Posts Tagged ‘Giant’
Morning Roundup: Going Long Edition
If you pick up a paper copy of Washington City Paper this morning, you may experience a sensory flashback to 2006, when our issues averaged 160 pages and always weighed this much. However, it's just that our fall arts guide is stuck inside! Don't panic! The newspaper business still sucks! This year's guide has listings and content up the wazoo, including critics' picks and a feature that purports to tell local bloggers such as Morgan Hungerford and Matthew Yglesias just what they should do with their entertainment dollars this autumn. Also in this piece: bear joke. It looks great in print. Pick one up!
As Mike Watt would say, I feel like spielin' this morning. If you don't have the time, DO NOT CLICK MORE.
Neighborhood Watch: The Cleveland Park Giant Grocery Controversy Lives On
The Issue: The never-ending battle (read: 10 years) over construction of a new and improved Giant on Wisconsin Avenue seemed to have finally ended last summer when the Zoning Commission voted unanimously in favor of the project. Not so! There's another twist that has tied things up - potentially for a few more years.
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Summer Film Series: ‘Who’s Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?’
With the lamented demise of Screen on the Green, the 2009 National Theatre Summer Cinema series is one of the few free film events left in D.C. This year's series honors philanthropist/diamond-, husband-, and Oscar-collector (Butterfield 8, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) Elizabeth Taylor.
The series--"Who's Afraid of Elizabeth Taylor?"--kicks off June 22 with Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the 1958 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play about the family dynamics between an ailing southern patriarch (Burl Ives), his alcoholic, limp-mannered son (Paul Newman) and his attention-starved daughter-in-law (Taylor). All films are screened Mondays at 6:30 p.m., in the Helen Hayes Gallery of the National Theatre. Tickets will be distributed 30 minutes before show time, first-come, first served. Full schedule after the jump.
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Wisconsin Avenue Giant Still a Giant PIA
For a project 10 years in the making and still not even close to breaking ground, the new mixed-use Giant grocery project on Wisconsin Avenue can really pack 'em in. About 70 people showed up last night to a standing-room-only meeting inside a hot and airless room at the Police 2D headquarters on Idaho Avenue NW.
Outside, one guy handed out stickers---"Build the Giant Now. Approve the PUD"---and found takers with more than half. Just what is a PUD? It's a zoning term for "Planned Unit Development," which is what the new giant Giant, the new retail stores, the new condos, and the new parking spaces will be. It's akin to a variance developers need to get past the city's zoning laws and regs, which are particularly sticky in greater Cleveland Park. And therein lies the blockage on this project, although the District Office of Planning seems finally ready to get out the Drano.
In response to a few vocal critics, Jennifer Steingasser, assistant director of the Office of Planning, told the crowd: "We are supportive of the redevelopment of the site. I'm not backing down from that."
Her office has decided that the project fits the double-negative requirement for approval: "It's not inconsistent with the comprehensive plan" for the neighborhood, she said, describing the area in question as "very much a combination." In other words: upper Wisconsin Avenue is not exactly bucolic, closed-off Ordway Street with its Norman Rockwell porches, so get over it.
Although those leading the meeting tried to keep it focused on the process and the Office of Planning's part in that, it quickly and typically became a referendum on the merits of the project itself. One guy likened it to "having a Wal-Mart in my neighborhood." Another, sitting next to me and clicking his dentures incessantly, wanted to know why, if this project wouldn't have been approved when the comprehensive plan came together, should the city allow it to be built now?
Others---particularly residents of McLean Gardens---expressed frustration in promises unfulfilled. "I bought my condo 10 years ago and that's how long I've been hearing that we're going to get a new Giant," one said. Another---Matt from 39th Street---soaked in some sustained applause when he countered residents calling for additional traffic studies with "we've had study after study after study. There are a lot of people who think this is a good project and want it to go forward."
It's possible he may live to see it. Steingasser says lawyers from the zoning commission are getting ready to schedule a hearing, the date of which could be announced next week. The earliest opening, she says, is for January and it will last for one or two nights, during which commissioners will hear testimony for and against the project. There will then be a period of time for submission of additional written testimony. Final action occurs after that and, if approved, it will take another two to six months before building permits will be submitted.
"So we're looking at the end of next summer," said ANC 3C Commissioner Trudy Reeves, who had slapped on a PUD sticker. We'll be on the edge of our shopping carts until then.
