We’ll give you a hint. You can get a delicious kale and prosciutto salad there, as we did last week.
Another hint: We’re measuring the Mystery Neighborhood by the three-year growth rate of residential units, more than doubling from 3,263 today. That would be 1,916 units under construction (all apartments) and 2,164 breaking ground this year and next (of which 326 will be condo).
OK, this will give it away. The restaurant is so cool that its other locations are SoHo and two blocks from the Met on NYC’s Upper East Side. And nearby are other cool joints, like one with 500 kinds of beer, and another that lured the President over for burgers in the middle of the financial crisis back in ‘09.
Folks come from all over to see this neighborhood’s model—both figuratively, in terms of how to build a new waterfront community, but even literally, as in this 8-year-old physical display. We randomly encountered such a group visiting the BID, a Master's of Urban Design class from Carnegie Mellon that we coaxed to suspend its intellectual analysis and wave to our readers.
OK, for those of you who recognize even a side view of BID president Michael Stevens, right, you have now unmasked the neighborhood, of course, as Capitol Riverfront. On the left: Carnegie-Mellon professor of architecture Stephen Quick, who was leading the students.
We also snapped Canal Park’s skating rink that’s open four months each year (this is its third winter), though it’s been taken down this week as spring approaches (in theory). It then becomes a plaza served by Park Tavern restaurant, with outdoor seating. Also featuring food trucks lined up along M Street, dancing fountains with 42 jets and lots of little kids.
In the distance are 323 blended-income EYA townhomes called Capitol Quarter. 4,700 now live in the neighborhood, and 34,000 work there (counting 18,000 at the Navy Yard). Revitalization got rolling in 1995 when NAVSEA came over from Crystal City during BRAC; five office buildings for contractors went up the late '90s and early 2000s; Forest City bought 42 acres from GSA and DC; and the ballpark went up in 2005. Now the World Bank is distributing around the world a study it did on how the neighborhood engages the waterfront.
Capitol Riverfront VPs Tammy Shoham and Dan Melman show us Forest City’s 327-unit Arris apartments, designed by Robert A.M. Stern, delivering in 2016 with 20k SF of retail.
Michael, who’s been BID chief eight years, functions a bit like a mayor, here with one of the 12 “Clean and Safe” team members whom the BID hosted the next day at Akridge’s Verizon Center suite to see the Wizards. (It brought good luck—in a nail-biter, we beat the Pistons.)
