
• bakeries (i.e., Firehook, ethnic)
• coffee and teas (bulk and prepared)
• dairy products (including ice cream and gelato, Pinkberry, Red Mango, specialty cheese and wine shop, etc.)
• chocolates/candies
• quality restaurants and specific cuisines (Jewish deli, Greek, Thai, steakhouse, prepared Italian, etc.)
• high quality prepared foods for eat-in and take home (such as the kinds of foods sold at Marvelous Market)
• high quality packaged alcoholic beverages (Best Cellars)
• contemporary kitchenware (World Market has a store adjacent to the LA Farmers Market, Sur La Table was founded in the Pike Place Market District in Seattle)
• spices (Pennzey’s is a national chain spice store)
• food-related books (i.e., Powell’s Books for Cooks and Gardeners in Portland Oregon; there is a cookbook store in the Reading Terminal Market);
• (possibly) upscale garden (i.e., Garden District)/organic garden and flowers (note that the Wholesale Flower Market is located nearby on Eckington Place NE).


Prepared foods for sale at the Grand Central Market Hall, New York City.

Depending on the scope of work for the Small Area Plan, other opportunities could be identified as well, spanning retail, entrepreneurship development, and civic use. These include:

• home meal preparation and assembly (franchise programs such as Let’s Dish or Thyme Out);
• commercial kitchen rentable to caterers and food processors (examples include La Cocina in San Francisco and the Artisan Baking Center in New York City);
• demonstration and training kitchen for commercial and public use, i.e., programs by the Office of Aging, Department of Health, Cooperative Extension Service of UDC/USDA, schools (examples include La Boqueria in Barcelona, and two separate facilities at the River Market in Little Rock);
• hospitality-culinary education.


Market side demonstration kitchen in the River Market, Little Rock, Arkansas. Photo courtesy Daman Hoffman, River Market.


A teaching kitchen such as this could be utilized by DC public health programs to teach proper nutrition in a fun environment where people can easily buy high quality and low-cost fresh foods, thereby meeting other important health objectives concerning wellness and the reduction of poor quality health behaviors.

Obviously, not every building can incorporate all of these for profit and civic uses. A retail plan works to attract all of these uses, appropriately, to various sites within the Market District, in order to strengthen the competitiveness and attractiveness of the destination.

Specific retail recommendations for the Gateway Market project

The grade of the site leads to some problematic configuration issues. Because of the grade difference, and the presentation of the building to Florida Avenue (south) and to 4th Street (east), retail on Morse Street is slated to be located on the 2nd floor.

Additionally, much of the first floor retail space is located deep within the interior of the first floor, which is normally considered undesirable, especially because the Florida Market’s retail vitality is generated by activity “on the street” as opposed to deep within buildings similar to an enclosed shopping mall. (Note that Georgetown Park on M Street has the same problem—stores on the interior are relatively unsuccessful, because Georgetown’s excitement is based on street vitality, not mall-like interior-focused shopping experiences.)

The CPC suggests that these negatives can possibly be turned into positives by attracting retailers and/or food-related uses that can absorb the otherwise marginal interior space (at a lower cost/s.f.) and utilize and/or merchandise this space so that it is attractive and in demand. (A good example is Buffalo Billiards on Dupont Circle. They rented a seemingly unattractive underground space that had been vacant for years. By creating a “destination,” they turned a negative space into a highly lucrative location.)

1. Seek larger footprint retailers and businesses that can utilize interior space in attractive ways and to serve as anchors for strengthening the overall retail offer of the entire market district

Note that adding chain stores at this location has the benefit of improving the perceptions of the Market district, adds companies with the financial heft to spend money on regular advertising, and the stores serve as destinations for what still remains a city with a paucity of outlets for desirable chain stores.

Organic and Specialty Foods

“H Street Food Co-op.” With support from industry organizations, including the National Cooperative Bank, a group of residents in the H Street neighborhood is working to create a food cooperative, to provide access to organic and locally grown foods. By locating here, a destination would be created, providing reasons for new audiences to frequent the market, and add the offering of organically grown foods, which is currently lacking. (10,000 to 15,000 s.f.)

