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From the July 30, 2004 print edition
$400M plan for McMillan Heavy-hitter development team
wants to tackle long-vacant 'eyesore' in NW
Sean Madigan Staff Reporter
A Northern Virginia developer wants to put a $400 million mixed-use
redevelopment on the McMillan Sand Filtration site, a 25-acre
patch of land along the McMillan Reservoir that has been vacant
for nearly 20 years.
And it's not asking for help from the city. Greenvest on July
29 submitted an unsolicited proposal to D.C.'s Department of Housing
and Community Development, proposing to build 1.2 million square
feet of housing -- about 1,100 units; 100,000 square feet of retail
space, including a Harris Teeter grocery store; a 15,000-square-foot
community center; 12 acres of parks; and more than 2,600 underground
parking spaces. The scope of the project rivals plans for redevelopment
of D.C.'s Southwest waterfront and is by far the largest proposed
neighborhood development in the city. Officials have been trying
to figure out a way to redevelop the McMillan site at Michigan
Avenue and North Capitol Street since the city paid the federal
government $9 million for control of the 100-year-old sand filtration
site in 1987. The D.C. Office of Planning produced an extensive
report on the site in February 2002, after months of community
meetings and analysis. In it, the planning office concluded D.C.
should not pursue redevelopment at the time, because the city
didn't have the $15 million to pay for necessary site improvements
most developers would require to make development viable. City
and private-sector officials say the site has considerable challenges,
including possible environmental problems and historic- preservation
requirements. In May, the city offered its economic development
agency, the National Capital Revitalization Corp., custody of
the site, as one of three options in a land-swap deal with the
not-yet-formed Anacostia Waterfront Development Corp. In that
deal, the newly formed corporation would take over development
of the Southwest waterfront from NCRC. NCRC's charter is to make
deals happen in the city where they otherwise wouldn't without
public help. Private potential Greenvest's proposal shows a considerable
willingness in the private sector to develop the site -- without
public subsidy. "The challenge, the location, the potential.
It's a phenomenal site," says Linda Erbs, a vice president
at Greenvest and the McMillan project manager. "We are asking
for no subsidy. ... We are fully prepared to do what it takes."
Erbs says her team has been working on the project for about a
year. She says Greenvest, which specializes in suburban residential
mixed-use projects, wants to expand into urban development.
The Vienna-based company has lined up a long list of prominent
D.C.-based developers, architects and engineers. The team includes
Pam Bundy of Bundy Development and Adrian Washington of Neighborhood
Development Co., who also are involved in the redevelopment of
the old convention center and former wax museum sites; architect
Paul Devrouax; builder Henry Gilford; Delon Hampton & Associates;
investor Dickie Carter of Urban Service Systems; and Alvin McNeal,
the former director of Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority's
public-private development program. Greenvest is not the only
developer who has shown interest in the site lately. Chris Bender,
a spokesman for the city's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning
and Economic Development, says the city has received several expressions
of interest in the site from developers, but not unsolicited proposals.
He says the office expects to send a request for proposals to
the D.C. Council for approval this fall. Bender declined to comment
specifically on Greenvest's proposal because his office has yet
to review the plan. Peggy Armstrong, a spokeswoman for NCRC, declined
to comment on the Greenvest proposal, too, because the organization
is still considering whether or not it wants the McMillan site.
Michael Rogers, executive vice president of MedStar, which runs
the Washington Hospital Center adjacent to the site, says the
city would have a tough time -- politically -- awarding the McMillan
site without a competitive-bid process. Rogers says MedStar Health
has looked at the site for possible expansion. "If there
is an RFP, then we do have an interest in the site," he says.
Tied up in history Built in 1905, the site was closed 80 years
later and sold to the D.C. government so the city could use the
land for community development. The planning office sponsored
public forums and the city issued an RFP in 1989. But a lawsuit
challenging the re-zoning of the site tied up the property for
the next three years. City officials spent the next 10 years conducting
studies, weighing unsolicited proposals and holding community-planning
workshops, which ultimately led to a decision to table efforts
to form a public-private partnership to redevelop the site in
2002 because the city didn't have the money. Pat McGuire, who
has spent years in the community-planning effort as president
of Trinity College, says she welcomes any proposal that would
clean up the blighted site and bring housing and badly needed
retail to the neighborhood. "It is an eyesore of tremendous
proportions," McGuire says. "Any development would be
value added."
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E-mail: smadigan@bizjournals.com Phone: 703/816-0335
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