Neighborhood -- Development Horizon

The AWI Framework Plan is a guide to the revitalization of Washington 's Waterfront from the Washington Channel to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens. Organized according to five themes, the Framework Plan identifies vibrant new places for people to live, work, recreate and celebrate Washington 's local and national heritage along the waterfront. The DC Office of Planning (OP) produced the Framework Plan in collaboration with a steering committee of federal and District agencies, an advisory group of community leaders and a collaborative team of consultants.

The Southwest Waterfront, Capitol Riverfront (then known as Near Southeast), and the South Capitol Street Corridor were three of eight areas specifically targeted in the AWI plan. The vision outlined in the AWI Framework Plan for the Southwest Waterfront guided the development of a subsequent small area plan. Similarly, the AWI vision for the South Capitol Street Corridor guided subsequent plans by the city and federal governments.

In 2003, the District of Columbia approved a small area plan developed by the Office of Planning and the now defunct National Capital Revitalization Corporation for the Southwest Waterfront. The Southwest Waterfront Plan represents an ambitious redevelopment initiative that is the first step to creating a world-class urban waterfront in the Nation's Capital as part of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative.

The Plan is a redevelopment framework for nearly 50 acres of long-neglected waterfront in Southwest Washington. It envisions replacing parking lots and underutilized streets with a vibrant mix of new public plazas, cultural venues, restaurants, shops and residences. The proposed program recommends more than 2 million square feet of new construction including 14 acres of new parks and public open space along the waterfront: three times the existing amount of open space.

In 2006, the City selected a development team lead by PN Hoffman and Struever Brothers, Eccles & Rouse to develop the area based on the 2003 plan. Refer to the development team's website for up to date information on the program.

South Capitol Street is in the process of becoming a grand symbolic gateway into the heart of Washington, and host to a mixture of new uses and new jobs. Transformed into a great urban boulevard, the redesigned South Capitol Street will provide an elegant environment for a variety of transportation modes. With a new signature bridge replacing the aging Frederick Douglass Bridge, the reconfigured corridor will improve access to – and links between – the east and west banks of the Anacostia River.

This vision was developed through three major planning initiatives. A city effort lead by the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) resulted in the 2003 South Capitol Street Gateway and Improvement Study. Two years later, first envisioned in National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) completed the South Capitol Street Urban Design Study.

A number of the plans' short and intermediate term improvements have been carried out including an enhanced pedestrian environment, and a complex project that lowered the South Capitol Street Bridge to provide an at-grade Potomac Avenue-South Capitol Street intersection, among other enhancements.

DDOT is currently conducting more detailed environmental studies of additional Corridor improvements, including a new signature Frederick Douglass Bridge. Plans envision a large oval rotary providing a dramatic approach to a realigned bridge.

In one of America 's largest waterfront transformations, a dated federal center is becoming a model of 21st century planning: with at least 40 percent of its land area currently subject to redevelopment. Under a framework articulated in the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, the area is becoming a vibrant, transit-oriented neighborhood that combines mixed-income housing, offices and waterfront entertainment. The area includes three prominent destinations that are in different stages of development.

Underlying the most significant development in Near Southeast is a public-private partnership now known as “The Yards”. This 42-acre development, which encompasses the U.S. DOT Headquarters, is bringing 1.8 million square feet of office space, 2,800 residential units, retail, and a 5.87-acre riverfront park.

In 2000 Congress passed special legislation enabling the General Services Administration to hold a competition to bring in a private development team to help turn an aging, underutilized industrial center into a vibrant mixed-use waterfront destination.

Forest City Washington, which won the competition, worked with several federal agencies to develop a Master Plan for the area which was recently certified LEED ND (Neighborhood Development) Gold. The plan includes newly constructed buildings, rehabilitated buildings, a 6-acre park, and a new harbor. Beginning with the completed U.S. DOT headquarters, the Plan is being executed in a number of phases. Several additional buildings are now nearing completion; many other projects have not yet broken ground.

