BaancBlog

The editor started on 1234 Ninth here. The fixation on 1234 is really a celebration of the Long View Gallery moving in there, but the history of what has gone on in that building is fascinating.

Before City Lights it was some sort of auto repair center, and that's covered nicely in Preserving DC Stables in this post. In researching the address a while back he kept coming across a reference like
1234 9th Street NW
T & W Auto
Washington, DC 20001
202-842-5470
He and wife bought in 1978 and moved into the (mostly) renovated house in 1980. He doesn't recall an official auto shop back then, although the alley was in informal auto repair spot for many a shade tree mechanic. But without the trees. The City Lights referenced in the last post may well have begun after he moved in by a few years.

After City Lights moved on, and the City Lights go-go joint died aborning, it was soon
1234 9th Street NW
Muzollo Vending
Washington, DC 20001
202-232-6038


Lots and lots of those vendor carts being towed out of the alley in the morning and back in the evening.

Then it changed hands again, perhaps after a period of vacancy. Now it was to be a charter school. The announcement of the first presentation thereon was here, in the old, pre-blog Blagden Alley and Naylor Court newsletter. Let us just say that the community was not as enthralled as some people expected. Somehow, "charter school" did not equate with "good thing". Discussion dragged on over the goodness of the school, for example this hysterical page from the Blagden Alley and Naylor Court news.

Sometime in the next year, the charter school thing went south. It did involve lots of difficulty, ADA issues, pollution issues (think of all those oil spills many moons ago), and historical preservation issues.

So 1234 Ninth lay dormant for a bit. Now it is nicely alive. Over thirty years, it has been interesting to watch.

Mike Benardo, ANC 2C06, has a notice out:

The DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) will be providing a construction update meeting for the reconstruction of 11th Street, NW from L to O Streets, NW, on Tuesday July 21, 2009, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.

Construction on the 11th St. NW project began in December 2008. Come and hear how construction is progressing and what construction activities are planned for the coming weeks and months.

The public meeting will be held at the Asbury United Methodist Church, 926 Eleventh Street, NW, Washington, DC (Access is through the side entrance on 11th Street).

Thank you,

Mike

There really is visible progress. The editor thinks that when the repair and upgrade of Eleventh Street is complete, renovation of the properties on the street will proceed. And a certain liquor store will become a memory, just like the "Gas Station From Hell" at Eight and M now is.

From Theresa Dubois (and we thank you Theresa for the updates) see below.

15,000 at a convention is a lot. The phrase "There is no official shuttle bus operation associated with this convention" means that a large number of attendees are not staying at hotels, but with friends or local organization contacts. That means a lot of those people will drive ("Drive, He Said" (1971)) and often park in the neighborhood, since many of them will know their way around. So if you leave your current parking space and come back, you'll get an historical walking tour of Petworth or Truxton Circle as you walk back from your new parking spot. Might be interesting.

If you want to get on Theresa's lists, contact her at TDubois@dcconvention.com. As a side note, parking problem are not hers, but the event organizers.

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Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA)
COMMUNITY UPDATE
Issued: July 2, 2009

Traffic Advisory
Washington Convention Center Authority (WCCA)
Issue Date: Thursday, July 2, 2009

Islamic Society of North America's 46th Annual Convention
July 3 - 6, 2009

The Walter E. Washington Convention Center will host the Islamic Society of North America's 46th Annual ISNA Convention from Friday, July 3rd through Monday, July 6th. Overall event hours are 8:30 a.m. until 11:00 p.m. each day of the event. Estimated attendance is projected to be upwards of 15,000.

There is no official shuttle bus operation associated with this convention. You may anticipate increased use of the Mount Vernon/7th Street-Convention Center Metro station as well as greater than usual pedestrian and vehicular traffic within several blocks of the Convention Center. No road closures are planned at this time.

Be advised that heavy vehicular traffic is expected on M Street between 7th and 9th Streets NW during move-in and move-out of the ISNA Convention, as follows:

Move-in
Thursday, July 2nd 7:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m.
Friday, July 3rd 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon

Move-out
Monday, July 6th 12:00 noon until 11:59 p.m.

A fun (from today's vantage point) article about the old neighborhood. Ruben Casteneda, who wrote it, and Linda Wheeler, who also handled the neighborhood well, makes one want the old Post back.

