Union Market, a revitalized warehouse district in DC

There's a great deal of experience in urban planning and revitalization around the makeovers of formerly industrial districts into vibrant urban people filled places.   Big manufacturing and warehouse buildings offer good floorplates for what is called adaptive reuse.

Union Market in DC, in part the former grounds of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Freight Terminal, and a wholesale food district market starting in the 1930s is one of the only such districts in DC, because from the start DC was more an office district revolving around the federal government than a manufacturing center.

Three other main exceptions however: What is now called NoMA and Eckington Place and other areas with printing plants--office districts did lots of printing; Ivy City; out New York Avenue and anchored by railroad duties and an old department store warehouse; and the Washington Navy Yard, which was an actual manufacturer of ships--when it closed so did many thousands of honorable blue collar type jobs.  (There are other pockets of industrial zoned land along railroad tracks, like up in Takoma.)

Union Market in more humble days.  Flickr photo by Tyler Nelson.

C. 2005, there was an urban renewal plan for the Union Market district, then called Florida Market, which I and others opposed for something more ground up.  

When a couple of large parcels were sold to a regional shopping center operator I thought the area was toast.  But the firm ended up being able to pivot and change their business model to urban infill and exciting, not chain, retail (some) and (mostly) restaurants.

I have many posts about this, but the most definitive one laying out an alternate vision, was "Retail planning and the Florida Market" from 2009.  It was submitted as testimony at a hearing by the Zoning Commission.

Even so I wasn't as visionary as Edens Realty, which hired a protege of famed restauranteur Jose Andres to bring about creative concrete actions to make the district vibrant.

Today, the district is home to many of the city's most exciting restaurants, while still having "some" legacy and cheaper food sales functions.  Although there is no question the area has been "gentrified," it has a lot more character than it would if it had been remade in an urban renewal guise, with the demolition of original warehouse type buildings in favor of blocky new buildings.

Steak frites, a star attraction at the new Minetta Tavern in the District. (Scott Suchman/For The Washington Post)

The Post has a restaurant review of one of the newest places to join in, "D.C.’s Minetta Tavern is an alluring chip off the old block in N.Y."  

But it was incredibly expensive to renovate, $13 million. Which is insane.

Ironically, Suzanne and I were reminiscing this morning about deceased tavern entrepreneur Joe Englert, who opened dozens of thematic concepts around the city, ground up.  E.g., he bought 8 buildings on H Street NE in the early days for $3 million.  Much less than the $13 million for one building in Union Market. He died in 2020.

Englert brought "regular people" into his ventures ("9 Ways Joe Englert Changed the DC Bar Scene," Washingtonian, "The King of Clubs on the Cutting Edge: Joe Englert has revitalized the city's night life and he's only just begun," Washington Post, 1993), these high end concepts are for the high end investors too.  Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live is the lead investor of Minetta's Tavern.

Given that I just ran the series of 20 years of blogging, to continue the retrospective theme, it's fair to say that my involvement in helping to shift Union Market towards a better outcome was my second  most significant accomplishments in DC, the first being one of the leaders of an effort to redefine H Street NE as a revived transportation, housing and business corridor.

I can hardly take credit for these achievements.  But I played a key role in both.

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A note on Ivy City.  Another warehouse district that for a time was revitalizing, spurred by the redevelopment of the Hecht's are deco Warehouse into housing and the addition of quirky but chain retail and a lot of interesting food concepts.  But like H Street NE, which lacks a direct Metrorail connection, its patronage was subsidized by venture capital into firms like Uber, allowing for cheap transportation to and from that area to other parts of DC.  When that money was taken away, the trajectory changed, many of the retailers closed.  Etc.