Wednesday, March 05, 2008

I hear you, Bloomingdale!

You hear my plot to get North Capital in shape...maybe another 14th Street...cool shops, restaurants, wine bars, galleries...maybe some Dupont Circle excitement with sweet yoga, bookstores, tea houses...perhaps some Columbia Heights and taco joints and gala stages. And then there is H Street with all things possible. Something, something, something. What is it?

And Ahhh..yes, we may need 20% down on a commercial building. And Yes! we can do this. And Yes! It does take a lawyer to navigate the waters of an LLC v. 503c. And we can think about risks, (dollars and otherwise), and rewards, (dollars and otherwise). And we are smart, Bloomingdale...we can figure all this out!

In the past week, I attended a lecture on Great Streets held at the Building museum... what makes a street a ‘great street’...is it a change of scenery every 20 paces? Diversity of architecture, people, atmosphere? I stood and asked why North Capital Street is only a great street to buy drugs. Why is that? It has nice architecture, it has a view of the Capital (certainly that must be great), it has diversity, the scenery changes. The audience laughed. Sigh. Is that the response that we should get? East Capital Street is great. Why isn’t North Capital Street.

After the lecture, I cornered one of the speakers. He was one of the early proponent/investors of the revitalization of 14th street. He sits on a committee called the retail committee. I asked if the retail committee would like to visit Bloomingdale and see what we have. He invited me to the next meeting. And so, I will go. Maybe I can talk them into visiting our piece of the pie. What would it take to get investors interested.

I would like to meet you, my Bloomingdale neighbors. Let’s think about what we can do. Let’s do it. Things like this have been done in urban neighborhoods in Philly, Detroit, Seattle...all over. We can do it too. I am not exactly certain how at this point, but I think we can figure it out.

Washington is a lovely place to live...and we all have friends who know things, big things...like how to form an LLC, where to get investors. Tomorrow night we are having dinner with our friend the banker. Maybe we can find those investors... Ask your friends what their ideas are...they know big things. You know big things.

And so, Bloomingdale. Ready?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds like a great vision, I'd be interested in getting together with folks to discuss more.

I can be reached at mark dot kennedy at gmail dot com.

Anonymous said...

Bring it.

Dbw said...

I agree with you wholeheartedly. The intersection of N. Capital and Florida Ave. has so much potential. There should probably be a meeting at some point to take stock of folks interest and begin to narrow ideas. I would love to take part in such a meeting if we can get one organized.

Anonymous said...

what happened to all the links on the right hand side of the page?

Sean Hennessey said...

they should stlll be there.
might have been an issue with blogger.

dcavocado said...

Yup, keep me posted on such gatherings/meetings.

La Chingona said...

I think this is a great idea and you should be commended for ignoring the naysayers and keepin' on. Please include me in the next meeting - my email address is lagarza at stanfordalumni dot org.