For D.C. Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George, the federal plot of land known as Poplar Point provides an opportunity to move the needle for residents east of the Anacostia River demanding affordable housing, grocery stores, and other amenities.
However, it remains to be seen how, or even whether, wellness destination Therme will be a part of her vision.
“I don’t want to…agree to something on Poplar Point that then can foreclose the other development opportunities,” Lewis George said on Nov. 4. “We want people to say, ‘Hey, we want to be on Poplar Point. We’re willing to build X, Y, and Z. We’re willing to show up for the residents and give…many amenities.’ I think it’s important for us to be smart and prudent about what we do with Poplar Point,” and I’m looking forward to seeing what proposals we can bring forward.”
One day prior to her remarks, Lewis George celebrated her general election victory during a watch party the D.C. Democrats hosted at Sycamore & Oak in Southeast that attracted hundreds. Earlier in the year, she paid Ward 8 a bit of extra attention when she kicked off her citywide listening tour at her childhood church, Union Temple Baptist Church, in Anacostia.
Lewis George’s overtures to Ward 7 and 8 come just as the D.C. Council, on which she currently sits as a Ward 4 council member, considers two bills D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced to authorize: the transfer of two parcels of land on Poplar Point from the National Park Service (NPS) to the District; the acquisition of a lot to create another entry point to the federal land; and the disposition of a 15-acre parcel to Therme Group U.S..
As outlined in a Sept. 17 term sheet, Therme Group US will receive the property as part of a 60-year land lease under which the entity will pay the District a dollar for the first 20 years. From that point, both parties, with the assistance of an appraiser, will determine the ground rent to be paid during the 21st year and beyond.
The term sheet, if approved, also allows for a 20-year lease extension.
In but so many words, Lewis George said that the deal counters what she promised residents while on the campaign trail.
“They said ‘Every deal that comes before the city, we want to make sure you do what you said you would do, which is put people first,’” Lewis George said. “That is to analyze what do the people of our community need, but specifically the people of the surrounding neighborhoods of Ward 7 and 8.”
Conversations About Amenities and Jobs in Ward 8
In her Sept. 30 letter to D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), Bowser said that the Poplar Point Acquisition and Disposition Approval Act of 2026 satisfies a 20-year federal law allowing the transfer of Poplar Point from NPS to the District after the finalization of a pollution clean-up plan and the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s approval of a land use plan developed by both parties.
Bowser’s introduction of that legislation came more than a year after she announced the selection of Therme Group U.S. as the economic anchor for Poplar Point. In a statement, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) said the all-inclusive resort and wellness spa’s presence will yield: 5,000 construction jobs, more than 700 new jobs and more than 400 retained jobs; more than $31.1 million in capital investments; and $5.6 million in fiscal impact.
For Wanda Lockridge, it’s a no-brainer.
“If Therme doesn’t come in and develop this land, it’s going to be another 30 years or more before something is done on that,” said Lockridge, a Ward 8 resident and Therme US’ director of community engagement. “Why so many projects have died and gone away is because nobody wanted to clean up the contamination. But Therme is prepared to move forward with that, and to open up the other 25 acres in the whole park area…to beautify the park…making sure that it’s ready.”
Lockridge, who supported Lewis George’s mayoral bid, met with the Ward 4 council member, and D.C. Councilmembers Trayon White (D-Ward 8), Anita Bonds (D-At large), Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3), and Elissa Silverman (I-At large) in the run-up to an Oct. 28 hearing about Bowser’s two bills.
Those sitdowns, Lockridge said, followed more than a year of listening sessions across Wards 7 and 8. From her vantage point, concerns about the term sheet and low-income residents’ access to Therme haven’t tempered community enthusiasm.
“I’ve heard a couple of things,” Lockridge said. “One, it’s important to have Therme here because it helps the foot traffic on the [Martin Luther King, Jr.] avenue where businesses are struggling. Some of them are closing. We know that Sweet Tooth closed. We know that Kitchen Savages closed. So many of them are struggling and trying to keep their business open.”
Therme, headquartered in Vienna, Austria, currently operates five locations across Europe that provide a year-round botanical wellness resort experience. Features include large-scale water parks and therapeutic thermal baths, all of which native Washingtonian and longtime business owner Dionne Reeder say make for a unique Ward 8 experience.
“This is a different type of amenity that isn’t food based,” said Reeder, owner of Dionne’s Good Food at Sycamore & Oak. “It’s time to look at Ward 8 as an anchor for other opportunities. Ward 6 has three stadiums. We don’t have that. We have a small arena, which we are grateful for but that’s not the only type of environment.”
Through Dionne’s Good Food, Reeder employs six D.C. residents, while in her other role as chief executive officer at the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, she conducts programming for a client base seeking opportunity and economic stability.
Both experiences, she said, primed her for a meeting with the mayor-elect’s business policy team earlier this year. In speaking about Therme, and more generally economic development east of the Anacostia River, Reeder told The Informer that residents are in need of an economic environment that allows them to do for themselves.
“That’s our goal,” Reeder told The Informer. “Starting with the listing of jobs that could potentially come from this opportunity and giving us an opportunity to prepare families for those jobs. That’s management roles. You have to have somebody doing bookkeeping, accounting, and definitely human resources. There’s so many other intricate positions as it relates to wellness, that we can start preparing people for now.”
