Recent Market Articles

Due to a busy schedule recently I've missed a few articles that should have made it up here. Here are three pieces on the Florida Market that you might want to check out (with comments):

Market for Change (Washington Times, 9/16/07):
-Last time I check Catholic was in Northeast, not Northwest
-The article incorrectly states that Catania's provision requires the approval of 50% of the 69 land owners. The requirement actually says that New Town needs the approval of owners of 50% of the land (based on the way the land is chopped up, that would be [you would need all the larger land owners] way less than 50% of the 69 owners). So does that mean that when Thomas says 45%, that this means owners of 45% of the land, or 45% of the land owners?


*Quotes to notice:
-"Fewer than 100 markets of its type remain across the country, said David O'Neil, a senior associate with the New York-based nonprofit Project for Public Spaces." *You might remember the Project for Public Spaces from the starburst Plaza meetings.
-"Through the years, Capital City Market has remained the foremost wholesale supplier for most restaurateurs in the region. "
-"Gallaudet University, which owns nearly four acres on Sixth Street where the wholesaler's warehouse would go, also has no interest in seeing such a structure on its land."

-"So Gallaudet would once again be walled off from the community — which, of course, we would object to." *Gallaudet is one of the largest landowners in the Market.

-"They can build the Taj Majal here as long as the community is considered for the jobs and gets a piece of the pie," said Wilhelmina Lawson, an D.C. advisory neighborhood commissioner in the area." *Interesting approach to planning for the future, no?

Florida Avenue Market Faces Dueling Development Plans (DC North 9/2007)

-just a quick blub at the bottom about the New Town plan and the Office of Planning's Small Area Plan

Shop Around at the Capital City Market (Washington Post Sunday Source 9/30/2007)
-link to addresses here.
-There is also an easy to miss map hiding in the page. To download it click on "Read +"

You may also wish to check out Gallaudet's page on the Market. I think the letter (5/2007), is particularly interesting.

Florida Market Planning Phase Two

From the Office of Planning:

Phase 2 Public Workshop and Open House
Wednesday October 3, 2007
3:00pm-4:30pm
The Market Lounge
1305 5th Street, NE (Upstairs)
OR
6:30pm-8:00pm
McKinley Technology High School
151 T Street, NE

The D.C. Office of Planning (OP) invites property and business
owners within the Florida Avenue Market, neighborhood residents and
stakeholders around the Market area to attend this workshop as we
kick off phase two of the Florida Avenue Market Study. These two
meetings will cover the same information. Please attend whichever
is more convenient.

Our goal is to:
Provide an update on where we are in the planning process
Discuss how we will complete Phase Two of the small area plan for
the Florida Avenue Market

For more information contact Deborah Crain or Jeff Davis at
202.442.7600

Updated Florida Market Guide

Now new and improved (with fewer typos and grammatical errors, and a few more businesses and photos).

3rd Florida Market Meeting May 30th

Florida Avenue Market Study (pdf)
(Office of Planning announcement)
Third Public Meeting – Open to all!

Wednesday, May 30
3:30 to 5:30 pm AND 6:00 to 8:00 pm

Please come for a presentation on a conceptual plan for the Market, based on research & community input at our first two public meetings. The concepts presented are just the first step, opening further questions to explore. Korean & Mandarin interpretation available at 3:30pm, & sign language interpretation available at 6:00pm.


(The same presentation will be given twice to accommodate a wide array of the public—You may attend either session.)

Gallaudet University, Foster Auditorium, 800 Florida Ave, NE


Next Steps: We will be analyzing the various findings of our study over the summer. Keep an eye out for further public meetings early this fall. In the meantime, please contact us with any thoughts!


Background: The Office of Planning (OP) has initiated a study of the Florida Avenue Market and is engaging property and business owners within the Market, as well as residents, institutions and other stakeholders surrounding the Market. The purpose of the Study is to conduct an existing conditions analysis, an economic analysis of the wholesale and retail market functions, and an operational analysis. Additionally, the Study will provide demand projections for other potential uses on the site, resulting in various redevelopment/ revitalization scenarios for consideration.

The Study will also address sustainable development (green technology), urban design, transportation and historic preservation issues. Before any decisions are made regarding the future of this site, it is critical that the District and all affected parties have a full and balanced understanding of the opportunities, constraints and fiscal impacts of redevelopment, and that the public is significantly involved in considering these findings.

The Florida Avenue Market is at a critical juncture of its history. Your participation in the coming months is critical for creating a successful and responsive plan!

For more information or to RSVP, please contact: Deborah Crain, Ward 5 Neighborhood Planner, 202-442-7615 or deborah.crain@ dc.gov ; or Jeff Davis, Ward 6 Neighborhood Planner, 202-442-7704 or jeff.davis@dc.gov.