There were City Council hearings on the proposed convention center hotel this Wednesday. To the editor it sounds as if the thing will move, and if it moves groundbreaking would be in a very few months. The editor testified, as did many others. In general, the community would like to see it built, as would the editor. The editor also believes that the uncertainty of its being built has caused several years of delay in the renovation of Ninth Street. But that's in his testimony below:

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The Testimony of Harold Davitt
Past President of the
Blagden Alley and Naylor Court Association

Committee on Economic Development
and
Committee on Finance and Revenue
Joint Public Hearing
June 24, 2009
John A. Wilson Building

B18-310, the “New Convention Center Hotel Amendments Act of 2009.”

Thank you, Chairman Brown, Chairman Evans and Councilmembers. My name is Harold Davitt, and I am here today for as a private citizen who has lived for 30 years on the 900 block of M Street, which is one block north of the proposed Convention Center Hotel. I have also served from time to time as President of the Blagden Alley and Naylor Court Association, which is the association representing the neighborhood directly west of the new Convention Center.

Today, I would like to talk to you about the impact of the lateness of the Convention Center Hotel on the community immediately to the north of the proposed hotel.

When the groundbreaking for the new Convention Center took place in 1998, the impression of the community was that the commercial part of the neighborhood, Ninth Street between L and P streets, would finally bloom. It didn’t. There has been some commercial renovation, but not the serious makeover expected. The opening in 2003 has added two restaurants and some smaller retail, but that’s it. The development on Ninth Street has been essentially locally oriented, either to the neighborhood or to the District. Some businesses have have bought and renovated long vacant properties because it is in the central city, the neighborhood has a strong historical character, and it’s affordable gallery or office space compared to K Street locations. As the vacant properties become occupied, Ninth Street does improve somewhat. The neighborhood’s residential renovation has been in full swing since the mid-1980's and generally complete several years ago. The few vacant residentially zoned lots have been built out with condominiums.

If the redevelopment of Ninth Street proceeds as it is doing now, then Ninth Street will be of local flavor, oblivious to the possible tourist revenue across the street at the Convention Center. While interesting to the neighborhood, it should not be satisfying to parties concerned with maximizing revenues from the convention trade. Instead of getting the tourists out of their hotel rooms in various parts of the District and into local restaurants and points of interest on their way to and from their conventions, we will be leaving them to their hotel food and the cable channels.

This neighborhood would like to see serious renovation which includes orientation to the convention and tourist trade. It would add to the personality of the area, but it will not happen if the convention center hotel languishes. I have seen several real estate deals die because of the unpredictability of the “elephant in the room” at Ninth and Massachusetts. While the current economy is not helping, the problem of indecision with respect to the Convention Center Hotel impeding development has been ongoing over the last few years.

We have been through this before. Early in the 1980's I recall preliminary neighborhood briefings on proposed developments, which of course needed slight upgrades in the zoning map and thus needed community concurrence. Leaving aside the quality of the developments proposed, it showed that serious businesses with serious zoning lawyers considered the neighborhood interesting.

Then the proposals, the upzoning requests and other commercial feelers to the neighborhood dried up by the late 1980's. The certainty that a new convention center would be built here was in the air. I have talked with people who know that history, and the only obvious place in the late 1980's was where the current convention center is located.

The minuet concerning the construction of the Convention Center Hotel has done the same thing to the neighborhood over the last few years. It has certainly slowed the development of Ninth Street, but it has also forced developers away from thinking that they can profit by serving the conventioneers and they must now orient to local clienteles. This direction of locally-oriented renovation will take more time, but will happen. If that happens, then the influence of the Convention Center on the renovation of the neighborhood will be far less than envisioned.

We are a tourist town. When we build a convention center, it should be make money. There should be a return on our investment. We have interesting neighborhoods for the metropolitan population, but none outside of downtown which say to the tourist: Spend your money here. Because of the delay in the building of the Convention Center Hotel, we may have already lost the opportunity to nurture such a neighborhood right next to the Convention Center.

In poker terms, our new Convention Center was a large opening bet. If we are afraid to place the appropriate continuation bet, we must have decided that we have a weaker hand than we thought. And the other players will notice.

The new Convention Center Hotel is an expected adjunct of a big-league convention center. We do need it to start now, or the lot should be sold for near term development for other purposes. The opportunity costs of delay are very high.

Thank you very much.