Well before the second Trump administration, Bowser set her sights on revitalizing Downtown, D.C., what she called an engine of revenue generation for other parts of the District. At a time when residents, and longtime Washingtonians in particular, are reeling from cost-of-living increases, debate continues to rage on about how best to help marginalized District residents.
For Reeder, the wellbeing of the least of those doesn’t have to counter economic development.
“We want the indigenous people who have lived here, like my family, for four generations,” she said. “We also want to create a wealth opportunity so that they can climb up. It’s almost like a pyramid. They can climb up out of the situation that they’re in, while utilizing other tax bases to increase wealth opportunity.”
Questions Abound as the Sun Sets on the Bowser Era
Outgoing advisory neighborhood commissioner Jamila White challenged the notion that Ward 8 residents will readily accept Therme’s presence, especially on the terms the Bowser administration presented to the D.C. Council.
“She didn’t have a CBA (community benefits agreement) attached to the legislation…It was ‘Here you go, a gift,’” White told The Informer. “If she came with some stronger legislation, that may have even gotten people to think, but she came with nothing, but a commitment [to] clean up the 15 acres….I don’t even trust them to clean that 15 acres up. I just trust them to take the toxins and move it to another part of the river.”
On Oct. 28, White testified before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Human Services during an hours-long hearing that focused on, among other legislation, the Poplar Point Acquisition and Disposition Approval Act of 2026 and Poplar Point Economic Development Anchor Disposition Act of 2026. She stayed throughout the entirety of a discussion she described as a tug-of-war between economic development proponents and those, like herself, who stand with working-class residents.
Well before the hearing, White, who currently serves as chair of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 8A, gleaned feedback from neighbors she said, for the most part, are skeptical about how Therme became a part of the conversation.
“A lot of people found it odd that only one company in the whole wide world, especially like the Eastern European country that the U.S. does not have strong relationships with, let alone D.C. have strong relationships with was the only company to bid on this,” White told The Informer. “ We have questions about the process when the term was being presented to us. We didn’t get to see this deal. We didn’t know that it was going to be a land swap for a dollar.”
A 2024 request for expressions of interest (RFEI) circulated by DMPED called for a destination anchor with the potential to attract more than 1 million national and international visitors to Poplar Point. Other qualities, as outlined in the document, center on: compatibility with a world-class public waterfront park, source of significant job creation, responsiveness to community needs, and accentuation of Anacostia’s arts and culture scene.
As confirmed by a DMPED spokesperson, Therme US was the only respondent to the RFEI. More than a year later, Redbrick LMD, as outlined in council legislation, aims to engage in a land swap with the D.C. government, the U.S. Navy, and U.S. Park Police to advance the development.
White, an international development expert, questioned whether DMPED preemptively shaped the RFEI to ensure that Therme US would fit the qualifications.
“I know what a sole source RFP looks like,” White said, “where you design it so that that company is the only one that can get it…You know, it’s lovely to get sole source, right, because you don’t have to compete.”
On Oct. 28, Nina Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, testified before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Human Services in support of Poplar Point Acquisition and Disposition Approval Act of 2026 and Poplar Point Economic Development Anchor Disposition Act of 2026.
If both bills pass, 164 acres would go to the District, with 110 acres set aside for development. Out of that 110 acres, 70 acres would be for parkland. As it relates to the other 40 acres, Therme would take 15 to develop with its own funds, while Redbrick and another developer, per Albert, would be responsible for 4,500 units of housing.
Albert told Frumin that the process would take nearly a decade, much to the benefit of D.C. residents.
“The reason to pass this bill now and not delay is that we have a use that generates significant tax revenue for the District,” Albert said about Therme. “It’s a significant source of new jobs and it could solve…the District’s requirement to pay for all of what I have just mentioned. Specifically, the replacement of NPS facilities is a requirement that needs to be satisfied in order for us to even get the land. So all of these pieces are now in place to effectuate the transfer of property with a financial solution to make it happen quickly.”
In total, Therme US has 10 new wellness spas across the country in the works, including in the District and Dallas. This is taking place amid a battle in Canada between the European company and a group that questioned the spa’s viability and challenged legislation tied to the launch of a new spa. That situation compelled a redraft of the development plan, making the proposal smaller than what was initially intended.
With community feedback, council public witness testimony, and history as her teachers, White continues to caution against taking Therme US at its word.
“We don’t want to be left with a firm coming in and not being able to be profitable…just because we did not do our own due diligence,” White told The Informer. “There’s just a lot of trust issues about what type of investments are coming for the people. People brought up Cedar Hill. And, Care First Arena has not been an anchor in our community.”
A Community Benefits Agreement in the Works
Lockridge revealed that, in the leadup to Therme’s 2031 launch, the company is gelling together a community benefits agreement, the elements of which include: up to a thousand free tickets per month for seniors, families, schools and first responders; an annual allocation of $12,500 to four organizations for 19 years; and more than two decades of on-site youth programming.
Other elements, Lockridge said, include business training grants amounting to nearly $3 million within two decades and the creation of a community advisory council inclusive of ANC 8A leadership, the Anacostia Business Improvement District, civic leaders, youth and seniors.
Lockridge also expressed a desire to engage local schools, as well as parent and youth groups. She said she wants to ensure that Therme centers young people.
“If you’re a freshman, sophomore or junior,” Lockridge said, “you might be wanting to think about an engineering career because you know that’s something that Therme needs. It’s not just jobs in hospitality, even though that’s a big piece of it.”