Please do check out the Capital City Market blog that Richard has been updating while I've been busy neglecting it.

DCMUD: Florida Market

Not really anything new here, but DC MUD's got a post on the upcoming meeting about the Florida Market and the New Town development that want to take over the Market's current location.

Another Capital City Market Site

I found this through a Technorati search:
This guy Josh Williams has an interesting interactive feature (including one video and a couple of audio slide shows) about the Capital City Market.
By the way, according to this site, my count of individual vendors in the actual DC Farmers Market is off. I guessed 30-40. This site says 50 (which I think is probably right, but not all of the stands sell food, and a few are restaurant stands, which I wasn't counting).

Market Tour Saturday

Photo by Ken Firestone (used with permission, all rights reserved).
Join us (there will be three of us this time: Richard Layman, Ken Firestone, and me) for a tour of the Florida Market on Saturday. This is an abbreviated version of the normal tour (neighborhood residents may want to wait our summer tours because this one will be crowded and we won't be going into lots of the places, but instead just pointing them out due to the size of the anticipated crowd) because it is part of the Cultural Tourism DC tour day. Here are the details:
Saturday (April 21st) 9 – 11 am
Meet outside the north entrance of New York Avenue Metro station (exit to Florida Avenue).
The other reason that neighborhood residents might want to wait is because during the normal tours we get to chat a lot more about the Market than I suspect will be possible this Saturday (and sometimes we walk around and take photos if people so wish). But, this is a good opportunity if you just want a quickie.

Florida Avenue Market Study

The text immediately below is from the Office of Planning flyer:

The Office of Planning (OP) has initiated a study of the Florida Avenue Market and is engaging property and business owners within the Market, as well as residents, institutions and other stakeholders surrounding the Market. The purpose of the Study is to conduct an existing conditions analysis, an economic analysis of the wholesale and retail market functions, and an operational analysis. Additionally, the Study will provide demand projections for other potential uses on the site, resulting in various redevelopment/revitalization scenarios for consideration. The Study will also address sustainable development (green technology), urban design, transportation and historic preservation issues. Before any decisions are made regarding the future of this site, it is critical that the District and all affected parties have a full and balanced understanding of the opportunities, constraints and fiscal impacts of redevelopment, and that the public is significantly involved in considering these findings. The Florida Avenue Market is at a critical juncture of its history. Your participation in the coming months is critical for creating a successful and responsive plan!


Here is the public meeting schedule

First Public Meeting
Tuesday April 24th, 2007
Overview
Content at both meetings is the same (they are holding two meetings to accommodate different schedules).
3:30-5:30 pm
6:00-8:00 pm

The Office of Planning invites property and business owners within the Florida Avenue Market and neighborhood residents and stakeholders around the Market area to help us create development recommendations for this site.

Our goal is to produce recommendations for:
• Urban Design/Public Realm
• Uses
• Parking
• Greening
• Historic Preservation.

2nd Public Meeting
Wednesday May 30th, 2007
Highlights of Possible Redevelopment Session
3:30-5:30 pm
6:00-8:00 pm

Both public meetings will be held at:

Gallaudet University
Foster Auditorium in the Student Academic Center
800 Florida Avenue (enter at 8th Street NE)

For more information or to RSVP, please contact: Deborah Crain, Ward 5 Neighborhood Planner, 202-442-7615 or deborah.crain@dc.gov ; or Jeff Davis, Ward 6 Neighborhood Planner, 202-442-7704 or jeff.davis@dc.gov .

Stocking the shelves at Litteri's.
Photo by Ken Firestone (all rights reserved, used with permission).

Yeah, That's Pretty Much the Problem

Bye bye US Beef building, hello 11 story thingy
A sign recently went up on the former site of the US Beef Building. So, I'm talking about Florida Avenue right across from the impossible to miss Two Rivers Charter School. So, if you are walking from the NY Ave metro stop, this is how you would enter the Market. The sign which advertises for the Gateway Market Residences, brought to you by Sang Oh [Choi!] Development. Mr. Choi is, of course, the man (or men, since John Ray is involved) with the vision behind New Town at the Capital City Market. Also, on the sign were a phone number & a website (both of which I wrote down, but do not have in front of me). There was also a hookline: "Pretty soon you won't recognize the place. Promise."

*************************
UPDATE
*************************

Here is the website: www.GatewayMarketandResidences.com
202-265-2464
Sang Oh Development, LLC

So, I'm not suggesting that all development is bad (I like the H Street stuff, right?). I'm just saying that this is not the best plan for this area. I'm concerned about the wording of the actual act. I think it will have (at least) two troubling aspects:
1) it will push out (by default) a lot of existing vendors
2) it will (I suspect, but read the act for yourself) involve the demolition of lots of historic buildings.
3) also, doesn't the eminent domain thing bother more people?
4) what about the fact that this looks kind like a no bid contract that the Council is making with a rather inexperienced developer?

