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I think it's important to realize DC is a very different city than 1997 when the MCI Center opened. There are tons of options and a boat load of competition within the city. How many cities have activity centers this active in competition with each other in a city the size of DC proper?
All these places are competing for the same visitors? You need high density residential buildings to compete. Adding about 200,000 people to downtown DC through office-to-residential conversions is the only answer long term to create the experience other cities have. Once you do that, everything else takes care of itself. The business community follows high-end residential density. That will never change!
I agree with a lot of this. Especially the part about DC adding 200k. Density is the lifeblood of cities. It helps support neighborhood focused retail, puts eyes on the street to fight crime, supports walkability/transit.
On the multiple destination neighborhood point, I think DC has gotten to the point where it has too many pots on the stove. The are too many discrete activity centers relative to the population. The city needs to really focus on upzoning and scaling up the existing areas to prevent them all from cannibalizing themselves. In the 2010s, Penn Quarter/Gallery Place, 14th Street and H Street drained activity from Dupont/Conn Ave. Now NoMa/Wharf/Navy Yard is draining business from those places. Rather than having planners/developers dream up whole new neighborhoods I would like to see them focus on the basic (and politically fraught) business of adding density in the existing neighborhoods. That generally involves raising the height limit in the greater downtown to allow Bethesda/Arlington style 20-30 story high rises and allowing more mid-rise missing middle 4-6 story apartment density in the SFH/row house areas of DC.
Along with upzoning for more housing, DC needs to also:
1) diversify its economy away from its over reliance on government. The reality is a lot of gov related jobs are back office paper pushing that can be done from home all or most of the time. The city needs to grow a teach/startup, finance, marketing, culture, corp HQ scene like NYC, Bos, SF, Chicago,etc.
2) Get crime back under control. DC risks a vicious cycle of middle class flight if they can't get the carjackings, shooting, muggings, and general quality of life stuff under control. Frankly, Arlington/Alexandria now offer a critical mass of walkable urbanism with a lot less of the BS.
Capital One Arena is the reason there are homeless people and drug dealers hanging out in the neighborhood. .... Residential density is the only answer here. Look at Center City Philly for an example of what Downtown DC needs.
Speaking as a descendant of a DC Chinatown family, there were homeless people and drug dealers there before MCI Center. The Metro entrance has always been a problem because it's a transit hub, particularly for buses headed to poorer parts of the area.
I'm a superfan of residential density (multiple neighborhood NIMBY newsletters have libeled me!), but that's where the Height Act hurts downtown DC. Apartments have ~4X the square footage per person than offices, which have ~10X the square footage per person as stadiums... (and both are used ~200 days per year) so when you have a fixed volume of building, residential achieves a much lower density of people and activity than offices or an arena. So it's not true that "we can just convert offices and an arena to housing" and have anywhere near as many people coming to the neighborhood. Plus, residential buildings necessarily cover less land than office buildings.
So to maintain the same amount of activity and vibrancy with residential vs. office/entertainment requires much bigger buildings. That's fine in Philly, but that's not happening in DC due to the Height Act.
Tourist attractions, like an arena, are particularly lucrative because visitors are by definition in a mood to spend. Domestic visitors spend about 2X per day on food/beverage than DC residents ($90 vs $50); they don't have a fridge full of much cheaper drinks just upstairs.
Saw a suggestion that I don't agree with. Build a new arena on the FBI site. Whether it would fit or not is immaterial. PA. Ave. is not the place for a large entertainment venue even if it were allowed.
Speaking as a descendant of a DC Chinatown family, there were homeless people and drug dealers there before MCI Center. The Metro entrance has always been a problem because it's a transit hub, particularly for buses headed to poorer parts of the area.
I'm a superfan of residential density (multiple neighborhood NIMBY newsletters have libeled me!), but that's where the Height Act hurts downtown DC. Apartments have ~4X the square footage per person than offices, which have ~10X the square footage per person as stadiums... (and both are used ~200 days per year) so when you have a fixed volume of building, residential achieves a much lower density of people and activity than offices or an arena. So it's not true that "we can just convert offices and an arena to housing" and have anywhere near as many people coming to the neighborhood. Plus, residential buildings necessarily cover less land than office buildings.
So to maintain the same amount of activity and vibrancy with residential vs. office/entertainment requires much bigger buildings. That's fine in Philly, but that's not happening in DC due to the Height Act.
Tourist attractions, like an arena, are particularly lucrative because visitors are by definition in a mood to spend. Domestic visitors spend about 2X per day on food/beverage than DC residents ($90 vs $50); they don't have a fridge full of much cheaper drinks just upstairs.
Yeah, an arena is the most intensive use of land from a foot traffic standpoint. Plus it's also not clear that developers will be chomping at the bit to redevelop this site. We aren't in the 2010s with super low interest rates and a booming demand for downtown living and office space. Plus, demolition of a massive arena above metro a metro stop would be costly and extremely challenging. The investment return compared on to just throwing up a 10 story building on a parking lot or in the suburbs would likely be greater at this point.
Sadly the most likely course of events is an underutilized zombie arena that goes from attracting over 2 million people for events each year to maybe 1 million at best.
I agree with a lot of this. Especially the part about DC adding 200k. Density is the lifeblood of cities. It helps support neighborhood focused retail, puts eyes on the street to fight crime, supports walkability/transit.
