Brian Flahaven

Below is a DRAFT summary of the community feedback ANC 6B’s Hill East Task Force received at the two community meetings on the DC Department of General Services’ proposed Request for Offers on the Eastern Branch Building (261 17th Street SE). Please post your comments and feedback on the draft summary below by Tuesday, May 6. You can also e-mail me your comments and feedback directly.

ANC 6B’s Planning & Zoning Committee will consider this draft summary and any comments received during its meeting on Tues., May 6, 7 pm at St. Coletta of Greater Washington (1901 Independence Ave SE).  The full commission will then vote on final comments to DGS at its Tues., May 13 meeting, 7 pm at the Hill Center (921 Pennsylvania Ave SE).

Proposed Request for Offers for the Eastern Branch Building (261 17th Street SE)
DRAFT – Community Feedback – DRAFT
ANC 6B’s Hill East Task Force held two community meetings in April 2014 to get community feedback on the DC Department of General Services’ plans to issue a RFO for the Eastern Branch Building. The city-owned building, home of a former Boys & Girls Club, is in need of significant repair and has been vacant since 2007.

Constraints

• No city funding anticipated.
• City wants to lease, not sell.
• Zoning is R-4 with an exemption for social service uses. Need clarity on what is included in exemption and whether exemption carries with property if building razed.
• Roof needs to be replaced.
• Electrical needs to be replaced, plumbing needs significant repair.
• No air conditioning.
• Pool has significant damage and has not been in use for past 15 years.
• No ADA features such as elevators or ramps.

Feedback

• Preference to use existing building and/or preserve façade. City should give preference to proposals that seek to keep as much of the building as possible. City should also be open to receiving responses that involve demolition of building. If new building necessary, should be consistent with current building and include a nod to original building’s history such as reusing small elements.
• Community open to housing in a portion of the building to make project financially attractive to developers/organizations. Particular interest in senior housing and/or housing for families. Envision housing on top levels of building.
• Desire for some community space in the building. The space could be flexible and used for multiple purposes. Envisioned on the first floor.
• Preferred uses for community “flex” space – daycare, adult daycare or senior services, recreational use (dance or fitness classes, etc.) and community meeting/event space. Community would like to see this flex space used by all ages.
• Recognizing that Eastern Branch was the only recreational facility in the neighborhood, city should commit to investing in recreational activities in the neighborhood, particularly use of existing facilities at Payne Elementary and Eastern High School.

Other Comments

• Lease length needs to be significantly longer than 20 years (at least 60 years).
• When RFO is released, it should be open for at least 60 days.
• DGS should conduct an updated analysis on the state of the building to inform the RFO. Should make it clear if city funding may be available to help with capital costs.
• DGS should include a projected cost to demolish the building in the RFO.
• DGS public hearing on disposition should be at Payne Elementary School.
• Responses should speak to how potential uses will impact surrounding neighborhood and include plans to mitigate parking, noise issues.
• Community, through ANC 6B, should have an opportunity to weigh in with comments on RFO responses received.

DRAFT Summary (pdf)

Brief Recap of the April 30 Meeting

We had another good turnout for the second ANC 6B Hill East Task Force meeting on April 30 to discuss the DC Department of General Services’ planned Request for Offers for the Eastern Branch Building (261 17th Street SE). Like the first meeting on April 9, we began the second meeting with a discussion of the building’s current condition and constraints on uses at the site. We then broke up into three groups and considered two questions: 1) should DGS be open to RFO responses that involve the full or partial demolition of the building and 2) what potential uses should be priorities in the RFO. While the answers to question 2 were similar to the answers we heard at the April 9 meeting, more attendees at the second meeting preferred that DGS give preference to responses that involve retaining the existing building.

On April 9, ANC 6B’s Hill East Task Force held the first of two community meetings to discuss plans by the DC Department of General Services (DGS) to issue a Request for Offers (RFO)  for the Eastern Branch Building, the vacant, city-owned former home of a Boys and Girls Club. A second community meeting will be held on Wed., April 30. The goal of the meetings is to get community feedback on the RFO and what the neighborhood would like to see in the building.

