None Dare Call It Development
There’s more than old sand swirling around plans for the McMillan site.
On a recent Tuesday evening, about a dozen Bloomingdale-area residents gathered around a fire for wine, cheese, mini spinach pastries, and their shared desire to take down a group of D.C. developers. It was one of two strategy sessions-a pre-public meeting before a big public meeting last Saturday at Trinity University.
The subject of all this strategizing: 25 acres of green, one of the largest undeveloped parcels in the city, known as the old McMillan Sand Filtration Site. Since the mid-1980s, the land’s water filtration plant has been inactive. At least since then, the District has been deciding and re-deciding what to do with it. Different groups have lobbied for it be a museum, a library, a park, and a national memorial for dogs that died in war. In 2007, the city pulled the trigger, picking Vision McMillan Partners, a group of companies led by Bethesda-based EYA.
EYA unveiled its plans to the community in December. Artistic renderings showed grassy quads surrounded by ethereal, translucent trees, a community amphitheater, and broad corridors of retail. There would be eight acres of public green space, 1,000 to 1,200 units of mixed-income housing, and 400,000 square feet of office space, according to developers.
As the plans got passed around and republished on the Web, one resident launched a blog devoted entirely to criticizing them. There and elsewhere, the rumor mills churned; alliances and conflicts were made and aired out. It all came to resemble a season of Survivor.
Some of the conspiracy theories taking hold in Bloomingdale prove more suspect than others. This week, we’ll examine a few of them, one by one:
CONSPIRACY THEORY NO. 1: Trader Joe’s is a pipe dream. The retail’s going to be cheap chicken joints.
CONSPIRACY THEORY NO. 2: Developers have “plants” in the audience.
CONSPIRACY THEORY NO. 3: Developers may be paying off the local ANC commissioner.
CONSPIRACY THEORY NO. 4:The developers can’t finance this project.
Image by Darrow Montgomery
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3:42 pm
No. 1 is true… to an extent. It won’t be chicken joints but it won’t be Trader Joes either. Somewhere in the middle, which is fine. Probably Five Guys, a CVS, a hardware store, and a Giant/Safeway/Shopper’s.
No 2 & 3 are absurd and just make these people look stupid, paranoid, and insane.
No 4 is absolutely true in the near term. Who knows in 2 years? I’d like to think they can by that time, otherwise we’re all screwed.
3:44 pm
I thought it was interesting that Youngentob didn’t bother coming on Saturday. Let’s face it, Aakash and Jair are nice guys, but they aren’t the A-Team. Saturday’s meeting was important enough for Councilman Thomas, but not Youngentob.
Mr. Thomas gave a fine speech. He and Mr. Jackson are on the same page. In fact, Mr. Jackson unambiguously stated that the city’s number one motivation was increasing revenues. From listening to these guys, you wouldn’t guess that revenues in DC have gone up 43% in the last five years. Should the city’s unquenchable thirst for more cash, to be spent the same way they’ve been spending it, be the driving factor behind turning this park space into seven-story high subsidized housing, office buildings and retail to be named at a later date?
Trader Joe’s is so successful, they have neighborhoods all over the country clamoring for their own local store. The decision-makers at Trader Joe’s will not choose this congested, low-density, less-than-average income location. They are in the business of making money, and I doubt they have any interest in building what would become the Traffic Jam Trader Joe’s.
My question is how many of Councilman Thomas’s constituents need to be on record against this project before the Councilman will listen?
11:22 pm
well, don, i would assume it would have to be enough to cancel out all of councilman thomas’ constituents who are in favor of the project. guess that means you and i cancel each other out.
9:39 am
Mixed income residential? Apartments or condos to purchase? We have too many rental units. We need HOMES.