Petition Launches For DC’s New Union Market

• April 22, 2013

by Shilpi Paul

A rendering of Half Street Market.

For the past few months, a group of Capitol Riverfront residents have been agitating for and planning out a Union Market-like destination for their own neighborhood. Nathan Alberg, ANC Commissioner Ed Kaminski and a handful of others zeroed in on 49 L Street SE (map), the site of an empty, 30,000-square-foot warehouse, for the new space. With a team, they created pretty renderings for Half Street Market, envisioned as a space with artisan food vendors, cooking classes, small business incubators and a restaurant.

For awhile, however, all these plans just seemed like an optimistic dream. The federal government owns 49 L Street SE, and even if they decided to sell the building, a number of other parties would have dibs on the site before the community group.

But things may be looking up. Last week, Housing Complex reported that Congress will be holding a hearing this Thursday to discuss ways to use the property once again.

In advance of the hearing, the Half Street Market team has been reaching out to the community and gathering up allies. To that end, they started a petition in support of the project last Friday, which can be found here. As of this writing, they have about 135 supporters.

The group has also established itself as a non-profit, Rachel Reilly Carroll, the president of the new organization, told UrbanTurf. “We were very excited to learn about the House Subcommittee on Government Operations hearing,” said Carroll. In a tweet last Thursday, Councilmember Tommy Wells Chief of Staff Charles Allen confirmed that Wells will be testifying in support of the Half Street Market concept.

UrbanTurf will be attending the Thursday meeting, so look for an update later this week.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/half_street_market_starts_petition_hearing_on_thursday/6959