The value and price of vision?
Portrait of a Washington DC developer as a young man with a cell phone and a vacant lot:
The 1100 block of
A broken clock hangs above the entrance of a boarded-up liquor store. Weeds and graffiti have overtaken the dilapidated row houses next door. Around the corner, barbed wire and a chain-link fence protect a hodgepodge of vehicles at a small construction company.
But …
… its location is great, and there are public sector improvements coming:
the proposed new baseball stadium in Southeast, development of the Anacostia River waterfront, and construction of a new building for the D.C. Transportation Department.
So here comes the visionary pioneer. His plans emphasize both parcel assembly and mixed-use:
In the shadow of what will be the new offices of the transportation department, he plans to assemble the equivalent of a city block, raze what’s there, and put in a residential and retail development that could feature an upscale microbrewery or restaurant at the bottom, and condominiums above.
Mixing retail/ commercial and residential makes sense, because as Jane Jacobs was among the first to point out, in Death and Life of Great American Cities, these two uses are diurnally countercyclical — that is, retail/ commercial are busy during the day, residential at evenings and weekends. In a healthy urban environment, there are always citizens’ eyes on the street, and indeed, supporting urban regeneration is one of the seven reasons to create affordable housing.
However, no good deed — nor even a good thought! — goes unpunished. Even before any change occurs, others are already adjusting their behavior with their self-interest in mind:
The idea is raising both eyebrows and expectations, revealing some of the tensions likely to arise if private investors take an earnest interest in the neighborhood. A few property owners say they are going to demand a healthy price before selling to developers like Jemal — or may even try to demand a share of the development profits. The District’s historic preservation board is already pinpointing abandoned row houses it wants saved.
Always be wary of any newspaper story that cites “some” people, because you can find “some” people to oppose anything:
Some community leaders, meanwhile, are worried that new money will inevitably displace longtime residents.
