D.C. Council OKs shifting $1M to O Street Market
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
May 5, 2009
The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to give $1 million to the developers of the O Street Market rehabilitation project in Shaw, avoiding the bureaucracy that had held up the grant. Ward 2 Councilman Jack Evans introduced the emergency resolution, which authorizes Mayor Adrian Fenty to grant $1 million, from any available source, to Roadside Development to get the project at Seventh and O streets Northwest moving. The grant was originally tied to revenues derived from parking meter rate increases. But Fenty and the council are bickering over how to spend the revenue, leaving O Street hanging, Evans said. Delays kill projects in this economy, he said. “We are ready to go,” Evans said. “The project has financing, has a hotel, has a developer. The project is dying on the vine.”