Alternatively, My Organic Market or Yes! Organic Market could be interested in locating here. (Although Yes’ price points are significantly higher than current market offerings and this would be a serious drawback.)

Trader Joe’s. Unlikely, but with an incentive payment of $1.5 million to $2.5 million, they could look more favorably on this location, which is proximate to the Central Business District and Capitol Hill. (A $1.2 million incentive payment was proffered to Trader Joe's by the Foggy Bottom Association to entice them to the location in the former Columbia Hospital for Women.)

Food-Housewares

World Market. This national chain offerings food and furnishings in a fun, contemporary atmosphere. This national chain has a very successful store abutting the Farmers Market in Los Angeles, and in fact started on Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. In DC, the company has stores throughout the region including one in the interior of the Chevy Chase Pavilion, which demonstrates that they can successfully merchandise problematic spatial aspects of otherwise marginal locations. The company advertises weekly in the Washington Post and with Sunday newspaper circulars, and could serve as a new anchor to the Market district, also attracting new audiences. The typical store averages 19,000 s.f.

Rodmans. Over the years, the store located on Wisconsin Avenue NW has experimented with expansion. This locally-owned specialty foods and housewares store is known for its high quality goods and great prices. They are interested in a new location in or near the Central Business District. (8,000 s.f. with a price point no higher than $21/s.f.)

Sur La Table, a national chain, could be an alternative, and features an exhibition kitchen for demonstrations, training, and catering. Their space requirements are significantly smaller, about 5,000 s.f.

Bakery

A few years ago, Firehook Bakery was looking to relocate its production facility to DC. This location could have been ideal. Additionally, smaller bakeries for other cuisines would be appropriate. An advantage of locating in the market is that M zoning allows for wholesale production and resale, although this could be lost with the rezoning of this specific parcel. The Torta Bakery intended for Petworth lost the opportunity to develop additional revenue streams to support the business because of this zoning intricacy.

Atwater's Bakery, active in the Baltimore and DC markets at farmers markets, with their home store in the Belvedere Square market in North Baltimore, could be an alternative if Firehook or other area companies are not interested.

Other Food

A meal preparation store could also utilize interior space, although the space required would not be large. It would have the advantage of leveraging the access to food and attracting regular customers to the market, while helping time pressed people maximize their time.

Home Furnishings and Housewares


CB2

Crate & Barrel or CB2, the younger, hipper, funkier brand of Crate & Barrel could potentially find this location to be attractive. The company describes CB2 as oriented to "modern, affordable furnishings and accessories that are fun and casual, especially geared for the person who is starting out or starting over" with a smaller product assortment compared to a typical C&B store. C&B more generally isn't as far-reaching as Design Within Reach, which locates stores in edgy commercial districts such as Adams-Morgan or the Pike Place Market District in Seattle. Because DWR has a store in Adams-Morgan, it's unlikely they would be interested in this location. However, Design Within Reach is introducing a new concept, DWR: Tools for Living. It will carry modernist versions of 700 domestic staples, including hand-enameled stoneware, shelves made of reclaimed lumber, stainless steel flatware and organic cotton bedding. Stores are being opened in NYC's SoHo District and Miami. Why not DC?

2. Prepared foods, fun concepts, beverages and treats on the highly visible Florida Avenue/Fourth Street elevations will attract attention and lure people into the Market District.

Coffee

Rather than seek a national chain tenant such as Starbucks, we suggest that a specialty independent coffee shop be created here, perhaps as a venture with businesses currently located in the Market. For example, Litteris is an Italian Market and Deli, located two blocks away. Perhaps they would be interested in a new venture, and the creation of a Litteris Italian Coffee Bar also offering Italian Baked Goods and Gelato, prominently located on the corner would be a great addition to the Market.

Alternatively, other specialty coffee shops could be created with a concept shaped around the country of origin for coffee production, i.e., a Haitian, Ethiopian, or Jamaican coffee shop, featuring coffees and cuisines exclusively from those countries. This would positively extend the current ethnic identity of the Market. (The Juan Valdez coffee chain is an example of how a particular country can market its coffee varietal, although the mistake made by this chain was to provide nothing distinctive about Colombia and the Andes within the interior design and concept for the store. The interior looks like any other coffee shop.)

