A future for Fort Totten

Shops and housing for a D.C. neighborhood

"THIS IS TOO grand for this area. This is not Wisconsin Avenue or Bethesda." That criticism from an opponent of a big development planned for the Fort Totten neighborhood at the edge of Northeast Washington indicates exactly why officials should give a green light to the project. The area around this strategic Metro station has too long gone underutilized, and the proposed mix of residential and retail development would help transform a neighborhood stuck in the 1950s.

The D.C. Zoning Commission is set to decide Monday on whether to give preliminary approval to the Art Place and Shops at Fort Totten, a 2-million-square-foot transit-oriented development. Conceived by the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, which owns the 17-acre plot, the project would sit directly east of the Metro stop on the Green, Yellow and Red lines. It would include 929 housing units, a grocery store, a senior center, and cultural and arts spaces. The price tag is estimated at $425 million, and construction would take place in phases over eight years.

There has been, as The Post's Ovetta Wiggins reported, some upset that comes with any big change, as well as the need to relocate long-term residents from apartments that will be demolished. The foundation has a well-established reputation of service to the community and seems to have paid attention to its concerns. For example, the foundation has arranged for residents to move to refurbished apartments nearby and has made the commitment that all existing residents can return and move into the new housing at rent-controlled levels. A number of community groups, city planners and D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Jr. (D-Ward 5) are among those who have endorsed the project.

The development is one of several planned for the area, and it is seen as having the best chance to get underway in this sluggish economy because of the foundation's considerable assets. "We're going forward," says the foundation's Jane Cafritz. We hope that the zoning board gives its needed nod.