Landmark Nominations Could Derail Brookland Development
The historic restaurant.
The fight against a sizeable mixed-use development planned for 9th and Monroe Street NE has entered another theater: Historic preservation. ANC 5A has submitted a landmark nomination for Colonel Brooks' Tavern as well as neighboring houses, which would require plans to substantially change if approved.
Why does the tavern deserve historic status, according to its would-be preservers? The Colonel Brooks' buildings, constructed in 1915 as a barbershop and cigar shop/residence, are "typical owner-occupied storefronts of the first years of the twentieth century" and "were associated with an Irish American owner whose business catered to Catholic University staff and students throughout their history." The building at 925 Monroe "represents the lost structure, residential in character, remaining from the residential neighborhood built around the Brookland Train Depot."
Jim Steigman, a partner in the project and owner of the properties up for landmarking, thinks the whole nomination is an obstructionist hail Mary.
"Interestingly, our property has been around here for a long time, but I don't think anyone imagined it was an historic property until they decided they were unhappy with our PUD," Steigman said. "It's just an effort to derail a project that we really think will take Brookland to the next level as an urban village at the metro station."
The project will get a preliminary hearing before the Zoning Commission on March 14, and the landmark nomination is scheduled to be heard by the Historic Preservation Review Board on March 24th. Steigman says the development team intends to vigorously oppose the nomination.
The part of the proposed development that would replace Colonel Brooks'.
"It seems like a pretty naked effort by folks to use the historic preservation laws in a way that they weren't intended," he says. "I think that folks who are true preservationists would be offended by this kind of thing."
2:50 pm
Hopefully this will get shot down quickly for the transparent obstructionism it is. Brookland isn't a historic district and there are only a handful of landmarked buildings there, like the Brooks Mansion (1830s, the estate on which Brookland was built), Newton Theater, the old Firehouse. These Monroe St. buildings simply aren't in the same ballpark, and the reasons given for historic landmarking read almost as parody.
My only gripe with the development is that swooping-out at the top thing that you see everywhere.
4:24 pm
Hey I know of a porta potty in Georgetown on Q street, NW that should be considered a landmark!
6:05 pm
Is there anything that the preservationists will admit doesn't warrant being preserved? I haven't found such a thing, yet. If it was built before 1950, then preserve it, no matter how shabby, no matter how undistinguished the architecture, no matter how negligible the historical significance.
9:07 am
Have anyone of you been to Colonel Brooks? It's a good establishment, but hardly anything worth freezing in time.
Bob See- you see my gripe with over-zealous preservationists? They stick their noses into other people's business. Let them compensate the man for his property and then I'll take them seriously, otherwise, screw off.
10:49 am
OMG Jack and and Adrian Bent-Me! It says the ANC subimitted the nomination - not a preservation group. There is clearly nothing you won't blame on the preservation community even when there is no reference to them having anything to do with this.
11:42 am
Lisa- where do you think it came from? Observe the influence of the HPS in any of these hypergoverance areas in DC (Mt. Pleasant, Shaw, Brookland), and you'll see what we mean. It's the HPS efforts that's driving this twisted effort. Leave the man alone. It's his property and he's entitled to do whatever he pleases, within legal reason of course. But to create a new "designation" to purposely screw him over, that's just horrible.
2:21 pm
Funny thing is that one of the ANC 5A commissioners was the prime mover behind the anti-historical district brouhaha five or six years ago in Brookland. Back then, historical preservation was a bad thing because it was a pro-gentrification force bringing white yuppies into the neighborhood, and now it's a good thing, apparently, because it'll keep them out.
2:45 pm
Makes me angry that the ANC can submit this without any sort of neighborhood consensus.
10:47 am
This is a blatant attempt by the ANC to derail the PUD process for a project that many in the neighborhood, including many of the directly affected ANC5A07 members, support.
ANC5A07 Carolyn Steptoe vehemently opposed attempts to designate Brookland as an historic district. It isn't "funny" she has flip-flopped, it's hypocritical and cynical.
The PUD process is nowhere even close to finished. Why try to short-circuit it? Is it because it's becoming increasingly obvious that a majority of the community in fact supports the development? (That was a rhetorical question, in case you could not tell).
1:46 pm
Josh, well said. I cannot believe the gall of ANC5A07 Carolyn Steptoe supporting this bid for historic designation. Her opposition to the Brookland Historic District several years ago bordered on the fanatical.
This further proves that Commissioner Steptoe isn't interested in making Brookland a better place. She is content -- and obviously will fight tooth and nail -- for the neighborhood to remain a backwater. If you look closely at the neighborhoods surrounding Brookland, like LeDroit Park, Bloomingdale, Shaw, all are moving forward. Why not Brookland? Commissioner Steptoe, why do you hate Brookland?
2:17 pm
whatever works.. I don't want to get gentrified out of my neighborhood.