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).

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."

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UPDATE
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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?

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

Obeng

In the Capital City Market.

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).

The Time is Now

Capital City Market

Nice Video on Philly's Italian Market

Check out this video (which I cross posted to the Capital City Market site) about the market in Philadelphia. Yes, the Italian Market currently has more to offer in terms of restaurants, coffee shops, and overall consumer friendliness, but the Capital City Market has potential to become something similar (the Italian Market is a good model). Personally, I'd like to see more of the places sell retail, as well as wholesale. I'd also like to see better signs indicating which places do sell retail (because many currently do, but the only way you know which ones is to go with someone who already knows).

A New Market Site

It's still very much a work in progress, but here's a central site where you can check out much of the available news on the Capital City Market (in chronological order!). Richard has yet to write an intro, and I'm still working out a few kinks in some links. But go ahead and check it out (note the always growing photo set on the bottom right of the page). Feel free to let me know if you see issues, or an article I've missed. I already know (but haven't yet fixed one link to the Express that is mislabeled, and one link that is out of chron order). I'll fix those, but feel free to let me know other thoughts (I'm going to separate out the Post Market map). It's not going to be a regularly updated blog like Frozen Tropics, but we'll stick up new articles as they appear, and it will get some original content (some of which may also appear on Frozen Tropics), but the main idea is to get all the info in one place.

Making Breakfast

Young's (now the New K. Young's) serves up Korean, American, and Salvadorean food in the Capital City Market (Florida Market).

New Town Signed By All 12 Council Members

The New Town proposal (to replace the Florida Avenue Market) went before the Council again yesterday (not the last time) & it doesn't appear to be going away. One provision that could make or break the bill is a recently (last time arount) inserted provision from David Catania that requires approval from owners of at least 50% of the land (as opposed to 50% of the landowners) within 120 days after the passage of the emergency legislation. Check out this great Washington Post article on the lingering problems with the proposal and the way it came about.

Recent Market News Round-Up (not links previously posted here):
1. In Shaw: Where the Fk is Litteri's?
2. Rebuilding Place: The Real Issue With The Florida Market (Revised)
3. Rebuilding Place: The Florida Market Bill Before City Council
4. Rebuilding Place: Not the Last Word on the Florida Market
5. Rebuilding Place: Back and Forth Conversation About the Florida Market
6. Blue Coyote Laughing: Politics Photography and Art and... (Click around to find more of her photos of the Market. She shoots there a lot.)

And not new, but very infomative is this DC North piece "Is New Town the End of the Florida Ave. Market?: Market Unlikely to Survive Proposal Say Vendors" (also appeared in the Hill Rag) from last summer.

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This post previously said something about 50% of merchants. Sorry, I must have already lapsed into vacation mode. I've made the correction above. Apologies, because the two are really not the same. Merchants will have no voice under this provision unless they happen to also be landowners.

Flashback: Market

Here's an old article from 2005 referencing the Office of Planning study I sometimes refer to when I say we should be doing more sensitive development.

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.