City to Sell Maryland Avenue Firehouse by End of 2004, DHCD Director Says

Stanley Jackson, director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, spoke at last month's Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting about the city's plans for the now-vacant former firehouse at 1341 Maryland Ave. NE. He answered questions posed by ANC commissioners and area residents.

What we are committed to do within this calendar year is probably put that project out for a proposal response, for the development of that facility, and for re-use by the community. That's our goal.

Now would that be government-sponsored development, or development by private industry?

We will be encouraging private industry development, primarily, but we will be encouraging development along certain specific parameters, based on what we believe would be the greatest use and benefit to the community.

Would it be that the building would be bought by a private concern, and then redeveloped, and then turned back to the city?

No, the city does not necessarily want to own it. It prefers to put it out for use. If we own it, then I can't get tax revenue from it. We want to make it productive, and we want to put it in a venue that certainly benefits the community.

How would you encourage someone from the private sector to develop senior housing, for example?

I think what we'll do is like we do now — we can restrict the type of development that we'd like to see coming into that project. We do that regularly now. When I do my [Notices of Funding Availability] for funding activity every year, I define the type of projects we would like to see developed. And I tell people, we'd like to see senior housing, we'd like to see elderly, we'd like to see multifamily, we'd like to see affordable products. So we define the types of products that we're encouraging respondents to respond to.

What kinds of things are you looking at?

Well, I can tell you that on the Maryland Avenue project [we're looking at] creating opportunities for seniors, since about 12 or 13 percent of the residents here in Ward 6 are seniors. We heard at our summit, earlier last year, in November, it's very clear that there's a need for additional senior accommodations, so we're going to be looking at that. The key is to certainly get input from the community, along with the Office of Planning, to develop a strategy.

Would there be opportunities between now and that proposal for people who may live close to those properties to provide some feedback? What would be the venue?

The venue would be what we do now — public outreach with the community, getting their input. Obviously, we'll be talking to ANCs, particularly ANCs that are affected by those developments — get their input. The goal here is to certainly make our developments inclusive, so part of the strategy would be to engage the community in dialogue about what would be the best use of those facilities that we control.

Just so I can be clear — do you expect the bids to be made by the end of the year, or do you expect the property to be transferred by the end of the year?

Well, I'm an optimistic person. I would hope that we would be able to have the bids out and be able to make a decision by the end of the year.

I'm a realistic person...

Well, that's my goal. I'm a stretch person. I don't accept mediocrity. If I say we're going to do it, then we will just accelerate our plan. The goal here is to start the input process immediately, over the next 30 or 40 days, so that we can be in a position to have a request out. The market here — at least the demands that we have received from unsolicited respondents — is so high that I don't think it's necessarily gonna have a long, four-month lead time, to get people to respond to our request for proposals. I think the evaluation process is already in place, so we know how to evaluate transactions.

I feel very comfortable that we'll be in a position by the end of the calendar year, unless something catastrophic happens that redirects all of our resources to doing some other things, but right now the goal is to be in a position where we will hopefully be ready to transfer the asset to a respondent by the end of this calendar year.

Can you specifically say how you're going to be getting community input on this? A few months ago, a member of your agency was quoted in [the Corner Forum] saying there's going to be a community meeting — that you guys would come and actually solicit input on this specific topic. What are your current plans? Are you still planning for a community meeting on this, so that residents in the area can actually be notified a few weeks ahead of time and come out for that?

Yeah, the short answer is absolutely yes. We do plan to do that. I have a person who works very closely with the core team members and also with the Office of Planning to coordinate that.

And that will be in the next few weeks? Or months?

I would say it certainly will be sometime this spring — we're talking over the next couple of months.

What I hear you're saying is that 30 to 40 days, or within one or two months, this spring. So I'll say within 60 days, you'll contact Jessica Ward and myself [ANC Chairman Joseph Fengler] about these two properties for a public meeting — is that a fair —

That's a fair assessment, yeah. We'll certainly be in contact.

And then the goal is that these will be put out for bid sometime before the end of the calendar year, with the standards that were developed with a series of meetings between now and whenever that time will be.

That's a fair assessment. §