Poplar Point Prospects Prompt Dialogue

But many residents don't just want to be hired -- they want an ownership stake in the development. At a lively meeting on the Poplar Point plans called by Barry at the Bethlehem Baptist Church on a recent Saturday morning, Jackie Ward, a neighborhood activist, urged the audience of about 50 to ask the developers for equity.

"We have to go to the companies and tell them we want our people trained and the mechanisms to make sure our people can take advantage," she said.

The Fenty administration has asked the companies to wait until a winner is selected before talking with residents about the specifics of economic opportunities.

Each development team included in its plan such basics as housing, retail, restaurants and a 70-acre park mandated as part of the transfer of control of Poplar Point from the federal government to the city. It's the "extras" that have people talking.

So far, Clark's proposal has emerged as the favorite. The plan includes a three-block "deck" that would be built over Interstate 295 so that residents could walk from historic Anacostia to the new development, an environmental museum and business hub, a charter school and an optional soccer stadium.

Clark got the biggest reaction from the crowd of 300 who attended the public unveiling of the plans last month at Birney Elementary School. And of the 52 votes registered in the online poll at the Web site http://www.anacostianow.blogspot.com, 38 have gone to Clark.

"They seemed to hit every aspect -- a school, retail, housing, entertainment, a museum for green space, national parkland," said Greta Fuller, an advisory neighborhood commissioner. "We want to see more than housing; we want to see our community have its own grandstand. We go to Georgetown, U Street, Old Town, but where do we really go in Ward 8?"

Clark's rise has been aided by Barry and his allies, who have supported building a 27,000-seat soccer stadium for D.C. United at Poplar Point. Fenty broke off negotiations with team owner Victor B. MacFarlane last summer, saying his proposal to build a mixed-use development anchored by the stadium required too much public subsidy.

Barry, who has criticized Fenty for snubbing MacFarlane, is supporting the two plans that include stadiums, Clark's and the proposal from Archstone Smith and Madison Marquette.

MacFarlane, who was in attendance when the proposals were unveiled last month, is said to be interested in investing in the project, no matter which company wins.

The Ward 8 community continues to be divided.

"Residents who are asking for a stadium lack vision about . . . what else we can bring. That's dangerous and limiting, " Cynthia Davenport told her neighbors during the Historic Anacostia Block Association meeting. A stadium "would endanger the environs, and add to traffic. . . . The reason I live here is green space."

But Catherine Buell disagreed. To her, Ward 8 needs a major draw, something to attract outsiders to Poplar Point. "We do not necessarily need a stadium," she responded to Davenport, "but we need a reason for people to come to this big mass of land."

Yavocka Young, who bought her house in historic Anacostia 14 years ago, said during the block association meeting that she had considered moving because of the lack of basic services in her neighborhood. But after seeing the Poplar proposals, Young, the executive director of Main Street Anacostia, a nonprofit economic development group, said, "It makes me want to say, 'I'm staying.' "