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14th Street art gallery.

For most of the past century, U Street has been known for its many theaters, offering live performances to predominantly African-American audiences. That is how it earned the label “Black Broadway” for so many years, especially during the Jim Crow era.

While audiences were watching shows on U Street, for much of that time, 14th Street, between U and Thomas Circle, was a different kind of showplace. That was the home of Washington’s auto showrooms. And today, the massive car dealer structures of yesteryear lend themselves nicely to live performance venues as witnessed by the spaces now occupied by the Studio Theatre at 1501 14th St. NW.

Before the Studio came, many of Washington’s “live nude clubs” held court on 14th Street, catering to both straight and gay clientele with music and dancing. So, recognizing the history of theater and arts on the strip, the District government established the Arts Overlay District in 1989 to regulate the zoning affairs of the neighborhood that was really the city’s arts and entertainment district.

Now, 20 years later, the needs of the increasingly busy and popular entertainment district are being revisited. An advisory neighborhood commission (ANC) in Ward 2, which includes the area that has come to be known as Mid City, along 14th between U Street and Thomas Circle, has been working on a report over the summer to offer to the District government’s Office of Planning and also to the Board of Zoning Adjustment. Essentially, the recommendations are designed to help bring the regulations established in 1989 up-to-date, especially since the community has experienced tremendous growth since the 1980s. Today, there are a significant number of restaurants, bars and small businesses that have been drawn to the area since wealthier residents started buying the townhouses and condos, and rental apartments have been going to urbanites of greater means. With all the changes that have taken place over the last 20 years, “We’re hoping to achieve a consensus on how the arts district should develop,” said Andrea Doughty, chairman of the review panel.

The plan that the committee intends to submit to the District government in September must offer recommendations to help reconcile the neighborhood’s growth with the city’s intention to safeguard the arts community.

“It is clear that art uses, retail uses and restaurant uses are very intertwined,” said Doughty, an economist. “The foot traffic along U Street and 14th Street that results from the mix of businesses helps all the businesses,” she concluded. But the challenge is to keep the streets busy and occupied both day and night. As Doughty pointed out, if restaurants predominate the strip, that means that traffic is dead during the day. Although, she did acknowledge that the mix of businesses differ on the two strips. The U Street area is more restaurant and bar-heavy than the 14th Street strip right now. That said, at least three new restaurants are slated to come online on 14th Street in the next few months.

With fewer restaurants and bars, a strip looks barren at night and feels unsafe after hours when the shops close. Since the theaters are open mostly at night, it’s helpful to have places to go get dinner or a drink before or after a show.

Notably, the area still does not have a film theater. There has not been a movie house in the 14th and U corridor since the movie theaters on U Street, namely the Booker T and the Republic, closed down back in the 1970s. Many in the community have clamored for a boutique movie house, and it is thought that anyone who opens one will do well.

Some Concerns and Recommendations
However, the issue of the art galleries is a different story. The report points out that they are sort of in a catch-22. As more restaurants and bars open and become popular with nighttime crowds, landlords feel as though they can make more money by renting out their spaces to higher profit-making tenants than to art galleries. This has already begun to happen along 14th Street. So, the preliminary report came up with the following findings:

1. Arts uses (especially artists and galleries) are finding it very difficult to pay the rents in this district, and there is a high probability that we will face substantial loss of these uses in our area during the current recession.
2. The same is true of small independent retailers in our district: many are experiencing difficulty; more closures are expected. Both arts uses and independent retailers noted the heavy impact of DC’s commercial property tax on their costs.
3. In contrast, the arts district continues to attract numerous restaurant developments (perhaps a dozen new announcements and/or openings over the past two months).
4. In addition, several key development projects are well-advanced in the planning stages, for example: Utopia project, Whitman Walker Clinic project, Central Union Mission project, Room & Board project.
5. Financing challenges in the current economic environment are likely to delay at least some of these key development projects and are already delaying or preventing some retail, office and other uses from moving into the area.