Top District officials are thrashing out whether to build a new D.C. Jail on prime Anacostia waterfront real estate in the soon-to-be-redeveloped Hill East community, The Examiner has learned.
Discussions of a new prison focus on the site of a former psychiatric treatment center, called Building 25, on the grounds of the Hill East tract known as Reservation 13. The expansive 67-acre reservation, the planned site of a massive mixed-use project just south of RFK Stadium, comprises a patchwork of buildings including the existing D.C. Jail and the former D.C. General Hospital.
The adopted Reservation 13 master plan features an extended Massachusetts Avenue Southeast running past the current jail and terminating at a traffic circle near the river’s edge — a focal point of the new community. Building 25 sits adjacent to the future traffic circle, steps away from a planned waterfront park.
Neighbors envision the circle as optimal for mixed-use development. But a July meeting between City Administrator Dan Tangherlini and the District’s public safety leaders reached a different conclusion, the minutes show: “Expansion of [Department of Corrections] presence will include Building 25 footprint.”
Leslie Kershaw, spokeswoman for Mayor Adrian Fenty, said the idea of a new jail there “was briefly discussed at a staff level.”
“Right now there are no plans to build a jail on that site,” Kershaw said.
Corrections Director Devon Brown was “not in a position to discuss anything like that,” his spokeswoman said.
The D.C. Jail is widely known to be in a state of disrepair. Talk of a replacement is nothing new, but Hill East’s potential role was news to Ward 6 D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells.
“I am opposed to the executive using Reservation 13 as a dumping ground for public facilities,” Wells said.
Area residents also were taken aback. Ken Jarboe, a Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commissioner, said a prison would “certainly change the dynamic of the site,” making it perhaps less attractive for retail or restaurants.
“We need a new jail,” said Ellen Opper-Weiner, a Capitol Hill activist. “It would be nice if they could knock down the one they have and put it there.”
The District is seeking a master developer to lead the Reservation 13 redevelopment. The solicitation says the extended Massachusetts Avenue “will connect the existing Hill East neighborhood with the emerging Anacostia waterfront,” and the related development “will in turn anchor the eastern gateway to Washington’s Capitol Hill.”
Developers’ responses are due by Oct. 31.