Tea

The locally-owned company Asian-oriented concept Teaism, currently with stores in Penn Quarter and Dupont Circle, would be an option.

Frozen Desserts

Locally produced ice cream (such as Thomas Sweet or Giffords), or ethnic (there are Caribbean ice cream establishments in Silver Spring and Mount Rainier), a gelato shop (Dolcezza is a new DC company with one store open in Georgetown and they are in the process of opening a store in Dupont Circle), or the new Asian or Asian-style frozen yogurt (Pinkberry and Red Mango are national chains, based in Asian; Sweetgreen is a local company offering the same kind of product).

Diner/Deli/High Quality Sandwich Shop

Many public market buildings have sit down diners. A quality diner is lacking in the Florida Market complex although decades ago, one of the early Marriott Hot Shoppes restaurants was located across the street on the southeast corner of Florida Avenue and 4th Street. A diner placed at this corner would be highly visible. It would also play off the railroad history of the area.

Silver Diner has just introduced a new, more contemporary diner, targeting the 25-45 year old age demographic. Their first Metro diner has been introduced in Fairfax County, and features such items as farm-fresh eggs, focaccia bread and organic greens. The concept enables the chain to expand into more densely populated areas, using smaller stores and a specially tailored menu.
The Metro Diner design has a more contemporary feel, with warmer colors and brushed aluminum accents, but also includes an old-fashioned “soda jerk” fountain. On the menu are items such as herb-crusted salmon, Angus beef and food cooked in zero trans-fat oils. The space requirement ranges from 3,000 to 5,000 s.f.

Metro Diner, 3950 University Drive in Old Town Village Fairfax, a new mixed-use development. Image from Washington Business Journal. See "Silver Diner ready to go contemporary for Gen X."

Another option would be a "Peruvian" style/Pollo a la Brasa (grilled-roasted chicken) type operation. A location for the "Korean-style" grocer, Sizzling Express or SoHo, both DC-based companies, would be a natural here. These stores are popular wherever they are located, and the Sizzling Express location on Capitol Hill is open until 10 pm.

As proposed, this collection of tenants would function like a food court without the processed aspects of such, and would serve as a lunch destination for NoMA office workers during the work week. Specialty Market(s) Organic To Go is a new entrant to the DC market, providing high quality foods for eat-in, take out, and catering. Another option would be a store comparable to Marvelous Market. The Uncle Brutha Specialty Foods store on Capitol Hill is now closed due to a post-Eastern Market fire drop off in business, but an expanded concept is under development, and could make great sense in this location, if it included the sale of prepared foods for on-premise and off-premise consumption. Bowers Fancy Dairy, a specialty dairy shop featuring cheeses, located at Eastern Market, is also interested in expansion.

3. For the Morse Street side, high quality destination restaurants would lure customers deeper into the Market and spread out patronage into the evening hours.

The developer’s presentation showed a food court type of operation for this elevation. While that might work, food courts at Union Station, the Old Post Office Pavilion, and the National Shops (13th and F Streets NW) demonstrate: (1) a high volume of foot traffic and regular customers are required for success; and (2) the concept gets old (each of these food court sites has experienced significant declines in patronage and changes have been made or are underway in their retail program).

If the community space is relocated to an interior location, more retail can be sited on the ground floor of this side of the project, further strengthening the retail-street vitality entryway into the Market District via 4th Street.

Rather than a food court, it would make more sense to seek out and develop a couple of high quality restaurants that will attract regular patronage, and spread out patronage across multiple dayparts. At one time, the Market served as a location for many “fine dining” establishments including Italian food and a steakhouse. Given the number of Asian food vendors located in the Market, a high quality Asian fusion concept is one idea. Soul food and southern cooking is another, so is Italian, a great Jewish Deli, etc.

Cannon's Steak House was located on 5th Street NE for many years. Until just recently, their neon sign was still present above the market building on 4th Street.

Attracting independent retailers to the Gateway Market project

Attracting independent retailers to the project likely will require a concerted, directed effort that most developers are unaccustomed to, given how the commercial retail leasing industry is oriented to national chains (credit tenants).

