Developers have quietly slated the long-neglected Anacostia area for close to 10 million square feet and $3 billion worth of housing, offices and retail overthe next four years — almost 20 times as much development as the underserved area has seen during the past six years.
“It’s like the frontier,” said Steve Moore, CEO of the Washington, D.C. Economic Partnership. “All of the pre-work — thinking, planning — is happening right now, and that’ll continue for another year. It’s hard to go now and see it, but that won’t last.”
Developers have planned or proposed more than 2,800 new condos or houses for the area before 2011, according to WDCEP numbers. By comparison, only 227 new housing units were built there between 2001 and August of this year.
Half a million square feet of retail space is planned for the area, which has few restaurants and has had no grocery store before a Giant Foods opened there Wednesday. About 1.2 million square feet of office space is also on the way, compared with the 74,000 square feet of new office development the area has seen since over the past six years.
Developer William C. Smith has 1,100 housing units under development in the area, company Vice President Carol Chatham said.
“We’re seeing a lot of young, single professionals who want to start up with a condominium, and there aren’t a lot of opportunities for that at the moment,” Chatham said. “We’re trying to fill that gap by providing a variety of housing and giving people a choice.”
The developer recently finished the Shops at Park Village, a mixed-use development at the old Camp Simms site, which now houses the new Giant Food and an IHOP.
Anacostia Economic Development Corporation just completed an office building at Martin Luther King Avenue and Good Hope Road and is negotiating with a large federal agency that is interested in leasing it, company CEO Butch Hopkins said.
Anacostia’s retail future depends on bringing such new workers to the area, Hopkins said.
“In order to attract the first-class retailers,we need to raise the economic level of the residents and the people who work here during the day,” Hopkins said. “Retailers want to see that foot traffic, and the numbers just aren’t present yet.”
