The Bowser administration announced Thursday the selection of the St. Elizabeths Legacy Partners’ proposal to develop parcels 7, 8 and 9 on the facility’s east campus to build a mixed-use, residential, retail, and Class A office building to house the D.C. Department of Behavioral Health.
The development is led by The Menkiti Group and consists of a collaboration of 12 local Black, brown and women-led developmental businesses.
In addition to an office building, the project will include 277 affordable residences for residents earning between 30-80% of the area’s median family income, 18 for-sale workforce and affordable townhomes, 30,000-plus square feet of neighborhood-serving retail, 90,000 square feet of intergenerational community-serving space and 245 parking spaces.
Potential tenants of the facility include Safe Shores, UDC, Shop Made in D.C., D.C. Credit Union, Jubilee Jumpstart, and Grub Rockstar.
The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development managed the selection process. The award completes the office’s redevelopment opportunities on the campus’s southern portion, located near the Congress Heights Metro.
“With the selection of the team for parcels 7,8 and 9, we are delivering more affordable housing and homeownership opportunities on the Saint Elizabeths East Resilience campus,” said Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio. “In addition to housing, this project will deliver brand new space for the community and arts and culture nonprofits.”
I was employed at St Elizabeth Hospital/The Department of Behavioral Health for fifty three years retiring January 02, 2021. It’s great to see changes coming to that area but will the hospital remain where it’s located. Before I retired there had been gossip about the hospital moving where the old Junior Village for adolescents and teenagers was located and DC Village for geriatric/elderly was located over in the area from the firemen training facility. My aunt was a kitchen supervisor at Junior Village and my mother was a housekeeper at DC Village. They closed both facilities but from my perspective with so much going on with young people/ teens and adolescents now days that facility was better than putting them in these group homes and DC Village was better for geriatric/elderly individuals because when they closed DC Village some came to St. Elizabeth Hospital and was integrated into the regular population units. You can’t integrate the elderly with other patients because the behavior they exhibit is different from the other individuals. They may go into another person’s room and younger individuals may not under the behavior of the elderly. Then there are the other individuals with various psychological and psychiatric symptoms/problems or issues what will happen to the D.C residents with problems as stated. Some individuals especially the elderly were placed in private homes ran by individuals but some didn’t receive substantial care and when some had to return to St. Elizabeth they had decubitus. Even though I’m retired, I was just concerned about the welfare of the individuals at St. Elizabeth Psychiatric Hospital.