CPC recommends that for each type of desired business, a complete incentive package be developed, outlining rent and buildout incentives, and other assistance that may be able to be provided from other DC Government and affiliated agencies, TIF programs, etc.

An RFEI process (Request for Expressions of Interest) should be created to match potential entrepreneurs with the opportunities in the Gateway Market building.

Businesses and vendors currently located within the Florida Market district should be given the first opportunity to participate in such a program. For example, Litteris could be approached about the creation of an Italian coffee and desserts shop. The owner of All-African Food Store has expressed an interest in creating an African restaurant, etc.

This would make it possible to support independent retail development simultaneously with seeking national credit tenants.

Such a process should be required as part of the Zoning Order on this project, and should be considered a desirable community benefit. To start, notice could be made to vendors currently present in the Florida Market District, and at Eastern Market and other venues in the city.

Recommendations about building design for new construction in the Florida Market area and NoMA

The Market area and the area along the Northeast Corridor Railroad tracks was and still remains distinguished by brick warehouse and industrial buildings. The building in 06-40, as well as the designs for the recently approved and adjacent Washington Gateway project, and every newly constructed building in the NoMA district is a typical glass curtain-walled building that is for the most part undistinguished and indistinguishable from glass buildings anywhere. Alternatively, the Senate Square condominium project on the 200 block of H Street NE respects the industrial built environment of the neighborhood by using large, warehouse-loft type window fenestration and a variety of red and orange brick.


XM Satellite building (formerly Judd & Detwiler Printing). Photo: Beyond DC.


The art deco Woodward & Lothrop Warehouse at 1st and M Streets NE. Today, much of the building is used as office space.


Art deco Sanitary Grocery Company warehouse, Eckington. Photo: Beyond DC.

It is recommended that the brick and warehouse and industrial heritage of the area be respected and drawn upon in the design of new buildings going forward. (Buildings located in the area of the old Baltimore and Ohio Freight Terminal have done this--the FedEx building and another building on the railroad side.) Resources available include the DC Warehouse historic preservation studies from the 1990s (commissioned by the DC Historic Preservation Office) and the report on the Florida Market district produced as part of the Amtrak Maglev Study around 2003.

Sadly, it is probably too late to work for improvements in the facade for the Gateway building, because before June the developer expressed little interest in community input on design or other issues. And the Office of Planning Development Review division did not address the fundamental change that a glass building represents, despite the existence of a determination of eligibility for historic designation of the Market area, as part of the Section 106 review in the Maglev Study, and with access to the results of the various Warehouse historical studies.

Going forward, CPC recommends that ANC6C take a stronger position on urban design and architectural style as it relates to projects in the NoMA-Florida Avenue area, given that much of this geography is located within ANC6C or is immediately abutting.

Next generation retail planning for municipalities

I have to admit that I haven't read DC's Retail Action Strategy even though I was one of many members of a large advisory committee. (I will get to it.) But as I work on these issues wearing a variety of hats (concerned citizen, Main Street program manager, Main Street volunteer, commercial district revitalization planner) I think a big problem is that retail planning and zoning procedures are disconnected. And I don't see that being corrected by the RAS.

Development projects for the most part, are based upon the maximum allowable space allowed for each category (residential, retail, office) allowed within the zoning category.

The trouble with the retail side of the equation is multiple:

1. It takes a fair amount of customers to support retail space --generally the number I use is you need 30,000 people to support 50,000 square feet of retail space;
2. Another heuristic comes from Steve Belmont's Cities in Full, which says you need 10,000 households (approximately 20,000 people) to support a thriving local neighborhood commercial district and if you want entertainment too, like a movie theater, you need 15,000 households--and that is within 1/2 mile of the commercial district;
3. Usually, elected and appointed officials tout various office projects as necessary to seed neighborhood retail, without disclosing the fact that a typical office worker supports about 2 s.f. of retail and 5 s.f. of restaurant space, meaning that you need thousands and thousands of workers to have much impact;
4. But you have to remember that the type of retail and food service supported by office workers is pretty narrow as well.

In short, all of these factors add up to the reality that most new developments propose far more retail space than is likely to be supportable. But this retail space is touted to bring the support of area residents to the project.

