Development east of the Anacostia River got a shove yesterday from Mayor Anthony A. Williams when he proposed that the Metro system sell its valuable downtown headquarters and build an office complex on empty land at a rail station in Southeast Washington.
Williams (D) said he also wants the city to build a mid-size municipal building at the Anacostia Metro station. Together, the projects would bring more than 1,300 daily workers to an area that is a 10-minute drive or train ride from downtown but is desolate, save for the morning and evening rush of commuters through the station.
The proposal comes at a time of unprecedented focus on the economic development potential of the Anacostia River, the waterway that has served as a painful socioeconomic dividing line.
A stadium for the Washington Nationals is the best-known project planned for the river's western side, near the booming Navy Yard area. A headquarters for the U.S. Department of Transportation is under construction there, and thousands of residences are planned.
Last month, President Bush asked Congress to give the city control of 110 acres of parkland on the eastern side of the river, opening the door for housing, a major museum or memorial and a waterfront park. The D.C. United soccer team has expressed interest in building a stadium in the area.
Williams's Anacostia Waterfront Initiative includes a host of other amenities along both sides of the eight-mile waterfront: neighborhoods, shops and cultural attractions; redesigned roads and bridges; and a river-walk trail.
"The momentum is there," Williams said. "WMATA would be adding greatly to it."
Several Metro board members said they were interested in selling their eight-story headquarters, east of MCI Center at Fifth and F streets NW. Real estate analysts said the building, which covers a city block, could sell for upward of $75 million. It was completed in 1974, when the East End itself was a neighborhood in need of renewal.
But Metro board Chairman T. Dana Kauffman questioned whether moving Metro's main operations control center, along with about 1,100 managers and employees, would be cost effective.
"It's not just a question of unplugging the PC and rolling it out. We'd have to relocate the brains of the operations control center," he said. "If it has a significant upside that we can turn into a real benefit for customers -- that's one thing. But if it's just a development opportunity for a jurisdiction, that's another."
Dan Tangherlini, D.C. transportation director and Metro board alternate, said it would be a boon to move the operations center, which, like the building, is outdated.
The center, he said, "is high-tech circa 1985. Why not sell the stuff that's worth a lot, in an old building in need of updating, and use the opportunity to get a new one?"
