|
|
|
Articles
|
| It’s official: MPD calls off move to Near Southeast |
VOICE writes, "It’s official: MPD calls off move to Near Southeast
BY BEN WEINSTEIN
The city cancelled its controversial plans to move police headquarters and the First District station to leased space in Near Southeast.
A city property official said 225 Virginia Ave., SE, might still house government offices. But the Office of Property Management this month recommended dropping the plans to renovate the former Washington Star printing press building and move in police headquarters and six police divisions; property office director Lars Etzkorn said the estimated $100 million renovations are too expensive and incompatible with the surrounding community."
|
“Two twenty-five Virginia Avenue was not a viable option,” Etzkorn said Sept. 20 at a D.C. Council Public Safety and Judiciary Committee hearing. Committee Chairman Phil Mendelson asked why then had the property office previously recommended the move, to which Etzkorn replied it now has more information.
Mayor Anthony Williams’ administration proposed the moves, and police officials said centralizing headquarters and the six divisions — Superintendent of Detectives, Violent Crimes unit, Narcotics and Special Investigations, Special Operations, Property and Evidence and the First District station — would increase department efficiency. Currently, these units are spread throughout the city, some of them in dated, inadequate facilities, officials said.
But Near Southeast residents criticized the plan, saying it would overburden residential streets with increased parking and traffic problems and would create new safety threats. At a July meeting, residents said clustering together several city police functions near the Capitol Complex and the Southeast-Southwest freeway would make a tempting target for a terrorist attack.
Southwest residents also criticized the plan, saying that moving the First District station from their neighborhood would leave Southwest the only quadrant without a police station.
“We want to be sure that we don’t just stack a bunch of uses in there ... without thinking about the impact they have,” Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells said at the Sept. 20 hearing, reiterating residents concerns about overburdened streets.
Wells said the city changed course after residents questioned city and police officials at a July community meeting.
Etzkorn told Wells that the city is considering possible uses for the Virginia Avenue building. He added that the property office will consult the community on any potential uses for the site by the end of October.
As for the First District station, Etzkorn said Mayor Adrian Fenty’s preference is to keep it in Southwest. But he also said it will be relocated from Fourth Street to allow construction of a new forensic laboratory, which he said should be completed in late 2011. He also said the property office will launch a Web site on the lab project next month.
In July, Etzkorn told residents that the First District station could be moved to swing space during lab construction then back to the site once the lab is finished. But at the council hearing, he said the city might open part of the site to private development.
Mendelson asked Etzkorn where the First District station will move, adding that no work can begin on the lab until the station moves from Fourth Street.
Mendelson said the city could have avoided the already sizable costs associated with the project — about $2.5 million in renovations and rent — had it consulted the community earlier. But at the July community meeting, Mendelson told residents he was privy to the plans and shares some responsibility for not informing the residents earlier; at that time, he called the project a “victim of transition in government.”
Councilwoman Carol Schwartz raised the larger issue of the District leasing space for government purposes rather than using buildings it owns. She said she didn’t want to be “held hostage to private landlords,” and that “everybody’s lining up to buy our property ... and yet what about our own needs.”
“I don’t think the taxpayers of this city have been well served,” Schwartz said. “When I looked at what the costs of [the 225 Virginia Ave. project] were going to be, it was pretty off the charts.”
|
Posted on Sep 26, 2007 07:17am.
(Return)
|
|
|
|
|
Categories
|
|
|