But there are other issues besides:

1. Is something that I have come to be quite concerned about, what I call intra-city sprawl, when new retail is proposed in a manner that makes it even more difficult to revitalize extant commercial districts. But because the new retail can be developed as part of a single project, with less hassle, and with larger footprints (spaces) that typically aren't available in extant areas, new development gets targeted to new places at the expense of "old" places.

2. Plus, for the most part, the retail industry is chained up (even in today's brutal economy that is crushing most retailers) and for the most part, chains aren't interested in urban locations.

3. So for traditional commercial districts we need to have more focused retail development programs focused on "growing our own," through retail entrepreneurship development and support programs. (This is the work that I do now.)

4. But with the drop in housing values, the amount of capital people can tap into to use for start up businesses is shrinking and/or is much harder to tap.

In short, while I think that the complaints of people concerned about development at the McMillan Reservoir, about chicken joints are misplaced (see "McMILLAN THEORY 1: Trader Joe’s is a pipe dream. The retail’s going to be cheap chicken joints" from the Washington City Paper) the reality is that more detailed retail plans need to be developed as part of the zoning orders that are derived from the Planned Unit Development zoning process. Otherwise, it is smoke and mirrors.

See the next blog entry for an example of how to go about things somewhat differently.

Prince George's County as a lucky free rider

I was amazed to read articles in yesterday's Post that didn't criticize DC for not being able to retain the DC United soccer team, which is going to decamp to Prince George's County. See the column by Marc Fisher, "A Bad Deal for Md. Taxpayers," and "Soccer Stadium 'Lacked a Champion': As Talks in D.C. Faltered, Pr. George's Officials Stepped Forward."

Interesting too that the articles were somewhat honest about the limited economic development, that even PG County doesn't believe that massive amounts of secondary economic development will develop as a result of the team.

In fact, if PG County would have had to scrape up the money for the team, they would have passed too. Instead, bonds will be sold by the Maryland Stadium Authority.

It's also interesting that the consensus of DC officials is that there was no official serving as a champion for the soccer team, despite the bloviating by Councilmember Barry about the city's failure to retain the team. Where was Councilmember Barry during this period, if he cared so much about soccer? See "Poplar Point problem 'staggering blow'" from the Washington Business Journal.

And it's also interesting that DC United chose a Maryland location for the money they were offered, rather than considering the fact that most of their fans are based in Virginia, and likely will have a more difficult time reaching the stadium.

This may also set the stage for the ability to tear down the RFK Stadium (no, I won't support a landmark nomination for it) and reuse the site and associated parking lots. NOT FOR FOOTBALL.

From an old blog entry:

Note that the impact of the Redskins in PG County would be minimal if there weren't a local tax on concessions and ticket sales. According to the Post article "Md. Weighs Stadium for D.C. United: Study Will Gauge Pr. George's Benefits", PG County nets $10 million in Redskins-related economic benefit, but 80% comes from the additional tax on concessions and tickets. Even $10 million annually might not be an adequate return on investment in terms of what was expended by the State of Maryland and the County to land this facility.

3 door articulated bus being tested in the Bronx

One of the problems with speeding up bus movement (yesterday, on my bicycle I beat a Metro Express bus on Georgia Avenue starting from around Kansas Avenue to 9th and H Street NW, and I stopped a bunch of times too) is disembarking (getting off of the bus).

In fact, Dr. Gridlock in the Post had a bit on this, when a reader wondered why people don't disembark from the rear of the bus to speed things up. I think we should move to such a system for speed reasons. This bus being tested in NYC, see "NYC Transit tests three-door bus in Bronx" from the New York Daily News, would be a way to make such a system more palatable, by offering two rear doors. (And would be a reason to use articulated buses instead of the double decker buses that I am normally a proponent of.)

Putting industrial uses and residents in close proximity can be a problem

One of the concerns expressed about the New Town redevelopment plan imposed on the Florida Market District through DC City Council legislation is the fact that by putting residents and industrial uses in close proximity, you add all the elements necessary to create significant conflicts.

This is an issue in lower Manhattan, with the conversion of industrial buildings into housing, and an industrial business district into a hotspot of clubs, galleries, and other uses, in places like the Meatpacking District. But it's an issue in other places too.

