The Washington Informer

Toni Griffin, deputy director of the D.C. Office of Planning, expresses her views to City Administrator Robert Bobb at an information open house held to discuss planning and development activities for the new Washington Nationals Ballpark. Jacquelyn Flowers, director of the Office of Local Business Development, looks on. (Photo by Victor Holt)

New Ballpark Causes Fears That Gentrification Is Headed for Anacostia

By Bruce Branch
WI Staff Writer
Friday, April 1, 2005; Page 1

Anacostia is well-known for its historic downtown, which starts at the corner of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue and runs along a few side streets. The area, called Uniontown in the 1800s, originally housed the all-White workforce from the nearby Navy Yard across the Anacostia River.

The descendants of slaves and freed Blacks lived in the nearby Barry Farms section of the neighborhood. In the 1880s, Blacks began moving into Uniontown. The home of abolitionist Frederick Douglass is now a major tourist attraction in the area.

In the early 1900s, the main commercial strip was a hub of barber shops, small drug, grocery and hardware stores, and family-owned furniture shops. During the 1950s and 1960s, as suburbs around the District began to develop, White residents left and more Blacks moved in. Many of the small shops began to close or followed their customers to the suburbs.

Over the next 30 years, the neighborhood fell from its middle-class perch. Commercial streets became a maze of check-cashing outlets, liquor stores, drugs, crime, homeless people, storefront churches and abandoned buildings. Interstate 295 provided a glimmer of hope in the 1960s, but ultimately gave the area a sense of being little more than a shortcut from the suburbs to downtown. Residents complain about a dearth of proper restaurants amid a relative sea of carry-outs that pass food to customers through bullet-proof glass. The area remains troubled by crime, with one-fourth of the city’s murders, according to police statistics for the Seventh District. The area high schools, Anacostia and Ballou, are among the District’s most troubled.

In the last few years, things appeared to be getting better. Houses that sold for $50,000 15 years ago are now selling for over $200,000. The average yearly household income in the 20020 zip code, the heart of Anacostia, rose to $42,684 last year from $38,343 in 2000 and is above the District's median of $40,000, according to statistics compiled by the D.C. Marketing Center.

The Anacostia Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) is slated to begin work this summer on an $18 million office building slated for the same block. Together, the two buildings are expected to substantially boost daytime traffic and pedestrians needed to support private retail development.

D.C. officials say they expect an estimated $200 million worth of public and private investments to be made in Anacostia over the next five to 10 years to renovate storefronts along Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue, improve a library and put a light rail system into the area. Metro is trying to interest developers in a grassy lot next to its Anacostia station. Giant grocery store—one of the few major grocery chains that operate east of the Anacostia River—has signed a lease for retail project in Congress Heights.

The District's Anacostia Waterfront Initiative calls for a multimillion-dollar redevelopment of the shores of the river into parks, housing and retail. There is also a new study that is expected to look at moving the headquarters of the U.S. Coast Guard onto the sprawling grounds of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital on Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue.

“There hasn't been enough daytime consumer traffic to get retailers to come,” said AEDC President and CEO Albert R. Hopkins, Jr. “It’s time for a change.”

Louis S. Rizzo, president of Curtis Property Management Corporation, the largest landowner in Anacostia, said he is waiting to see the District's transportation building finished before he pursues plans to build shops, restaurants and condos on a parking lot he owns a few blocks away on Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue.

Alberto Gomez, a native of Colombia who runs a small construction business in the 1100 block of Good Hope Road, said he is reluctant to sell. He said he bought the rowhouse he uses for his office and the parking lot next to it—about 14,000 square feet—for less than $250,000 in 1990.

Some small-business owners said they are worried about being pushed out as rents increase and larger and better-financed companies attempt to come in with the area’s new developments.

Ann Cobbler-Fields, 33, opened a clothing store for women in the 1300 block of Good Hope Road Southeast in November. She said she pays about $1,700 a month for her 2,000-square-foot shop, which is well below the going rate for a retail spot in downtown Washington.

“I had a dream to do a clothing store in this neighborhood because there’s not much here,” Fields, who grew up in the area and now lives in Prince George's County's Temple Hills, said. “It helps the people here because not everyone has a car to get to the malls in Maryland or Virginia.”

Yavocka Young, executive director of Main Street Anacostia Inc., a program to improve streets and storefront facades, said she wants to see more businesses like La Threads come into the neighborhood.

“I want to see the quality of life drastically improve,” Young said. “The neighborhood has been in dire straights for so many decades. We want a change for the better.”

Now that Natwar Gandhi, PhD, Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia, has certified two proposals that would provide private financing for a new stadium along the Anacostia Waterfront, residents in the area are more concerned than ever about the growing prospect of gentrification.

Dozens of concerned citizens and grassroots community leaders recently gathered in Southeast to express their concerns about how a new stadium will impact life in Anacostia. Many left the meeting frustrated with one man describing the meeting as “a colossal waste of time.”

Frustration is a common sentiment among many Anacostia residents who see the new stadium as an opportunity for city officials to push them out of their beloved neighborhoods in favor of more affluent residents and business owners.

“I saw this coming a long time ago,” said Charles Scott, a Howard Road resident. “This is the last frontier for Black folk who want to keep D.C. ‘Chocolate City.’”

Angel Jones, who runs a towing company near Howard Road, said she expects rents to escalate with the new stadium project.

“It’s going to be just like Columbia Heights, Adams Morgan, Capitol Hill and the rest of the city,” she said. “The little people are going to be pushed out and the folks with money are going to come in. You see them lurking around here everyday like vultures.”

Supporters of baseball and the stadium project believe the two can work together to revive an economically deprived community that has experienced more than its share of bad luck. They maintain the stadium has the potential to invigorate an industrial area that is currently depressed. It may also draw new business and money into the community.

There is talk of Anacostia receiving a facelift in the form of development along the waterfront and the construction of a new building for the D.C. Transportation Department, which could mean jobs for the scores of unemployed men in the neighborhood.

Barry Farms, Congress Heights, Condon Terrace and Howard Road should all benefit.

Currently, the major claim in the area is the large clock near the 11th Street Bridge, erected by Union Temple Baptist Church pastor Willie Wilson as a constant reminder of the young people who have lost their lives to street violence in the community.

Developer Douglas Jemal has already staked his claim by purchasing a half-acre tract of land at the corner of U Street and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue in Southeast.

Jemal plans to build a residential and retail development within shouting distance of the new Department of Transportation offices. Initial plans of the development feature a microbrewery or restaurant at the bottom level and condominiums upstairs on the piece of property he purchased for $250,000 two years ago.

Many long-time Anacostia residents are skeptical of Jemal’s plan. Some of the property owners say they are going to demand hefty prices before selling while others say they may even ask for a share of profits from the development.

The District's historic preservation board is already pinpointing abandoned row houses it wants saved. Some community leaders are worried that new money will inevitably displace longtime residents.

“We’ve waited so long for amenities to come to our neighborhood. . . . It’s a viable area to put business,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Lendia Johnson said. “But I do worry that folks who’ve lived here for so long will have to move if so much new development happens at once and they can't afford it.”