The District's vision for remaking the mostly shuttered campuses of D.C. General Hospital and St. Elizabeths includes thriving new neighborhoods, with attractive housing and offices, inviting streets and parks. The goal, officials say, is to turn two crumbling Southeast parcels into urban jewels.
Such dreams depend in part on drawing new businesses, which in Washington often means government agencies. So the announcement this week that the proposed 2006 federal budget includes money to study moving Coast Guard headquarters to St. Elizabeths and building a high-tech forensic and bioterrorism-detection lab on the D.C. General site might have come as welcome news.
U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters at Buzzards Point in Southwest Washington. The federal budget includes money to study moving it to St. Elizabeths.
(Nikki Kahn -- The Washington Post)
|
| ___ Guide ___ Personal Preparedness Guide
 Dirty bombs, anthrax and smallpox: an informative guide to understanding the threat and protecting you and your family.
| | |
|
Both proposals are in the early stages, and each site needs millions of dollars in repairs and upgrades if it is to be used. City officials yesterday added a note of caution, saying they are wary of the security issues such moves could pose and the impact they might have on carefully drawn development plans.
They said they are especially concerned about reports that other agencies in the Department of Homeland Security could follow the Coast Guard, if it moves to St. Elizabeths. The campus, built as a 19th-century psychiatric hospital, is set high on a hill that offers some of the city's most stunning vistas.
Although Homeland Security spokeswoman Valerie Smith said yesterday that the agency will keep its headquarters on Nebraska Avenue NW for the "foreseeable future," Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) has said she believes the proposal to move the Coast Guard will be the first of many.
The 300-acre campus in Southeast Washington is bisected by Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. The bleak commercial strip would benefit from an influx of federal employees, officials said. But not if security considerations result in a walled fortress. "It's all in the details. How many facilities are moving there, what their security requirements are, what happens to the historic buildings," said Andrew Altman, a former D.C. planning director who heads the publicly chartered Anacostia Waterfront Corp. "If it leads to a secured compound . . . that's not optimal."
Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said he would work with federal officials to try to keep key parts of the campus open.
"I think we can have a federal installation at St. Elizabeths and at the same time revitalize that site for the benefit of the surrounding community," he said. "I think that both can happen."
The Coast Guard has outgrown its existing, rented space at the tip of Buzzards Point in Southwest Washington, where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. Its lease expires in 2008. If the agency moves, Altman said, the waterfront corporation could try to weigh in on what should happen there.
About two miles up the Anacostia River sits the mostly closed D.C. General campus, which the city wants to replace with a new residential enclave and an extension of Massachusetts Avenue that could include a city-built hospital run by Howard University.
City officials envision municipal offices on the new stretch of Massachusetts, possibly including forensic and medical labs. In recent weeks, they have said such a complex could include facilities to detect and identify chemical and biological compounds in case of a terrorist attack. The District has to rely on facilities elsewhere for such analysis.
The District received more than $10 million in federal and local funds this year to explore where and how to build such a facility. The budget proposed Monday would add $7 million for the project, preliminarily priced at $80 million.
City Administrator Robert C. Bobb briefly mentioned the lab at a community meeting in Capitol Hill last week, prompting concern from residents, D.C. Council member Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) said. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who chairs the committee on health, has called for a public hearing on the topic.
Edward D. Reiskin, deputy mayor for public safety, said yesterday that, wherever it is built, the facility would increase the city's security by improving its ability to respond to an attack.
"Having the lab there does not pose a safety risk to the neighborhood," he said. "The safeguards and the technology would be better than anything we have today."
Staff writers Spencer S. Hsu and Lori Montgomery contributed to this report.