The New York Times has a story about this kind of interaction occuring in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, "When the Feathers Really Fly."

From the article:

MOST urban dwellers might expect their interactions with chicken, if any, to occur exclusively on a lunch or dinner plate. So when Kate Coats and her husband moved into their apartment in a new condominium building on Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn three months ago, they were surprised to be awakened before sunrise by what she described as screeching chickens. It’s not a fun sound at 5 a.m.” ...

The screeching apparently comes from the building next door, the 86-year-old business with the “Live Poultry Slaughter” sign and graffiti that say, “This Place Stinks” on the door of the garage. In the early morning, Ms. Coats said, chickens are delivered to the slaughterhouse in metal crates that crash to the ground, a sound echoed by chickens lustily protesting their fate...

To some, the juxtaposition of a slaughterhouse and a new residential building where condos sell for up to $675,000 is an amusing effect of gentrification. To others, it is grotesque. Several local residents have complained about seeing blood and bird parts on the sidewalk, along with feathers floating in the breeze. Calls to 311 have been numerous, and on a Greenpoint blog, a commenter described the smell emanating from the slaughterhouse as a mix of “death and ammonia.”

For what it's worth, my girlfriend always admonishes me about the romantic idea of backyard poultry, commenting about the early crowing of roosters.

This also happens in more rural areas, where housing developments on former farms bring constituencies with different ideas about what constitutes appropriate land use to "rural" "agricultural" districts.

Ironically, in Baltimore County, non-farming residents are suing a farm which put agricultural land conservation easements on its land, because they opened a farm store to sell the farms products, which is in line with the idea of increasing the revenue to local farmers instead of distributors, and "buying" and "eating" local. Is a farm just land for crops or is it a working business with a variety of revenue streams.

It makes sense to limit these kinds of conflicts, or put into place for reconciling and resolving these conflicts more equally.

The irony of transportation demand management planning in DC

In 2005 and 2006, DC engaged in a revision of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan. Like many people, I particpated in the process, but at a more detailed level and I also wrote about it, and testified a number of times about various provisions in "Mayor's" and "City Council" hearings.

There are a couple aspects of the plan that I had some influence on. For example, in the development process for the plan, I called for the creation of an Arts and Culture element, although the final version is relatively pathetic (a collection of programs but not a plan) so I disavow any connection. (When I pushed arts people on this, I discovered that they were so happy to be acknowledged, that they focused on the acknowledgement to the exclusion of concern about the quality of the final product.)

I called for the creation of a tourism development and management element, which didn't make it into the planning framework at all.

But after the major drafts came out (April 2006, with a July 2006 version) while all the traditional smart growth types testified in favor of the plan because it mentioned "transit oriented development," I was pretty derisive because most of the called for planning provisions for TOD, other than increased density, had no teeth. And transportation demand management provisions did not exist in any substantive form.

I kept testifying about this, and in response, I joke that I changed one word of the DC Comprehensive Land Use Plan.

The draft said that TDM planning could happen--only for Planned Unit Development actions, which are but a narrow minor portion of the total opportunities and situations in which TDM should in fact occur--and did not require that it happen, only that it could.

As a result of my frequent testimonies, this provision was changed and now TDM planning is in fact required for PUD zoning matters

Alas, the broader point I made in various testimonies, that TDM needed to be required as a matter of course for all institutions (churches, businesses getting significant deliveries, schools, etc.), as part of comprehensive transportation planning and therefore should be included in the Transportation element of the Comprehensive Plan, did not lead to any revisions of the text for the final version.

So it's kind of funny to see how Greater Greater Washington, in the entry "Leading edge TDM strategies showing the way," talks about all the great TDM requirements advocated by the DC Department of Transportation for a project at 14th and S Streets NW, against the reality that it wouldn't have happened had I not continued to press for strong provisions in the Comprehensive Plan on TDM, in the face of the caving in/wimping out of the traditional "Smart Growth" advocates (people at Downtown DC BID and other smart growth advocacy groups in DC and the region) who chose to focus on the language in the Plan, rather than whether or not the language yielded substantive and real changes and laid out the means for it to happen.

