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Articles
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| Decaying Northeast firehouse, police station to be redeveloped |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
The city is moving ahead with long-delayed plans to redevelop two long-vacant public-safety buildings in Northeast -- the Maryland Avenue firehouse and the 9th Street police station.
On Nov. 8, Northeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission chair Joe Fengler announced that the Office of Planning recently asked for input on 1341 Maryland Ave. NE and 525 Ninth St. NE, sites residents have been pushing the city to redevelop for several years.
“We would encourage [the Office of Planning] to immediately develop these properties as we have waited over three years,” Fengler wrote in an e-mail to The Voice. “The city has been practicing demolition by neglect for years. It is time to end that practice. The city should hold itself to a higher standard and not allow their abandoned properties to negatively impact our community.”"
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Joseph Wolfe, project manager with the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, said his office is working with the neighborhood commission and Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells on plans.
The Maryland Avenue firehouse has sat vacant since the 1940s, when the fire department moved the company to Florida Avenue, and the 9th Street police station also has been vacant for years -- officials did not say when the police department moved from that building.
Residents have long complained about the deteriorating buildings, and said the former police station had become a haven for criminal activity, according to letters from the neighborhood commission to the city.
The commission has advocated the buildings become apartments, condominiums or multifamily homes. It has opposed community-based residential facilities, arguing that the area already has several other social-service providers. Wolfe also said because of their zoning, the sites will probably be redeveloped for residential uses.
Determining ownership contributed to the delay in redeveloping the sites. The Department of Housing and Community Development oversaw the process until summer 2005, when the buildings were transferred to the now-defunct National Capitol Revitalization Corp. Revitalization got the sites in a land-swap deal with the Anacostia Waterfront Corp., the city’s other recently dissolved quasi-public development agency.
To avoid further delays, the neighborhood commission asked that then-Ward 6 Council member Sharon Ambrose help resolve the ownership question, reasoning that the city should move as soon as possible to take advantage of the good real estate market.
The process could take up to two years before any groundbreaking, Wolfe said. His office expects to release requests for proposals for the sites by January.
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Posted on Dec 02, 2007 14:04pm.
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