The Maryland orchard farmer and his family have owned their parcel of land in Southeast Washington since before the Great Depression and lease it to an auto repair business.
The retired Army sergeant major bought his 19th-century house in the same neighborhood six years ago for $161,000, thinking it was "a nice fixer-upper" to settle down in. Since then, he has spent about $50,000 on renovations. Nearby, a Fairfax hospitality company has owned a square block for more than a half-century. During those years, it has been the site of the company's largest warehouse.
Richard Biggs, a Maryland farmer, makes extra cash leasing land on South Capitol Street SE. The onetime Senators fan favors the return of baseball, however.
(Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)
|
|
Those property owners are among the more than two dozen individuals and businesses that control the 20-acre site on the banks of the Anacostia River where the city wants to build a baseball stadium. And the District government will have to negotiate with them during the coming months if Major League Baseball decides to move the Montreal Expos to the nation's capital.
A preliminary list prepared by the administration of Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) shows that the four square blocks needed for the ballpark are composed of 65 parcels of land owned by 28 individuals, businesses, limited liability companies and trusts. The list, prepared last year, puts the assessed value of the largely industrial area at $24.7 million. But city officials say that the figure has been rising rapidly with a robust real estate market and that their plans allow for spending as much as $65 million to acquire the land.
Most of the dozen property owners interviewed last week said they are reluctant to sell their holdings but think they are somewhat helpless and resigned to having to do so if Washington gets a baseball team. They said they would try to negotiate the best price for their land, aware that the District has limited resources and is prepared to use the right of eminent domain to force a sale.
That authority can be used to eliminate blight from a neighborhood or facilitate a project considered to be in the public interest. Land-use attorneys said the threat of eminent domain was used to assemble land for MCI Center and, to a lesser degree, the new Convention Center, which was built mostly on property that the city acquired years earlier.
"This is a tough squeeze, one of those unfortunate things in life you get caught in," said Ken Wyban, 55, who purchased a federal-period home in the unit block of N Street SE in 1998, shortly before he retired from the Army. His house, one of the few residences in the area, sits on the northern edge of the proposed stadium site, which is bounded by South Capitol Street on the west, First Street on the east, N Street on the north and P Street on the south.
Wyban, who has made such improvements as adding central air conditioning and heat, said his real estate agent previously told him he could get $600,000 for the property. If he is forced to move, he might live near relatives in Cleveland or Tampa, he said, because he might not get enough money from the city to find a comparable house elsewhere in the District.
"I had planned on staying right here for a while," Wyban said. "I knew this neighborhood was going to get better, and I wanted to be a part of it . . . as a long-term investment."
"The city would lose a good citizen who picks up needles, crack vials, condoms and other [trash] off the streets around here," he added.
City officials said disruptions such as the one Wyban might face would be the exception in a gritty part of the District made up mostly of vacant lots, towing operations, bus and taxi depots, nightclubs, adult entertainment establishments and recycling, asphalt and printing plants. There are only a handful of brick rowhouses.
But roots run deep in the neighborhood, where many properties still are in hands of families that bought them several generations ago. Some owners recall when such streets as Cushing Place were little more than dirt roads in what looked more like a rural outpost than the prospective multimillion-dollar home of a sports team.
Richard Biggs, 59, who owns a 135-acre orchard in Mount Airy, Md., inherited 17,000 square feet of land in the 1000 block of South Capitol Street SE about 20 years ago with his sister. Their grandfather purchased it in the 1920s. Although their grandfather lost his trucking business during the Depression, he was able to hold on to the property, which Biggs now leases to an Aamco transmission shop. The business is about three years into a 10-year lease.
"It is a nice income. It's substantial and our tenant pays every single month on time," Biggs said.