After the approval of the Comp Plan, DDOT hired a transportation demand management planner (and changed the title of Jim Sebastian, formerly pedestrian and bicycle transportation coordinator, to include TDM responsibilities), and after Harriet Tregoning became director of the DC Office of Planning in 2007, the OP added a TDM planner as well.

Note that at the start of the Zoning revision process, I testified at the original hearings that occurred before the actual revision process started, and one of my comments was that DDOT and transportation planning needs to be given the same level of access and participation in Zoning matters as is the Office of Planning--DCOP people sit up there on the dais too, and are called upon to deliver reports on each matter, DDOT is not yet afforded the same level of importance. Hopefully that will change too.

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The other thing I testified about repeatedly, and I believe it even more strongly now, is that rather than all the elements of the Comprehensive Plan being considered equal, I believed that the Urban Design Element* should have been considered the #1 element, the overarching element directing how the other elements are organized, coordinated, and interpreted in terms of land use, zoning, and transportation planning matters.

Similarly, the Transportation Element should have been #2, and then the Land Use Element as #3, and the Economic Development Element as #4.

Relatedly, in part because of participating in the Comp. Plan revision process I have since figured out that "Building a Local Economy" is different from how most Economic Development elements are constructed in Comprehensive Plans and someday I am likely to write some journal articles about it.

In the commercial district revitalization planning work I do in other communities, rather than do traditional market studies, my focus is more on broader "destination development," and includes cultural planning including "creative class"/knowledge economy aspects as well as tourism development and management planning, rather than strictly upon more narrowly construed retail planning. Mostly this is because in the present day, most of the opportunities available to communities lie beyond selling more consumer goods to the local market.

Since this work mostly focuses on commercial districts, I haven't had the chance yet to add broader economic development and quality of the local education system as pieces of the overall focus, but as we do projects for larger municipalities--cities or counties instead of more limited commercial districts--the approach will continue to expand.

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* Note that a problem with the National Capital Planning Commission's oversight and responsibility for federal planning in DC and the region is that their plans inadequately consider Urban Design as a defining element as well.

That in the city that is based on a formal plan, the L'Enfant Plan!

Transit oriented development is a misnomer

because really what the concept is about is the link between development patterns, walkable communities, and transit, which during the eras of the walking city (1800-1890) and the streetcar/transit city (1890-1920), were tightly integrated architectural and land use development practices. I use the keywords "urban design/placemaking" to tag related entries in the blog. Since that period, reorienting land use planning and principles to accommodate and focus upon the automobile has often diminished the quality of the outcomes from land use and transportation planning.

The concepts of TOD--transit oriented development, New urbanism, placemaking, and urban design are all focused, using similar methods and principles, are rebalancing the planning paradigm and refocusing it upon creating and maintaining great places.

Sadly, when people hear the term "transit oriented development," many think mostly it has to do with giveaways to developers, rather than being an effort to make great places. Because of its often pejorative connotations, I don't even use it.

But I am not sure that any of my alternative terms--POD, for "place oriented development" or place development, or PBD for place-based development--are any better.

The point is to focus on the values of place and how tightly linking development plans and transit yields a variety of benefits to current and new residents, as well as the municipality, and the region.

If you look at this DC Office of Planning publication from 2003, Trans-Formation: Recreating Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Centers in Washington, DC and these particular sections:

-- Designing a Transit-Oriented Neighborhood
-- Principle One: Orientation and Connectivity
-- Principle Two: Quality Public Realm and Amenities
-- Principle Three: Pedestrian Friendly, Safe Environment
-- Principle Four: Attractive Architecture and Design
-- Principle Five: Mix of Uses
-- Principle Six: Creative Parking Management

you will see that they are about reviving or bringing back the architectural and planning principles that were typical of the time period when great places tended to be built routinely.

I wish that both the DC Office of Planning and the DC Department of Transportation would convert many of the points made in this publication into large "boards" that should be taken to and displayed at just about every public planning process that these departments engage in. And planning efforts by other DC agencies such as the Dept. of Parks and Recreation, the DC Public Library System, and the DC Public School System, shouldhave to follow and achieve these principles as well.