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.
general lack of new development. Barring policy change, this situation is unlikely to change for
the foreseeable future: rising rental rates will likely be insufficient to spur significant new
construction or redevelopment of obsolete spaces by industrial developers. Long-term leases
will also slow the rate of change in DC’s industrial zones. Finally, vacancy rates can be
expected to continue to fall, but not to disappear. When vacancies do appear, they will typically
be slow to fill: Rents do not support major rehabilitation; the ability to redesign buildings is
limited; space for expansion is constrained; thus each tenant must be happy with the available
space, loading docks, ceiling heights and floor loads.
Any significant new investments are much more likely to be made by individual users:
successful businesses with the internal incentive and wherewithal to assemble adjacent
property and upgrade their operations. However, this will only happen in an environment where
such investments can be made with the long term in mind; i.e., an environment where real
estate speculation and the potential for encroaching residential development does not threaten
the continued viability of industrial businesses or districts. This underlines the need to provide
greater predictability in targeted industrial areas, so that property owners and developers can be
reasonable certain as to which areas are likely to change, and which will remain stable havens
for PDR use.
3.3 SUB-AREA ANALYSIS
In a mature and built-out city, the formulation of land use policy requires a detailed
understanding of the current conditions on the ground. To this end, field surveys have been
undertaken of all of the District’s industrially-zoned properties. The full results of these surveys
are detailed on Existing Conditions maps, which appear in the Appendix to this report.
The Office of Planning divided each of the District’s industrial zones 24 into sub-areas, named
after defining features (such as CSX rail corridors); local landmarks (Fort Totten); and
neighborhood names (Brookland). This report adopts these sub-areas as the organizing
structure for the discussion of existing conditions. These sub-areas are illustrated on the key
map in Section 2, with individual maps provided in the Appendix to illustrate existing uses and
surrounding use patterns.
Based on the field surveys and mapping, an Opportunities and Constraints matrix was prepared
to assess particular attributes of each industrially-zoned sub area and to identify areas
appropriate for retention strategies or for land use change, as well as to suggest specific
strategies aimed at addressing identified issues. It was a useful tool in for weighing an area’s
strengths, weaknesses, and any future development plans. The full matrix can be found in the
Appendix to this report.
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