Steering the Future of Walter Reed

With Ownership Still in Question, City to Start Planning

D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) said yesterday that the city will create a redevelopment authority to begin studying how to convert the Walter Reed Army Medical Center campus into the District's newest neighborhood.

The historic hospital between 16th Street and Georgia Avenue in upper Northwest is to close in 2011 as part of the federal base-closing process.

"We want to see this compound opened up and incorporated back into the fabric of our city," Williams said. "The opportunity to redevelop 113 acres in the heart of the city represents tremendous opportunities and, I think, tremendous challenges."

Before the hospital can be offered to the city, the Department of Defense must decide whether it will keep the land. It could also sell the land to the highest bidder or negotiate a sale or transfer to the District, said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.). Other federal departments also could request the land.

Communities affected by base closures often create local redevelopment authorities, city planning director Ellen McCarthy said. Those entities negotiate with the Pentagon on any sale or transfer of the property to the community.

Norton said that the District is right to start planning but that there is no guarantee the federal government will sell or give the land to the District.

"Nothing is automatic," Norton said. "The process is not designed to help the District of Columbia.''

The historic Army hospital was selected for closure earlier this year by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. City officials said the commission's recommendations took effect Tuesday.

Stanley Jackson, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said he wants some sort of mixed-use project that would create employment once Walter Reed and its 1,300 jobs move to Bethesda. The Pentagon plans to expand what is now the National Naval Medical Center to create a "world-class flagship facility" on the Bethesda campus.

Williams said the new redevelopment authority will prepare a plan that takes into account the desires of the neighborhoods that border the hospital. He said that the authority's leadership will include residents and that its proposals will be publicly debated.

"The community is going to be engaged slice after slice, step after step,'' Williams said.

Some want to go further. D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), who represents the area around Walter Reed, said he wants the new authority to be headed chiefly by community residents.