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In Hyattsville, a Creative Impulse
Hyattsville is "a very quaint small town that just happens to be next to a big city," says planner Amy Neugebauer, indicating a house she bought.
(By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
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Stuart Eisenberg, executive director of the Hyattsville Community Development Corp. and former Hyattsville City Council president, says the city needs the financial boost it can get from the arts district.
"There is a need for redevelopment because of the simple fact that there is a need for tax revenue," he said. "The type of investment we're seeing in Hyattsville is going to improve everyone's quality of life."
While residents don't have to be artists to live in Arts District Hyattsville, there will be public art created by local artists throughout the development. A gallery is slated to be part of the renovated Lustine showroom, a 1950s-era building of soaring curved glass walls that has been abandoned for years. It will become a community center for the development.
The community will also include a swimming pool, bike trail and fitness center.
More than 60 of the rowhouses, priced from the low $400s to the upper $600s, have been sold. About 15 buyers camped out overnight to be first in line when the houses went on the market last spring.
"We didn't want Old Town Alexandria, we didn't want D.C, we wanted something unique to Hyattsville," said Aakash Thakkar, the EYA executive in charge of the project. "As Silver Spring's rents climb with all the development, people are getting priced out. People can't afford the exorbitant prices on U Street. We believe we're really an alternative."
In addition to retail space that is part of the development, the 13 live-work units, which have all been sold, will house such businesses as art galleries and a coffee and pastry shop.
A few blocks down Route 1 from Arts District Hyattsville, the city's old municipal building has been demolished to make way for Renaissance Square, a 44-unit apartment building for low- and moderate-income artists. It is being developed by the nonprofit Housing Initiative Partnership, which created a similar building in Mount Rainier in 2003.
While the Renaissance Square apartments will be for artists, the building will not include studio space.
"What we've discovered is that artists can usually afford cheap studio space. What artists can't afford is housing," said Mosi Harrington, executive director of the partnership.
The building, scheduled to open next December, will have several small workrooms and a high-ventilation room for artists working with volatile substances. A room with computers loaded with graphics software, a music practice room and a small gallery space are also part of the project.
Renaissance Square will have a number of environmentally conscious features, including Marmoleum flooring (a non-vinyl kind of linoleum made from linseed oil, cork, limestone and other materials), siding made with cement rather than vinyl and a partially green roof, on which plants will grow to absorb heat and water runoff.
