The final reuse plan for the Walter Reed site was approved by the Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA) at its meeting on Wednesday evening. The plan will be sent to the City Council as a bill for approval before being sent to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The LRA voted unanimously to include language in the final plan that will prohibit a bus storage or bus maintenance facility on the site. However, when it was suggested that language prohibiting a streetcar maintenance or storage facility should be included as well, the LRA decided against it, as not enough is known about how the streetcar infrastructure on Georgia Avenue will work. Including language prohibiting streetcar facilities could potentially hurt the system in the future.
As for a timeline for the development, the southeast corner of the site, at Georgia and Aspen, will be first, with construction projected to begin in 2014. The northeast corner of the site, at Georgia and Fern, which is slated for commercial development, is projected to begin in 2018. Planners stressed that these timelines could change according to market conditions. Estimated cost of the entire redevelopment is between $625 and $640 million. More details are available at Housing Complex's report.
The plan will be presented to the public at a special presentation next week:
When: Thursday, February 2, 7:00 - 9:00 PM
Where: Tifereth Israel Congregation, 7701 16th St NW
Childcare will be provided during meeting hours
Wow - after reading the article referenced here do you think in your opinion that this will be good for Brightwood real estate? Sounds like its turning into a big homeless shelter and low income housing and not much else - for now
ReplyDeleteThe site is massive and there will be room for a wide variety of uses. It just seems like there's "not much else" right now because the nonprofit orgs that have been granted space are the only sure things at the moment; we won't have definite plans from retailers for a few years (at least).
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