On the multiple destination neighborhood point, I think DC has gotten to the point where it has too many pots on the stove. The are too many discrete activity centers relative to the population. The city needs to really focus on upzoning and scaling up the existing areas to prevent them all from cannibalizing themselves. In the 2010s, Penn Quarter/Gallery Place, 14th Street and H Street drained activity from Dupont/Conn Ave. Now NoMa/Wharf/Navy Yard is draining business from those places. Rather than having planners/developers dream up whole new neighborhoods I would like to see them focus on the basic (and politically fraught) business of adding density in the existing neighborhoods. That generally involves raising the height limit in the greater downtown to allow Bethesda/Arlington style 20-30 story high rises and allowing more mid-rise missing middle 4-6 story apartment density in the SFH/row house areas of DC.
Along with upzoning for more housing, DC needs to also:
1) diversify its economy away from its over reliance on government. The reality is a lot of gov related jobs are back office paper pushing that can be done from home all or most of the time. The city needs to grow a teach/startup, finance, marketing, culture, corp HQ scene like NYC, Bos, SF, Chicago,etc.
2) Get crime back under control. DC risks a vicious cycle of middle class flight if they can't get the carjackings, shooting, muggings, and general quality of life stuff under control. Frankly, Arlington/Alexandria now offer a critical mass of walkable urbanism with a lot less of the BS.
When are you running for office in D.C.?
Or are you one of those, "all talk and no action", types?
Or are you one of those, "all talk and no action", types?
LOL..I know I'm not suited for political office. That being said, I am an active voter and follow local politics closely. Regardless, I don't think the issues DC faces can be easily fixed or that the local government has anything more than a marginal ability to impact most of these issues. But, they are the issues facing the district as I see them.
LOL..I know I'm not suited for political office. That being said, I am an active voter and follow local politics closely. Regardless, I don't think the issues DC faces can be easily fixed or that the local government has anything more than a marginal ability to impact most of these issues. But, they are the issues facing the district as I see them.
"I know I'm not suited for political office."
You are an American, aren't you?
People from all works of life have served in political office.
Saw a suggestion that I don't agree with. Build a new arena on the FBI site. Whether it would fit or not is immaterial. PA. Ave. is not the place for a large entertainment venue even if it were allowed.
It will be 10 years before the FBI moves out of Hoover building, if ever. And then the Hoover building is going in the scrapyard?
Speaking as a descendant of a DC Chinatown family, there were homeless people and drug dealers there before MCI Center. The Metro entrance has always been a problem because it's a transit hub, particularly for buses headed to poorer parts of the area.
I'm a superfan of residential density (multiple neighborhood NIMBY newsletters have libeled me!), but that's where the Height Act hurts downtown DC. Apartments have ~4X the square footage per person than offices, which have ~10X the square footage per person as stadiums... (and both are used ~200 days per year) so when you have a fixed volume of building, residential achieves a much lower density of people and activity than offices or an arena. So it's not true that "we can just convert offices and an arena to housing" and have anywhere near as many people coming to the neighborhood. Plus, residential buildings necessarily cover less land than office buildings.
So to maintain the same amount of activity and vibrancy with residential vs. office/entertainment requires much bigger buildings. That's fine in Philly, but that's not happening in DC due to the Height Act.
Tourist attractions, like an arena, are particularly lucrative because visitors are by definition in a mood to spend. Domestic visitors spend about 2X per day on food/beverage than DC residents ($90 vs $50); they don't have a fridge full of much cheaper drinks just upstairs.
Did you know DC’s development style actually creates higher density than Philadelphia, Boston, and Seattle? I’m someone who follows development in DC closer than anybody on this entire site I can assure you. I pointed out the factual basis for density in a post below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MDAllstar
That's actually not why I mentioned that. You tried to point out the difference in population density. I made reference to that because the blocks that people actually live on have very high population density. I already pointed that out when I said this below. Boston didn't reach these densities anywhere in the whole city.
Which city between Boston, DC, Philly, and Seattle has the densest city neighborhood by block groups using the census reporter website?
The densest neighborhood by block group in DC is downtown in Mt. Vernon Triangle with 4 block groups over 100,000 people per square mile:
Downtown DC (Mt. Vernon Triangle) Census Block Groups
1. 176,017.1 people per square mile
2. 154,917.7 people per square mile
3. 152,215.9 people per square mile
4. 129,069.2 people per square mile
On a side note, this block group below with join these other 4 above in a few years. There are 600 units under construction on this block right now.
Some people tried to counter this by saying these are block groups so it’s a small footprint. What they didn’t know is DC is building a sea of these block groups from Union Market-NOMA-Northwest One-Mt. Vernon Triangle. They’re also doing it from Navy Yard-Buzzard Point-Waterfront Station-The Wharf.
Now, think about the population density of doing the same thing to Downtown DC through office-to-residential conversions or office tear down's.
More Metro concerns on inability to support infrastructure
Now there are growing concerns that the Metro won’t be able to support the new Wizard stadium 8n NOVA. So handing over one problem from DC creates another.
“ Could Metro riders be stuck waiting for a ride home an hour after a game ends at the prospective Monumental Sports arena in Alexandria, Virginia?
Without any upgrades, the Potomac Yard metro station could be extremely crowded for 60 to 90 minutes after a game, when more than 10,000 sports fans are expected to be walking, biking or taking public transit out of the area, according to the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership update. Transportation plans for the proposed arena were unveiled last week.”
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More Metro concerns on inability to support infrastructure