*****************************
FURTHER UPDATE
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Here is a map of the Market that you can compare to the map on Choi's website.

Italian Market (Philadelphia)

The top two photos are of the Florida Market. There places that do on street sales (e.g. Mexican Fruit), but I don't have any photos of these handy (they were on my old harddrive).
but here is a photo from Ken Firestone of Mexican Fruit's offerings:

And here is one of Richard Layman's photos from the Italian Market:

and here is one of my photos of the DC Farmers Market:


Immediately above is a photo of Philadelphia's Italian Market (photo protected under creative commons) from someone else (many are all rights reserved, so you can look, but you can't touch).
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=295306507&size=m ( Jian Ailin 简爱霖) provides the photo immediately above. I don't know, but it looks pretty close to me. For more photos search flickr (free account & no junk email guys) for Italian Market Philadelphia. I suggest looking at the original (larger image) of the photo immediately above to see a building that looks much more like the Florida Market buildings than what you see in the forefront. For more info on the Capital City Market check here.

Philadelphia's Italian Market

Caribbean Crescent (which actually sells Indian food) offers all kinds of dalls.
Ok, if you are a regular reader you probably know that I love to compare the Florida Market (i.e. the Capital City Market) to Philadelphia's Italian Market. So, here we go again. Check out the Wikipedia entry for the Italian Market. I suggest paying particular attention to the "Visiting the Italian Market" section. They aren't kidding. The Italian Market is a serious tourist attraction, but it is also a fully functional market that serves both businesses and residents. It's not just the impossible dream, it does actually happen, and it could happen here too.

Meats

In the farmers market (part of the Capital City Market, AKA the Florida Market).

RP: More on the Florida Market

Richard's got another post on the topic, and this one has renderings from the new version of the New Town brochure.

Examiner: Florida Market

Yesterday's examiner featured this article on the Florida Market/Capital City Market and the New Town proposal that the City Council recently moved forward. It specifically mentions the little provision David Catania stuck in there during the the last meeting. The provision requires 50% of the land owners to sign onto the measure, or it dies. If 50% seems high, and it might turn out to be too high for the developer in this case, consider that a proposal like this would permanently alter the landscape of the area, and that this proposal contains eminent domain language that could facilitate the forcefull taking of people's land.

Examiner: Florida Market

Two pieces from Friday's Examiner on the Florida Market (Capital City Market):

1. There's a Stench From Florida Avenue Market

2. History, Future of Capital City Market at a Crossroads

RP: Florida Market Redux

Richard takes another look at the New Town issue and muses generally about groups from outside coming into remake an area. He mentions H Street, and the fact that many of the new places generating the most press are associated with Joe Englert in one way or another. Richard is in no way comparing the revitalization on H Street, which I think is far more organic, to the New Town plan. Just for the hell of it, let's compare the two:

What was there before (or what is there now in the Florida Market)?
H Street: some existing and new businesses, some construction, and lots of vacant building (I believe the Argonaut was the only Englert place to move into an occupied building).
Florida Market: lots of thriving, if sometimes "gritty," family owned businesses that cater to both wholesale and retail buyers. Vacant spaces are rare.

How did/will the outside buyer obtain the properties?
H Street: Mr. Englert & his associates purchased the buildings one by one like any other buyer. No existing businesses were forced out.
Florida Market: The New Town proponents own some of the land, but would need the city to give them lots of land, and also seek to force existing businesses out (they even requested eminent domain power to do so, and you know my feelings about bogusness of the right to return stuff here).

How did/will the outside buyer attempt to work with the existing businesses/neighborhood?
H Street: By talking to surrounding businesses, and residents. Also, hiring some neighborhood residents to work in the establishments. Renovating vacant buildings to house the new businesses.
Florida Market: By trying to force out the existing businesses (even if they are given the option to move to the new digs the rents will undoubtedly be much higher because this is new construction). By avoiding talking to residents in the areas most affected by the change. Who cares what existing residents or business owners think as long as you've got the cash and the Counsel votes, right?

What will the area look like once the plan is "complete"?
H Street: The new businesses will be open, they'll generate a little buzz and hopefully attract more businesses and patrons to the area.
Florida Market: The uniqueness of the area will be gone (we'll pretty much be bulldozing much of the area), and some vendors might return. We might have a hotel, probably a bowling alley, maybe an outdoor arena, probably some kind of community center, and also some housing, about 20% of which will be "affordable."