Radio One, back to the drawing board

In the Washington Post Business section page D4, “Council Rejects Plan To Give Radio One Land.” The land in question is the empty lot on top of the S Street entrance to the Shaw/Howard metro stop. Well, it’s been taking a forever and a half for this project to get off the ground, in the meanwhile, why not turn it into a dog park until the details and whatnot have been ironed out?

6 thoughts on “Radio One, back to the drawing board”

  3. Maybe not, but for the council to wait until now to chime in seems a little late in the game. Furthermore, it seems that this gift of land will offer numerous returns for the neighborhood and city in the end, so I think of it as an investment, not a gift.

  4. Here is the Friday afternoon (11/16/2007) news blast from the Washington Business Journal on the Radio One land sale deal:

    Land deal to bring back Radio One faces D.C. Council scrutiny

    Washington Business Journal – by Jonathan O’Connell, Staff Reporter

    [http://www.bizjourn als.com/washingt on/stories/ 2007/11/12/ daily33.html? ana=e_du]

    Members of the D.C. Council voiced reservations Nov. 15 about Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to offer about $6 million worth of land to developers in a deal that would return Radio One Inc., the country’s seventh largest network of radio stations, to D.C. where it was founded.

    Councilmen Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, and Kwame Brown, D-at large, expressed support for the project, but said the public was no longer comfortable with the sale or trade of city-owned land.

    “Whether the council would move forward under this circumstance, I don’t know,” Evans said at a committee hearing.

    The city is offering the land, appraised at $5.7 million to $6.6 million depending on the use, as part of a $23 million package to lure Radio One to a development by Four Points, Ellis Development Group and the Jarvis Co.

    Fenty’s plan to sell the West End library to developers fell through over the summer after public outcry.

    Evans suggested to Steve Cassell, vice president of Four Points, and Chip Ellis, chief executive of Ellis Enterprises, that the city could potentially lease the land to the developers and raise the amount of tax increment financing it offered by a corresponding amount, but Ellis said that formula could disrupt the team’s financing plan.

    In tax increment financing, the city provides money to help support a new project and is repaid from the tax revenue generated by the project once it’s completed.

    Councilman Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, said he didn’t see any reason why the city would allow the sale of public land for many other developments but not this one, saying no other project was “as meritorious as the one we have before us today.”

    Catherine L. Hughes, who founded in the company in D.C. more than 20 years ago before moving it to Lanham in 1997, told the council that she had always hoped to return Radio One (NASDAQ: ROIA) to the District.

    “I cried for a very long time when we relocated from Fourth and H Streets [NE],” Hughes said.._,_.__

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