the U Street cut-through

Click images to Enlarge


This street needs to be rebuilt.

- the lot is already used as a pedestrian cut-through.

- construction of the through street would further integrate the areas to the east (pictured towards the right of the aerial) with the rest of historic Anacostia.

- it would provide a safer route to the elementary school.

- the new road, sidewalks, and streetlamps would place a greater emphasis on the adjacent lots.

development potential (fake sunset edition)

these buildings along MLK are lonely:


the first is part of the Curtis/Four Points assemblage
(currently in the PUD application process)


but the second -to my knowledge- is not yet part of any larger plan.

Neighborhood in the New York Times

There is an excellent article in the New York Times today -our press is getting more and more widespread- titled "A Comeback Story Decades in the Making". It's just too bad that they chose pictures of places not in actual Anacostia (but still in greater Ward 8), making it look like we are some Anywhere, USA suburb.

I like that there is a Giant in Ward 8, I don't like that it looks like this:

courtesy of the New York Times

Instead, this is the pattern new development should follow, and hopefully even more dense:

Summer on MLK
Photo by DG-rad

Here is a clipping:

...ambitious projects are expected to inject new life into the old Anacostia historic district, whose Martin Luther King Avenue resembles an early-20th-century Main Street. A new 600,000-square-foot $77 million headquarters is to be built there for the city’s Department of Transportation, housing 800 workers.

The developer Doug Jemal, an investor in downtrodden areas that ultimately revive, is poised to take advantage of the changes. Mr. Jemal owns three small commercial buildings in old Anacostia that are currently empty and is eager to assemble more parcels to create a commercial, retail and residential development. “It’s going to take time, but it’s certainly going to turn around,” he said.

Definitely take time to read the article. It may not be new information for all, but it is nice to begin to join the ranks of other more NYTimes'ed about neighborhoods (cough cough H Street NE).

Development Potential: Part 1

(scroll down for maps and images)

Anacostia is home to the highest percentage of vacant and underutilized land in the District. It is literally seconds from everything via very accessible highways and Metro, and boasts some of the best views around.

The sensitive scale of development on 14th Street in and around Logan Circle is a fitting model for the kind of reinvestment many in the neighborhood would love to see here, as is the infill that has gone in all around Capitol Hill over the years. While it is not up to me to decide what should fill these lots and façades, a mix of multifamily and retail seems pretty ideal at this point. (And by retail I don't mean check-cashing shops.) This survey is not official, but is a reflection of many residents' feelings of "this could be so much more".

Part 1 focuses on the development potential of Anacostia's lower Good Hope Road area. Because Good Hope is on a hill leading to the river, most development would boast Federal City and water views:

note: Click on images to enlarge



















images and graphics by DG-rad