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Coming Soon to NoMa: Life
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At recent public meetings, neighbors complained about trash and dingy walkways along underpasses.
Some community leaders said they are worried about increased traffic with the proposed new development; preservationists fret that the proposed high-rises will dominate the landscape and overpower nearby row houses.
"We already have traffic problems now," Mark A. Dixon, an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member for the area, said at a recent meeting. "You've got to fix that problem before you talk about bringing in more prospects."
There are other disputes to resolve. Some argue for high ceilings in first-floor retail shops; developers contend that would cost them money and can lead to higher rental rates. They say they are confined by height restrictions and if they eat up too much space on the first floor, they will have fewer floors to lease.
Other developers say they are concerned that the first-floor retail that city planners and residents want could turn away federal agencies that need high security.
Even as the discussion goes on, change is coming.
Jon Han, who runs a banquet hall in Annandale, and a partner, Samantha Lee of Fairfax, plan to open a restaurant with a lounge this fall in a building under renovation at Patterson and First Streets NE. Downtown was too saturated, Han said, so he came here to open Ibiza, named after an island in Spain.
"There's no place around here for people to go and eat except for McDonald's and Wendy's," Han said. "By the time I open this place, some of the new office buildings will be open."
Developer Douglas Jemal said he hired Norman Foster, a London architect, to help design two high-rises totaling 600,000 square feet on the site he owns where the Uline Arena sits in the 200 block of M Street NE, close to the railroad tracks.
Jemal has not decided what they should be -- possibly office buildings because he is wondering if all of the residential coming on the market will be sold -- but he has no qualms about where they should be.
"This is an area where there was nothing going on," Jemal said, "and now there's plenty of things going on."
