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

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District of Columbia Industrial Areas Study DC Office of Planning Prepared by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc. commercial district reflective of its current use. The Fort Lincoln area (Area 3) may eventually require a rezoning, depending upon its final use. However, with that use in flux, it would premature to specify here precisely what that zoning should be. Area 4 should retain its existing C-M zoning to ensure retention of this viable PDR corridor, although selective rezoning within the concentrations of other (mainly church related) uses may be appropriate with effective buffering. 4.3.3 PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES Development in Area 1 should focus on the needs the big box retailers and major shipping/distribution uses. This includes making access to both Brentwood Road and Rhode Island Avenue easier and safer. PDR users in the central portion of Area 2 would benefit from land assemblage assistance and improvements in access to both New York Avenue and West Virginia Avenue. Interior roads are in poor condition, and should be improved. Further, the District may wish to take a leadership role in identifying reuse opportunities for the Hecht Building. The Economic Development White Paper prepared as a background study for the Comprehensive Plan recommends exploring a technology-intensive reuse strategy, and has this to say: The Hecht Building is an architectural landmark that also happens to offer large floor plates, high load-bearing capacity, abundant daylighting, and a location on a major traffic arterial, adjacent to a fat internet backbone. Its combination of assets as well as its physical appearance is reminiscent of the Starrett-Lehigh building in Manhattan. The latter is much larger, at 2.3 million square feet, but like the Hecht Building sat partially utilized by industrial users for decades before being rediscovered by contemporary tenants looking for more than office space. The most notable tenant to occupy space in the building has been Martha Stewart International, which operates its Internet operation, photography studios, and more out of its space in the Starrett-Lehigh. A similar strategy may work for the Hecht Building, given the assets listed above. The building should prove endlessly adaptable. At its best, it could provide the type of space ideal for startups and other fast-changing businesses whose needs are not well served by traditional single-purpose office space. The high floor loads make it ideal for operating large numbers of computer servers, or combining offices with distribution. The District should therefore have in place zoning which permits an easy mixing of different uses and activities in the same building to encourage creative approaches to the reuse of this landmark. - 95 -
District of Columbia Industrial Areas Study DC Office of Planning Prepared by Phillips Preiss Shapiro Associates, Inc. Scarrett- Lehigh Building: From Old Warehouse to Sought-After Address The Starrett-Lehigh building, bounded by West 26 th and 27 th streets and 10 th and 11 th avenues in New York City, rises 19-stories above the Chelsea neighborhood. The brick and concrete, 1.8 million square feet building was originally a warehouse and manufacturing center. Designed to facilitate easy railroad freight access, it contained railroad tracks running into the bottom floors allowing freight to enter from the nearby piers on the Hudson River. Although it was an innovative building from the outset, it has been redesigned to attract tenants that can afford the $35 to $40 per square foot rents it draws. Only two years prior, rents hovered around $5 per square foot. Improvements financed by a group of investors, 601 West Associates, included a thorough gutting of the building, the addition of a large glass-enclosed lobby, and the installation of T 1 cable wiring throughout. The new office space appeals to businesses that wish to convert and divide up the space to suit their needs. Most of the current tenants are those that have a creative proclivity, like media, dot-com, and fashion companies including Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., Concrete Incorporated, and Tommy Hilfiger U.S.A., Inc. Other portions of New York Avenue/Ivy City are home to telecommunications and communications firms, including Verizon and BET, but a great deal of adjacent land is consumed by the railroad yards. Perhaps some of these railroad areas could attract development for the television and motion picture industry, in much the same way the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City has been converted from a derelict industrial area to a highpowered economic engine. Brooklyn Navy Yard: From Shipbuilding Facility to Economic Development Engine The historical Brooklyn Navy Yard, the birthplace of many American battleships, has transformed from a dilapidated shipbuilding facility into a 260-acre commercial and industrial park that serves as an economic development engine for New York City. Acquired in 1967 by the City of New York, the industrial park is currently host to an array of industries, ranging from movie studios to electronic distributors and from furniture manufacturers to food processing plants. Run by the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation, the site contains forty buildings, four dry docks, five active piers, over 200 tenants, more than 4,500 employed workers, and 3.5 million square feet of leasable space. With Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2004 commitment of $71,000,000 of city money to infrastructure - 96 -
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