INDUSTRIAL LAND IN A POST-INDUSTRIAL CITY District of ...

District of Columbia Industrial Areas Study DC Office of Planning
Prepared by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc.
Note that there are areas within DC that we did not study in depth, but where there are now
housed important public-sector activities. These include the areas around the McMillan
Reservoir and DC’s portion of the Fort Reno site. See Section 4.4.5 below for more information.
Area 1 (Scattered Site 1) is currently home to a WMATA bus garage and is zoned C-M-1. The
southern portion of this site is underutilized and could house other municipal uses that are “good
neighbors” with the surrounding residential communities. The bus garage itself could perhaps
be decked and built higher (assuming that the busses are not fueled by compressed natural
gas), accommodating additional buses or presenting collocation space. PPSA acknowledges
that WMATA is currently seeking a joint venture partner to redevelop the bus garage site,
presumably to a “higher and better use,” which may result in a relocation of the bus garage.
From the perspective of this report, repositioning this site is not desirable—once it is
redeveloped, any chance of having a strategic municipal location in this area will be lost.
Areas 2, 3 and 4, corresponding to portions of New York Avenue/ Ivy City and New York
Avenue/ Bladensburg, are currently home to municipal uses and have the ability to absorb
more. The northern portion of Area 2, now zoned M and LO/C-M-1, is home to DPW street
cleaning, waste management, and a small vehicle impoundment area. Some of these uses may
be consolidated into the DPW campus on West Virginia Avenue, so these lots would be
available for other District municipal needs. The southern portion of Area 2, zoned C-M-1,
contains an extremely large DPW campus consisting of vehicle maintenance yards and other
light and medium industrial uses. Given the sites strategic location and other characteristics,
and the DPW campus and collocation plans for the site, this area should be protected for
continued public sector use.
The Bladensburg area south of New York Avenue (Area 4), zoned C-M-1 and M, houses a
police station and housing authority building, as well as a large auto salvage/repair site and an
underutilized federal government parcel abutting the Arboretum. This area abuts, but does not
include the large triangular site which is being targeted for redevelopment. This area should be
targeted for municipal use, given its strategic location, access to New York Avenue, and
buffered character. The police station, which is west of the triangular site, should in particular be
retained. The federal parcels are very open and the location near the green spaces of the
Arboretum present an excellent collocation opportunity for the District’s Department of Parks
and Recreation and federal agencies like the Park Service. The parcels immediately along New
York Avenue, however, could be developed as convenience retail and commercial, so long as
the industrial lands between it and the Arboretum are protected.
Benning Road (Area 5) and a portion of 11th Street, SE / Water Street, SE (Area 6) are
additional strategic locations for public sector uses. Significant portions of these sites are
underutilized, and they all enjoy strategic locations and have good to excellent
highway/thoroughfare access. Moreover, they are all highly secure. However, all or portions of
all three sites are within the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative (AWI) area, so are generally
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