Day: July 17, 2009

Well it appears that North Capitol from New York Ave up to somewhere around Florida is doomed, doomed to heck. As far as commercial ventures go. From the BACA notes:

Comish Pinkney said the Urban Land Institute said that North Cap wasn’t suitable for development because developers would not want to invest in an area laden with so many social services.

There are several social services concentrated in that spot around NY Ave and North Cap. Because of their individual missions and management style some of those social services (not all) attracts a population whose acts are a negative force. I throw in management style because I remember the Emory Shelter on Lincoln Rd NE, which is still there. But a few years back it took in all kinds of men without checking sex offender status. It was a few feet away from the Harry Thomas Rec Center, where children congregated. Well a change was made so that only homeless men with jobs would reside at Emory and that cut down on the crowds of men just hanging out around the shelter.
A few block south of Emory back in our area, around NY Ave and North Capitol, you have several homeless services and a methadone clinic. S.O.M.E. is one of them and I do remember the really bad complaints residents had with some when I first moved around here. Homeless where littering like crazy and using neighbors’ basement apartment entryways for toilets. I’m hearing few complaints these days about meal related litter and poop at your basement door, and that has come with some back and forth between residents and S.O.M.E.
However, with the volume of people served by SOME and the other places there is a portion of that population that makes development along North Cap, ‘unsuitable’. These are the loiterers, the extortionists/ beggars, the window breakers, and the weirdos who wander up and down the street. I hear that men are begining to lay around in front of the new Subway sandwich shop. The police come and shoo them away and then they come back to block entry. Hopefully the Subway can survive and not suffer the problems that closed down Luciana Cafe with multiple window breakings, vadalism, and loitering (Jemal raising the rent didn’t help either).
It was brought up in the BACA meeting that the person who owns the building with the liquor store at FL and N. Cap, owns that whole corner of buildings on that corner, including the Subway. The owner was approached with the idea of matching funds to improve the facade, but refused because it would be like throwing money away.
So getting development along the NW side of North Cap is going to be hard.

Also forget about the old firehouse becoming a restaurant.