Shopping For a New SE Retail Center

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post
May 2, 2004

To Barbara Savage, Skyland Shopping Center represents all that is frustrating about the Southeast Washington neighborhood where she has lived for 34 years.

No restaurant with waiter service. No upscale shops -- only Discount Mart, CVS and a handful of others, including a check-cashing joint, liquor stores and carryouts. Instead of wrought-iron sidewalk benches that might encourage pedestrians to sit and chat over coffee, there are stern signs that warn “No Loitering.”

“We deserve better,” said Savage, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for Hillcrest, the leafy, residential neighborhood tucked behind the 60-year-old shopping center.

But to Sam Franco, a Silver Spring resident who has owned Discount Mart for 28 years, Skyland is a decent place to make a living. Franco employs 25 people -- up to 40 during the Christmas rush -- and stocks whatever his customers tell him they need, from housewares to school uniforms, cosmetics to birthday party supplies.

“Buy cheap, sell cheap. It works,” he said. “All the customers know us already.”

Skyland sprawls erratically over 17 acres at the juncture of Alabama Avenue and Naylor and Good Hope roads, five clusters of nondescript storefronts connected by a vast, uneven parking lot. It is one of the largest commercial parcels east of the Anacostia River -- a mostly residential area of Washington defined for decades by enclaves of poverty and crime but now drawing attention for such attractive, established neighborhoods as Hillcrest and new, well-appointed subdivisions.

For 15 years, Savage and many of her neighbors have called for remaking Skyland along the lines of Penn Mar Shopping Center, just across the Prince George’s County line, or Springfield Plaza in Fairfax County.

Now city officials -- driven by old campaign promises, looming elections and an unprecedented level of interest in the city from national retailers -- are rallying to their side.

The publicly chartered National Capital Revitalization Corp. has chosen a McLean-based shopping center developer to rebuild Skyland and is working to take control of the property -- which includes 40 parcels owned by 15 families and corporations -- so the project can move forward.

The developer, Rappaport Co., is negotiating with Target Corp. and Shoppers Food Warehouse about anchoring a new retail complex and reports solid interest from both. With tenants like those, said the company’s president, Gary D. Rappaport, restaurants, major bookstores and other sought-after retailers would be likely to sign on. Target also plans a store in Columbia Heights; Shoppers Food Warehouse has outlets in the suburbs but not in the city.

Rappaport joined city economic development officials and a host of citizens groups at a D.C. Council committee hearing Wednesday to urge lawmakers to give the revitalization corporation the power of eminent domain to acquire the parcels if the owners refuse to sell.

City officials and private consultants who have analyzed the project said a new shopping center would generate more than 200 additional retail jobs and $3.5 million more in sales tax by recapturing some of the $400 million that east-of-the-river Washingtonians currently are estimated to spend shopping in suburban Maryland and Virginia.

Committee Chairman Harold Brazil (D-At Large), who faces potentially stiff competition in his reelection bid this fall, expressed strong support for giving the revitalization corporation the expanded powers it is seeking. So did council member Kevin P. Chavous (D-Ward 7), who represents Hillcrest and Skyland and has been harshly criticized for not doing more to move the project forward. “This is so important to the lifeblood of our community,” said Chavous, who, like Brazil, is running for reelection this fall. “We are going to make this happen.”

The project is also a top priority for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), who has made economic renewal a centerpiece of his agenda and was drafted to run for office in 1998 by many of the same citizen activists who are leading this effort.

But the existing store and landowners, including many who have done business at Skyland for decades, lined up at the hearing to oppose the taking of their property and to question whether the proposed new center could become reality. Some property owners also have sought historic preservation status for their World War II-era storefronts so they could not be razed or redeveloped; their application is scheduled to be heard by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board this month.

Skyland landlords and merchants told the council committee it was unclear whether a big-box retailer like Target would locate on the parcel, which is not served by a highway. They said the revitalization corporation was underestimating the costs of buying land and relocating businesses. And they said it was unfair to put viable stores out of business.

“The NCRC is correct in its assessment that this area needs a ‘community shopping center,’ “ Franco said in his testimony before the council committee. “We, the merchants at Skyland Shopping Center, already constitute such a center.”

Kwame R. Brown, who moved to Hillcrest two years ago and is active in the civic association, doesn’t see it that way. Brown, who also testified, said in an interview that he resented having to drive over the river or to the suburbs to shop or go out for dinner with his family.

“We need to use some of the same tools that have been used to enable other parts of the city to boom,” he said, noting the city’s use of eminent domain to claim property for MCI Center, the Washington Convention Center and other projects. “We’re just crying and screaming” for more restaurants and shops, he said.

After the hearing, council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) said he needed more information before he could support the legislation.

“Having major development east of the river is an important commitment. The question is, how do we achieve it?” asked Graham, who is considering a run against Brazil for the at-large seat. “I want to understand what this is going to cost and where the money’s coming from.”

Theodore N. Carter, chief executive of the revitalization corporation, pledged not to begin acquiring land at Skyland until an anchor tenant has made a solid commitment. But to secure such a commitment, he said, the development team needs to be able to assure retailers that they can take control of the site.

Even under the most optimal circumstances, city officials and others involved in the project said, a new shopping center would take at least four years to plan, build and open.
Carter said he hopes the council will move quickly -- before he, Rappaport and others head to Las Vegas late this month for the spring convention of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Years ago, retailers at that annual gathering paid scant attention to the District. Then they began to look at opportunities downtown. Now, Carter said, neighborhoods like Hillcrest are attracting increased attention from retailers interested in expanding into non-suburban markets. Selling them on Skyland will be much easier, he said, if they know the city has given him the right to acquire the land.

“This is going to be our number-one site we’re going to market,” Carter said.
“Target is our primary interest, but we will not limit our discussions to Target.”