An earlier rendering of HTC. Source: DMPED

Plans for Howard University’s proposed mixed-use development project, Howard Town Center, have been dragging on for years. The university is making the tough call to hold out for the ideal project rather than build what it can in this investment climate.

Troy Stovall, Howard University’s chief operating officer, revealed Thursday that the difficulty in financing the project is not due to the retail and supermarket component, but due to the number of apartments slated for the site.

Rather than letting the developer proceed with building the garage, supermarket, retail shops and half the number of apartments originally planned, Howard wants the full project, including all of the apartments built into project at the same time.

When asked on the status of the retail component, Mr. Stovall said that the developer has received several letters of intent from supermarkets interested in the space. The problem, though, lies upstairs. The banks, Mr. Stovall stated, are less convinced about the financial viability of building so many apartments on lower Georgia Avenue.

U street developer JBG, however, has recently purchased several properties within a few blocks of the Howard Town Center site. JBG and Howard’s banks clearly differ in confidence in the area’s potential.

Is Howard letting the perfect become the enemy of the good? Neighbors appear to strongly support the arrival of a supermarket, especially since the closest one, a mile away, offers a paltry selection.

However, to abide by the banks’ requirements to reduce the number of units reduces the viability of the area’s retail revitalization. More residents, after all, means more potential customers, and thus more chances for success along Georgia Avenue.

It’s certainly debatable as to whether the delay in the arrival of a grocery store is worth the slowing of Georgia Avenue’s revival. One the one hand, Howard’s desire for delayed gratification will make the avenue’s retail revitalization more durable. On the other hand, holding out for the ideal project postpones a catalyst for the avenue’s revival.

Is LeDroit Park a “food desert”?  The phrase refers to a neighborhood where the nearest grocery store is more than a mile away.  First, this metric would classify many of the tony precincts of Bethesda, Potomac, and McLean as “food deserts”.

Despite that, the metric isn’t entirely useless.  Distance does matter greatly to populations who, for whatever reason, do not have cars.  Groceries are heavy, after all.

Even still, WAMU’s recent characterization of LeDroit Park as a food desert is incorrect.  In fact, you can plug in directions from Anna J. Cooper Circle, the neighborhood’s center, to the Giant at 8th and P Streets NW.

The distance?  Under a mile. That’s about 15 minutes by foot.

In fact, if you’d rather take a bus, which we frequently do with groceries, the G2 runs every 30 minutes from LeDroit Park and along P Street.  It passes not only the aforementioned Giant, but also the Whole Foods on the 1400 block of P Street.  If you return in under 2 hours, the round-trip bus cost is $1.50.

This grocery store is slated to close soon so a new Giant, along with housing, can be constructed on the site.  After that happens, the 3-year-old Safeway at 5th and L Streets NW and the 6-month-old Harris Teeter in NoMA will vie for the title as nearest grocery store.  Each is exactly 1 mile away.

Furthermore, once the Howard Town Center project takes flight, it will feature its own grocery store.  The project is about a half-mile from Anna J. Cooper Circle.

So there you have it.  Within 1 mile of LeDroit Park one will find a Giant, a Safeway, and a Harris Teeter.  That hardly qualifies the neighborhood as a food desert.

It’s confirmed. A 7-11 is coming to the corner of Georgia and Florida Avenues just outside the LeDroit Park Historic District. Douglas Development Corporation, the building’s owner and one of the city’s biggest developers, has confirmed to our ANC commissioner that 7-11 has signed a lease for part of the first floor space.

Pharmacare, which has not opened yet, occupies the Georgia Avenue front on the first floor (photo above, left side) and 7-11 will occupy the Florida Avenue front (center and right side). The choice of leasing the space to 7-11 has sparked a small controversy as many residents were hoping for something a tad more upscale than than discount drugs (you can buy the illegal kind a block away at the corner of Seventh & T) and a chain convenience store.

Some residents have expressed the desire to see a cafe, gym, or a full-fledged grocery store open up in or near LeDroit Park.

The LeDroit Park Market does indeed sell coffee, but residents looking for an espresso fix have to wander on over to the Starbucks at W Street and Georgia Avenue.  There are rumors of a cafe coming to the old Pyramids Restaurant space in the building currently under renovation at Sixth Street and Florida Avenue, but we haven’t received details yet.

The siting of a grocery store is more difficult.  The nature of grocery shopping tends to require parking more so than most other commercial uses do, so any grocer would probably only consider spaces with underground garages or outdoor lots.  Few properties nearby meet this requirement, except for the United Planning Organization headquarters at Second Street and Rhode Island Avenue (pictured below).  For decades it was a Safeway, but since UPO has no plans to move, we can rule out the building as a potential site.

Another potential site might be the Wonderbread Factory (pictured below) on S Street by the north entrance to the Shaw Metro.  It’s currently owned by Douglas Development, but has been vacant for quite a while.  At nearly 40,000 square feet over two floors, the building might be a good candidate for a grocery store.  With the UNCF headquarters about to break ground this summer just across the alleyway, perhaps the two developers could come to an agreement to provide some underground spaces to patrons to a potential store next door.

Source: NCinDC, flickr

The O Street Market project, supposed to bring a 57,000-square-foot Giant is still years away as is the proposed grocery store for the parking lots at W Street and Georgia Avenue.  Any potential grocer might fear an over-saturation of competition.

What amenities would you like to see in or adjacent LeDroit Park?

The DUKE Plan for Howard Town Center, approved by the City Council

We haven’t written much on Howard Town Center (pictured above), but we found a good article on it at Greater Greater Washington.

Several years ago the Office of Planning released, and the City Council approved, the DUKE plan, a development framework for the U Street corridor and Howard Town Center.  The section covering Howard Town Center rightly calls for development to “[e]xtend streets in an east-west system to connect the area to the center of Howard University’s campus,” specifically directing to “[c]onnect W Street on both sides.”

There are several streets running north-south in the Town Center area, but few running east-west.  The purpose of this requirement is to break-up what planners call superblocks, large city blocks that tend to sap street vitality and limit neighborhood connectivity.  Superblocks were popular with postwar modernist architects, but they have since been discredited as bad planning.  Small city blocks, as urban observer Jane Jacobs noted, allow more paths for passing through a neighborhood and break the monotony that accompanies mega-buildings.

Though the initial plan by CastleRock Partners for the Phase I Site would bring a grocery store and housing, the Greater Greater Washington article notes that the CastleRock plan violates the east-west connectivity guideline of the DUKE plan in that it proposes placing a garage ramp where W Street should be.

Connecting the isolated sections of W Street would enhance access between LeDroit Park and the U Street corridor and the CastleRock proposal disregards this goal of the DUKE plan.  Despite this, we will still be glad to shop at the grocery store once that opens up.  Groundbreaking is set for next fall.