“We’ve been hearing a lot about urban revitalization lately, with a big focus on neighborhoods east of the river. The big star of this spectacle is available for some preliminary viewing but won’t be ready for prime time for a few years to come: the Anacostia Gateway.

One of the Gateway buildings is fully constructed, with a second one still in the planning stages. Both will primarily house DC government offices and are expected to boost daytime commerce in the area.

It’s a whole new landscape from just a couple years ago. All around the Gateway is the old Anacostia: boarded up buildings, carryout joints, broken-down fences. But rising like a phoenix out of the corner of Martin Luther King Avenue and Good Hope Road is a shimmering new symbol of the kind of “revitalization” that DC officials have been promising for years – and rarely delivering.

A New Heyday for Anacostia
The Anacostia Economic Development Corporation started buying up properties 15 years ago with the idea of building what is now the Anacostia Gateway building, bordered by MLK Avenue on the west, Good Hope on the south, 13th Street on the east and the rail line on the north. The only functioning businesses in the whole area were a bakery and a gas station.

Albert “Butch” Hopkins, president and chief executive of the AEDC, says that his organization developed the Gateway as a response to the wishes of the community. “Everybody wants their neighborhood to be like everyone else’s neighborhood,” he says. “The community wants first-class goods and services. They don’t want to remain perceived as an underclass, underserved neighborhood.”

Homes have been sprouting up in Anacostia faster than they can be filled lately – according to development plans, homebuilding in the next few years will outpace the beginning of the decade 25 times over. But before taking the plunge, prospective homebuyers want to know what services are available in the neighborhood they’re thinking of moving in to. And for years, the answer in Anacostia has been “not much.”

But Butch Hopkins remembers Anacostia’s heyday, when it was filled with “bustling commercial corridors” providing needed goods and services to the population. “Those who remember it want it back,” says Hopkins. “That you can walk down the street and shop; that you can spend your money in your neighborhood, not in Maryland or Virginia.”

Daytime Traffic
Many think the key to revitalizing Anacostia – and filling those new condos – is to bring more daytime traffic to the area. And that’s the Gateway’s silver bullet. The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) had planned to move into the new building but then decided not to relocate its headquarters to DC after all. So the city government stepped in.

It was so important to the city to boost Anacostia’s daytime commercial traffic that they’re moving not one but two city agencies into the Gateway. First, the Department of Housing and Community Development will occupy about 50,000 of the total 63,000 square feet of the Gateway building in the fall. They’re currently at the “tenant improvement build-out” stage – where the new tenants get to choose where the lights and the electrical outlets will go.

And then the second building will begin construction. That one, to be called the Gateway Government Center, will be the home of the DC Department of Transportation. The plans aren’t even drawn for that one yet, so it’ll be a while before DDOT employees have to pack up their desks, but the impact of the second building will be even greater, since it will be bigger and will house more employees.

For some in the neighborhood, the most exciting part is the ground floor retail. “It’ll be good to have somewhere to eat lunch,” says Briony Evans of the Honfleur Gallery, across Good Hope Road from the Gateway. “Here it’s almost all carry-outs. It would be good to have some healthier food.” Honfleur Gallery has been there for about a year – another symbol of change in the area. The storefront gallery, whose owners live outside of the District, brings high-quality art to Anacostia and celebrates the art that was there all along.

There is still no confirmation on who will fill most of the ground floor retail spaces, but Briony has reason to be optimistic: even if no high-end dining establishments move in, it’s safe to assume a deli or coffee shop will fill the space. Industrial Bank will be moving in as well, a local, minority-owned business. The AEDC has set up its new offices on the ground floor in a space considered unattractive to retailers due to its close proximity to the bridge onramp.

‘This Economy’s Not Going to Afford You Anymore’
It should come as no surprise that when a neighborhood comes up, not everyone comes up with it. One skeptical young local woman says the Gateway is “not better for us – it’s better for the people moving in.”

She has borne the brunt of “urban development” before. In the drive to build medium-income and market-rate homes, affordable housing has been sacrificed throughout Ward 8. She used to live in Savannah Terrace public housing, but it was closed down in the early 1990s. Her family was given a list of other subsidized communities, and they moved to Wellington Park (later known as The Vistas). Some of their neighbors ended up in homeless shelters.

And now it’s happening all over again. The notice, the list. The new homes being built where her home used to stand.

She sees the Gateway and other urban renewal projects as a harbinger of more displacement. “They’re giving Ward 8 notice that you need to up your education, up your job so you can afford this economy,” she says, “because it’s not going to afford you anymore.”

She says that for the community to truly rise out of poverty, there need to be more training centers like the one run by ARCH Development Corporation, a social services organization across the street from the Gateway – places for people to access resources and jobs. She says a lot of the people in the neighborhood don’t have the educational background to get good jobs – and they certainly can’t afford the new condos.

“They’re changing everything that we know of home,” she says.

Michelle Cubbage is the development director for ARCH Development Corporation. She has a different view. She says the Gateway is a great addition to the revitalization of Anacostia and will bring new opportunities, especially for small businesses.

“I don’t think it will squeeze people out,” she says. “If you invest yourself into your neighborhood, it’ll help you grow, and you’ll help the neighborhood grow.” She says she doesn’t see any negatives with the new construction.
Yavocka Young, who has been working in community development in the neighborhood for a decade, has little sympathy for people who might feel the squeeze. “America works, and America works full time,” she says. “Poverty stems from not being a good self advocate, from bad decision-making, from personal choices. Call it what it is; don’t put it on society.”

She says the new condos going in are very affordable compared to new developments in Northwest. “If you’re working full time, you can afford this.” As for property values rising, she says she hopes they will. “I’m a homeowner,” she says. “I hope to make a profit on my investment when it’s time to retire.”

Bricks and Mortar
 The Anacostia Gateway building was designed by Devrouax & Purnell Architects, the “go-to” firm for local construction – they did the baseball stadium, Republic Square, the Convention Center and many other Washington landmarks. No architect has been retained yet for the second building, which DDOT will move into. The existing Gateway building is a three-story brick structure with a curved, windowed corner.

David Garber, a local urban development expert and the moderator of the “Anacostia Now” blog, is excited for the development the Gateway will bring but says the architecture could have been designed to better “play off” the historic Anacostia district where it sits. “It’s great in a lot of ways,” he says, “but it’s a big box that doesn’t have a whole lot of detail. It doesn’t engage the historic context as another design possibly could have.”

He was impressed, however, by the green roof on the building. The rooftop will have a patio with umbrellas, chairs and tables, accessible to all users of the building. It has great views of the Washington Monument and the Capitol from across the river. But the unusual aspect of it is that a vegetated roof surrounds the patio, with plants to retain water that would normally go into the storm water system and, eventually, into the river. A waterproof membrane over the whole roof keeps the water from seeping through the ceiling. The plants provide good insulation and a cooling effect on what would otherwise be another black asphalt urban roof creating a “heat island” effect. The roof will also last longer than normal roofs.

Butch Hopkins of the AEDC seemed less taken with the roof than Garber. He said they did it because of a city government mandate that every building they help fund be designed with environmentally friendly elements.