District residents will soon be asked to ponder a major redesign of the first floor of the Frank D. Reeves Center, a government facility at the heart of the vibrant U Street corridor that has never met its potential.
The D.C. Office of Property Management has scheduled a June 5 public meeting to hear ideas on the future of the atrium and lobby of the center, located at 14th and U streets Northwest. On the first floor of the hulking facility, valued by the city at $95.4 million, are a convenience store, a bank, a shoe cobbler and a D.C. Lottery office — not the “ideal mix” of uses, said Lars Etzkorn, OPM director.
“We are talking about how to animate the first floor because certainly the retail spaces that are there now are less than ideal and underutilized,” Etzkorn said.
Home to roughly 1,000 D.C. government employees and a vast amount of available space, the 21-year-old center’s impact on the community has long been debated: Was Reeves the anchor of the U Street turnaround, or was the renaissance inevitable?
Whatever its initial influence, officials say, Reeves today fails to meet expectations across the board.
Simply rethinking the first floor is “shortsighted,” said Dee Hunter, U Street advisory neighborhood commissioner. The entire building “should be in play,” he said, because its deteriorating condition is “hampering the revitalization of the neighborhood.”
Ward 1 D.C. Council Member Jim Graham said the facility’s first floor “could be more relevant than it is today” and accommodate myriad uses, “not the least of which would be a vendor mall” — something akin to Eastern Market.
But Richard Layman, an urban planning consultant and D.C. resident, said Reeves might be a lost cause as a neighborhood draw. Lacking a major retail anchor, he said, the building is set back too far from the street, ruining the “competitive advantage of urban retail.”
“If Reeves Center were so great — something that so many claim — then 14th Street from T to V would be great and the same for the 1300 block of U Street,” Layman said. “Instead you have one story buildings, vacant buildings and lots, and used car dealers.”