Here is a brief recap:

• I opened the meeting with a brief summary of the task force’s Feb. 18 meeting with DGS. I noted that DGS had agreed to push back its original timeline for feedback and is allowing the community and ANC 6B to submit formal comments on the RFO by mid-May.
• Before discussing what attendees would like to see in the building, the task force took some time to consider the current state of the building and constraints on uses at the site. Chuck Burger, who chaired Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells’s Eastern Branch Task Force, distributed a packet of background information (pdf) that greatly informed the conversation. The following issues were identified:
  • Zoning for the lot is R-4 with an exemption for social service uses, so commercial uses are prohibited. The building is not in a historic district nor is it classified as a historic landmark.
  • Roof needs to be replaced.
  • Electrical systems need to be replaced. Plumbing condition unknown but likely needs significant repair or replacement.
  • No air conditioning. Heat plant operable.
  • Pool has significant damage and has not been in usable condition for the past 15 years.
  • No parking on the site.
  • No ADA features such as an elevator or ramps.
  • DGS wants to lease the building/site, not sell it.
• Funding was another constraint discussed. During the Feb. 18 task force meeting, DGS representatives said that the building was classified as surplus property and the city had no plans to use the building to house city offices/services. And DGS made it clear that there would be no funding for the building in the Mayor’s proposed FY15 budget. Given that DGS plans to use the RFO process to identify developers or development teams interested in developing the site and the lack of public funding, attendees focused on potential uses that could be financially viable for a developer and at the same time meet a community need.
• After discussing the state of the building and constraints, the task force and attendees identified existing uses in the neighborhood using a map (pdf) provided by the Mayor’s office. The map shows the current location of schools, recreation centers, playgrounds and primary care centers within a half mile radius of the Eastern Branch building. The task force and attendees added other existing services/conditions to the map, including the Board of Childcare daycare facility at 308 15th Street SE and the commercial zoning on 15th Street SE and at Reservation 13.
• There was some discussion around whether the building should remain a recreation center or have a recreation component. A number of attendees felt it would make more sense for the city to invest in and support recreational activities at nearby Payne and Eastern High schools, facilities which have more actual and potential indoor and outdoor recreation space than the Eastern Branch building (though the key is the city investing in these “wrap-around” activities at the schools). Others thought that a recreational use should still be considered for the building given the lack of recreational space in the neighborhood.
• After outlining the current state of the building, constraints and existing uses in the surrounding neighborhood, the task force and attendees were assigned to three breakout groups to discuss 1) whether the group felt the city should be open to RFO responses that require partial or full demolition of the building and 2) what potential uses should be priorities in the RFO.
• On Question 1, all three groups agreed that the city should be willing to consider RFO responses that involve full or partial demolition of the building. Many attendees thought that the site would attract more interest if development teams had the flexibility to construct a new building to fit the new use. One group hoped that if demolition was considered, the development team and city would work to recognize the site’s recreational history in the new building (preserve the “autograph” wall, reuse materials from the building, etc.).
• On Question 2, some areas of consensus on uses emerged, including:
  • Housing – all three groups were open to private residential use on a portion the site. A development team is only going to bid on the site if they can make it work financially and, in the absence of city funding, attendees felt that housing is probably the use that will make the project viable and attractive to both developers and the neighborhood.  There was particular interest in senior housing, housing for families and affordable housing.
  • Community space – all groups wanted some community space, or flex space included in the building/project. This space, which could be on the first floor below the private residential area, could be used for community meetings, daycare or elder care, nonprofit offices, vocational training, dance classes, etc. One idea was to have a community space attached to a commercial kitchen.
  • Inter-generational use – there was a general consensus that the neighborhood would prefer community uses that would serve all generations of residents, from young children to senior citizens.
• Other interesting ideas included selling the building and using the proceeds to fund the construction of recreational fields on the RFK parking lots, seeking a college or university public policy program or DC internship program to operate out of the building and finding a use related to urban agriculture for a portion of the building.
• In preparation for the April 30 meeting, the task force will prepare a document that summarizes the feedback received during the April 9 meeting. Attendees at the April 30 meeting will have an opportunity to weigh in on the document and suggest additional ideas/uses with the goal of moving further towards consensus. The task force will also continue to update and refine the map of existing neighborhood uses/services in close proximity to the Eastern Branch Building.

Thanks to all who attended the meeting. We made a lot of progress.  If you were at the meeting, please post your thoughts or anything I missed below. And if you missed the meeting and want to weigh in, please plan to attend the next community meeting on Wed., April 30, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm at Payne Elementary School (1445 C Street SE).