Thanks to the remarkable partnerships between the federal and local governments, as well as private developers and local residents, the watershed vision articulated in the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative is increasingly becoming a reality in Near Southwest and Southeast. One of the clearest examples of the progress will be the imminent completion of a continuous Anacostia Riverwalk and Trail segment linking the area to the Mall, East of the River, and beyond. Importantly, the trail will connect to dozens of nearby parks and provide neighborhood access to significant portions of the river for the first time in a century.

This 23-acre project will convert an isolated and deteriorating public housing complex with a mixed-income neighborhood surrounded by new park, retail and office space. The 700 units of public housing, including 300 senior dwellings will be replaced one-for-one in the new development. The public housing units will be integrated with 1,200 workforce and market-rate residential units for a total of nearly 2,000 units of mixed-income housing. Construction on the first phase started in 2008.

On an idyllic four-acre site along the Tidal basin with views of the Lincoln Memorial, a $120 million memorial to the American civil rights leader is rising, Martin Luther King (MLK). Inspired by his famed “I Have a Dream” speech, the MLK memorial features a Mountain of Despair , a crescent-shaped Inscription Wall forming the main plaza area, and a Stone of Hope that features a 31-foot likeness of Dr. King.

The seventh presidential memorial in the Nation's Capital will be rising on a four-acre site between the National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Department of Education Headquarters. Frank Gehry, one of the world's most celebrated architects was recently selected to design the memorial. Completion of a memorial to our 34th President will dramatically improve a site in Southwest now characterized by roads, automobile parking and an underutilized plaza.

This is public-private redevelopment initiative focused on the office enclave bisected by the Tenth Street Corridor. This is an effort led by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts to implement their recently released blueprint, the Monumental Core Framework Plan for the Tenth Street corridor and three other federal enclaves. In the words of its authors, the initiative calls for the area to become a sustainable mixed-use corridor that “extends the honorific landscape of the National Mall toward the waterfront and creates prominent locations for nationally significant cultural destinations and federal offices". Specifically, the group is exploring how to develop a multi-modal transportation center, increase the variety of uses, reclaim the street grid, and enhance viewsheds.

This is major long-term redevelopment effort to improve recreational opportunities and multi-modal connections between Crystal City Virginia, the National Mall, and Southwest Washington. Like the Tenth Street Corridor Initiative, this is part of the Monumental Core Framework Plan, a larger plan developed by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. This redevelopment features several key improvements:

Expand public space and improve multi-modal connections by reconfiguring the 14th Street and adjacent rail bridges.
Develop an active waterfront area by adding a Metro Station, building pedestrian bridges with connections to residential Southwest and nearby trails, and creating a harbor lined with recreational, retail, and cultural facilities.
Reprogram lower Potomac Park for sustainable recreation by enhancing naturalized areas and creating a canal to divert large boats from the southern portion of the park.

A dramatic three-block park is rising to the east of the Capper-Carrollsburg Development. The park memorializes the historic Washington Canal, which provided a water-borne connection from northwest Washington along the Tiber Creek watershed to the Anacostia River. More recently serving as a contaminated bus parking lot and later a public parking lot, the space will be transformed into a public park. Anticipated to be completed in 2011, the park will include a café and water fountains while allowing for a variety of programmed attractions including a farmer's market and holiday festivals. In winter, the park will feature ice-skating, recalling the popular frozen canals of Canada and Europe, and what historical records suggest took place on historic Tiber Creek.

A two million square-foot urban center is rising on 13 acres of land surrounding the Waterfront-SEU Metro station. This mixed-use center includes the construction of seven new buildings and the rehabilitation of two historic towers. The project features a substantial amount of open space and the re-opening of 4th Street between K and M Streets, a historic Southwest retail corridor. The first phase opens this year. This $760 million phase features two LEED Silver office-retail towers. The D.C. government is leasing the office space to house four D.C. agencies: the Office of Chief Financial Officer, Office of Planning, District Department of Transportation, and Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. The retail component includes several neighborhood food and service retailers including Safeway.