280 Units With Retail Coming to Metro’s Brookland Site

• August 18, 2014
• 3 Comments

by UrbanTurf Staff

An early rendering.

Metro has picked the residential-heavy plan from the team of MRP and CAS Riegler for its sites at the Brookland-CUA Metrorail station, the agency announced on Monday. Donatelli Development, Four Points, and A&R Development and Urban Atlantic were also bidding for the sites (map).

MRP and CAS Riegler’s plan includes about 280 residential units above 9,000 square feet of retail, and a new kiss-and-ride parking area.

WMATA said that the “development agreement is subject to final approval by Metro’s Board of Directors” and that construction is not anticipated to begin until 2016.

Metro also picked the MRP/CAS Riegler team to develop its Navy Yard Chiller site back in June. The plan at that site is for 126 condos above 6,000 square feet of double height retail.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/280_units_with_retail_coming_to_metros_brookland_site/8885

3 Comments

1. Daniel Wolkoff said at 1:59 am on Wednesday August 20, 2014:
   The small grassy campus at the Brookland Metro contributed a lot of tranquility, and very necessary breathing space to our community. Goodbye for that! During heavy rain the storm drains adjacent to this metro station flood out into the street. DC is all about short term profit, and zero proper regional and urban planning. Where will the railroad or metro tracks expand when they finally improve the system? I believe the projected 280 housing units at the metro is three times the number in Office of miserable Planning, Brookland-CUA Small Area Plan. Community members are spent many hours of their time to contribute community input to the office of planning for these documents. The DC planners are probably being paid overtime while we are volunteering our own time and therefore money to our city governance. If the Small Area Plan is a farce, and a complete waste of time, that is simply unacceptable to abuse our community with these" Dog and Pony Shows"! I personally lose about $300 every evening spent in those insipid , so called community input sessions, and I resent it! They had a "Main Streets Program", again, community members were engaged and spent many hours in meetings and hearing presentations about preserving the character of 12th st. To help our small businesses, that everyone knows are in crisis.So now developers and their chain store franchises will destroy the rest of the small businesses, here comes Payless Shoes! 12 th. Street NE is a coherent 1920-1930's art deco architectural district and it had been basically intact and easily restored, like a real "old town". Like Takoma Park or Alexandria Virginia, Fredericksburg. Or many town centers with historic architecture that is valued and enhances the shopping district. Steel Plate destroyed one of these original store fronts, which we spent hours supposedly preserving and eventually rehabilitating. So much for community engagement that the DC govt. is very happy to waste! Only to allow any and every atrocious alteration, like Steel Plate. one by one,,,goodbye! The Art Deco gas station was easily rehabilitated into a new business, regrettably a destructive 7-11. So it is extremely distressing to see it knocked down, when so easily preserved and re-used in an adaptive way, like an addition, wow imagine some imaginative architecture, and planning. Only, to then have the illegal un-permitted demolition exposed and a Stop Work order. I would throw the builder and the 7-11 franchise out of this city permanently. But the DC govt. that has no interest in protecting anything at all in this neighborhood will let the corporation step all over it, it already has, and provide the permits. God knows what awful building is coming to that prominent corner. Where is Office of Planning, Kenyan McDuffie or any other DC official? Has anyone even seen a rendering of what that miserable corporation is going to do to this corner, including the house behind the new 7-11? Goodbye art deco gas station, which would be appreciated and preserved as part of the "old town" character in any community in this country, and in other parts of DC too. A few years ago we lost the Art Moderne 1939 shopping center at 10th and Perry, to pure schlock, and continual vacancies. That original facade was better than Frank Lloyd Wright and designed by local award winning architect Hyman Cunin, of Howard University. So here comes 24 hours a day of traffic, noise, increased litter, smells, and continual disturbance to what has been a quite street at night. How would you like to live next door to a big new 7-11, thanks to the DC govt. We are surrounded by 7-11,,,Smart Growth, Thanks a lot. SAVE MCMILLAN PARK the only unbuilt place in the region,,,

1. jaybee said at 3:29 pm on Wednesday August 20, 2014:
   Yes, when I walk by the Brookland metro station and McMillan Park and see happy families lounging in the shade, I lament the planners that want to remove this amazing urban pasture that the entire community loves and utilizes on a regular basis. Oh. They don't? And they never have? Ok then. Nevermind all that.

1. Eponymous said at 7:01 pm on Wednesday August 20, 2014:
   Exactly, jaybee. Not to mention that the area is currently deserted after dark, making it a prime location for criminal mischief. I'm a Brookland resident and look forward to this development, which will hopefully also turn the Green into a more functional green space while preserving all of the old trees. Many others here seem to feel the same way. I hope that MRP and WMATA know that raving NIMBYs like the first poster --while they may speak loudest -- do not represent Brookland, and I hope that they do not compromise on the scale of the development. Our businesses need residents and foot traffic in order to stay alive.