We had a fantastic turnout (40+) for the Feb. 18 ANC 6B Hill East Task Force meeting on the next steps for the Eastern Branch Building. The city-owned building located at 261 17th Street SE, once a Boys and Girls Club, has been vacant since  2007. The DC Department of General Services (DGS) recently approached the ANC about plans to issue a Request for Offer (RFO) on the building. Here are the meeting highlights:

• Michelle Chin and Stephen Campbell from the planning division within DGS opened the meeting by talking about the department’s plans to issue an RFO for the building. Coming into the meeting, their goal was to get community feedback so that the RFO could be issued as soon as possible. Chin said the department was prepared to take community comments until March 18.
• Chin and Campbell briefly noted restrictions on uses for the building (zoned R-4 residential, lacks parking, not ADA compliant and takes up 100 percent of its lot) and clarified that the city would be looking to lease the building to an interested developer or development team. Potential city uses for the building have been ruled out at this point.
• When the responses to the RFO are received, a technical team at DGS will score the proposals on a variety of factors, including priorities of the surrounding community. Chin said that the review process precluded a community representative from sitting on this technical review team.
• Chuck Burger recapped the recommendations of Councilmember Wells’ Eastern Branch Task Force (Burger chaired the task force). The task force recommended uses for the building that would serve “families” and meet a number of community needs – daycare, aging and senior services, wellness and fitness and recreation to name a few. He noted that the neighborhood has changed significantly since the task force recommendations were issued in 2009 and that the community should re-evaluate the recommendations. Read the task force report and additional background on the building (pdf).
• Almost immediately, meeting attendees raised concerns about the DGS timeline. While attendees appreciated the city’s eagerness to move on the RFO, there was a general consensus that the community needed time to consider what should be top priority uses for the building. Commissioner Francis Campbell (6B10) asked why the department was in such a rush to do something. Chin and Campbell responded that the DGS planning division is actively working to find uses for city-owned surplus properties and Eastern Branch was at or near the top of the to-do list.
• Former Ward 6 Councilmember Sharon Ambrose voiced concern about whether the city had really taken the time to figure out what they wanted to do with the building. She questioned the expectation of DC maintaining ownership and only offering a 20-year lease in the RFO. Campbell responded that the goal was to present the development community with a “blank slate” and that DGS would be open to other lease/financing terms.
• Various attendees voiced opinions about uses for the site. Many supported the building being used for recreational purposes while others suggested private housing and daycare. Representatives from Capitol Hill Village mentioned their interest in developing “Green Houses” on the site – small, home-like skilled nursing homes that would allow seniors to age in place.
• There were divergent views on whether the building should be preserved or demolished. Some felt strongly that the building or at the very least its facade should be preserved , while others argued that a new building could be designed to be more accessible, usable and energy-efficient. DGS is approaching the RFO as an opportunity to develop the existing building.
• Burger emphasized the need to make sure that any use for the building is financially viable. The economics need to work and it is likely that multiple tenants will be needed.
• A local developer noted that developers “don’t do community centers,” and that such a public function or use should be funded by the city. Likewise, Ambrose pointed to the Hill Center at Old Naval Hospital as a model of a public-private partnership that could be replicated in this instance. When Ambrose asked if the city planned to fund Eastern Branch in the city’s FY15 capital budget, Chin and Campbell responded not at this time.
• I asked Chin and Campbell if DGS would agree to delay the issuance of an RFO until the community and ANC 6B had a chance to weigh in with formal comments.  They agreed to delay the issuance by at least a month. When I asked if DGS would be willing to let ANC 6B review the draft RFO prior to its issuance, they responded that they could not share the draft RFO with the ANC.
• The task force voted to recommend that ANC 6B send a letter to DGS Director Brian Hanlon thanking his team for their community outreach and reiterating the community’s understanding that DGS will not issue an RFO until they receive formal comments from the community.

As for next steps, I plan to work with my commission and task force colleagues to schedule one or two additional community meetings to develop a list of community priorities for the building. This list will be basis of ANC 6B’s formal comments to DGS on the Eastern Branch RFO. And though we had a great turnout for this meeting, I want to make sure that we spread the word far and wide about these next two meetings (if you are interested in helping flyer, let me know).

If you attended the meeting, please feel free to post your comments and reactions below. A big thanks to all who were able to attend and weigh in. And thanks to the staff at St. Coletta of Greater Washington for hosting the meeting!