Williams,
MLB Turn Up Heat On
Council's Stadium Foes
By David Nakamura and Thomas Heath
Mayor Anthony A.
Williams and Major League Baseball officials began
intensely lobbying DC Council members yesterday to
win support for a stadium lease agreement that is
critical to the future of a ballpark along the
Anacostia
River.
In personal meetings,
Williams promised to support council members on some
of their key issues, including school renovation, if
they vote in favor of the lease Tuesday. By day's end,
Williams and his top advisers said that they had
firmed up more support for the lease and that they
planned to continue lobbying until the vote.
Major League Baseball
representatives also arranged meetings with council
members, including Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) and
Phil Mendelson (D-At
Large).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402311.html
At Each Hurdle, Stronger
Resolve
By Debbi
Wilgoren
The message DC housing
officials delivered to developer
Jair K. Lynch was clear. His plan to keep
Capital Manor Apartments affordable by selling one of
its three buildings was a no-go. Mayor Anthony A.
Williams would not fund a project that would eliminate
some low-cost apartments, even in the interest of
saving others.
The time was September
2002, the mayor was running for reelection and real
estate prices were exploding. Critics were blasting
Williams for doing too little to prevent the
displacement of the poor from newly posh
neighborhoods. The city had set $25 million aside for
housing assistance, and Lynch was applying for $2
million to help the tenants of Capital Manor buy their
complex, 102 crumbling apartments just off the trendy
U Street corridor in Northwest.
The proposal relied on
selling one building at market rate and using the
profits to help renovate the others, which would
become a low-income cooperative. Now that plan would
have to change, Lynch told the five officers of the
tenants association board.
To improve their chances of winning city funds, all
three buildings had to go co-op and remain affordable.
Nobody would be able to cash in at market rates for at
least a decade.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/14/AR2005121402444.html
City Had Been Warned
About Rowhouse
By Del Quentin Wilber
Top DC housing
regulators acknowledged yesterday that they did not
act on requests made months ago to inspect the
interior of a Northwest Washington
rowhouse where a man died
and several others became ill Monday after suffering
apparent carbon monoxide poisoning.
The Columbia Heights
house was the subject of neighborhood complaints about
trash and rats for months. In a June e-mail, a DC
Council member's staff employee urged city regulators
to inspect the building because it was "possibly an
illegal rooming house."
City officials said the employee who received that
e-mail did not forward that allegation to zoning
inspectors. The employee left the DC Department of
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs in September.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301597.html
The Purchase
Of a Lifetime
By Debbi
Wilgoren
The community room
filled early that July night in 2002. The tenants of
Capital Manor were about to learn how much it would
cost to stay in their apartments.
Their century-old
complex -- three buildings with 34 units each -- was a
dilapidated eyesore in a gentrifying DC
neighborhood. Its ceilings sagged, the window frames
were cracking, the
front-door intercom hadn't worked in years. In the
summer, residents seeking refuge from stifling
apartments shared the sidewalk with drug-dealing
toughs.
Across the way was
another threat -- but also proof of what could be.
Refurbished Victorian rowhouses
lined the north side of the 1400 block of W Street NW,
reminders of the wave of wealth sweeping up from U
Street and pushing out poor and working-class
residents. Rents in the new, nearby luxury apartments
routinely topped $2,000, compared with Capital Manor's
average $663.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301828.html
Baseball Opposes Moving
Stadium
By David Nakamura and Thomas Heath
Major League Baseball's
president told DC Council members yesterday that
baseball would not agree to move a planned stadium
from a site along the Anacostia
River. Meanwhile, Mayor Anthony A. Williams made a
rare appearance before the council to defend the costs
of the ballpark plan.
The council is concerned
about the rising price of the project at the Southeast
Washington site, which was estimated by city financial
officials this week to cost $667 million, far more
than the city's $589 million budget. Some members have
suggested moving the project to a site near Robert F.
Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which financial officials
said would cost $606 million.
But in a letter to
council Chairman Linda W. Cropp
(D) and distributed to her 12 colleagues, baseball
President Robert A. DuPuy
warned that baseball expected the city to move forward
at the Anacostia River
site.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301635.html
Somerset Takes 1801 K
St. for $250M
WASHINGTON, DC-Carrying a
final price tag of $250 million, New York City-based
private real estate equity firm Somerset Partners LLC
has picked up 1801 K St. NW. Commanding nearly $445
per sf, the 562,300-sf
asset's sale price was within close reach of the
average sale price for leading office properties here
as of the end of September.
"In the District, prices
remain extremely competitive,"
Advantis Real Estate Services notes in its most
recent office report. "Through the third quarter of
2005, the average sales price for an office building
was $414 per sf, with
class A buildings averaging
$463 per sf and class B
buildings averaging $338 per sf."
Occupying a corner lot, the
office sits in the city's central business district in
the Street Corridor, which is ground zero for the
district's leading lobbyists. The
Holle & Lin-designed building was developed in
1971 and features approximately 50,500
sf of ground-level retail
space, as well as a three-level underground parking
facility to accommodate more than 350 vehicles.
http://www.globest.com/news/432_432/washington/141037-1.html 
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 15, 2005; Page B04
To Win Over
Lenders, Tenants Had to Compromise. They Had a Tougher
Time With Neighbors Across W Street.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 15, 2005; Page B01
Inspectors Comb
Building After 1 Dies, 7
Hospitalized for Illness From Fumes
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page B03
The Bank Balked.
Neighbors Grumbled. But These Poor Tenants Would Not
Be Swept Away in the Real Estate Boom.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A01
Williams Defends Project Costs in Council Testimony
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page B01
