WestMill Capital Partners specifically mention Bloomingdale & North Capitol Street

The Washington Business Journal reports on WestMill Capital Partners, created by two sons of Herb Miller of big-project Western Development Corp. You've heard of Herb Miller, yes? (Gallery Place, Market Square, etc.)

The focus of WestMill Capital (http://www.westmillcapital.com) is "on the individual businesses — the restaurants, retail, consumer-centric venues that in critical mass create dynamic corridors — rather than on the mega-project that is Western’s longtime concentration."

"WestMill in May will launch a $10 million fund, raised through local partners the Millers declined to disclose, to help local, proven entrepreneurs buy real estate in up-and-coming neighborhoods such as H Street NE, Bloomingdale and North Capitol Street. The Miller brothers expect to make five deals in 12 months — mostly with restaurants, but other businesses, they say, are welcome to apply."

“Most operators don’t get to own their own real estate,” Ben Miller, 34, said in an interview, joined by his brother and partner, Daniel, 23. “We want to make that possible.”

Maybe some proven entrepreneurs will approach WestMill Capital and pursue something in Bloomingdale or North Capitol Street... ?

Here is the link to this WBJ article "Miller brothers create $10M pool for retail, restaurants" http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/print-edition/2011/03/18/miller-brothers-create-10m-pool-for.html .

Old sand filtration site

Bloomingdale (for now) has a post about the recent meeting. concerning the development of the site.

Important meeting tonight

On the agenda for the Bloomingdale Civic Association

- the nomination of candidates for the Civic Association's upcoming election of officers, and

- an Association resolution about the liquor license application for the proposed tavern at 84-86 T St, NW. Under discussion will be the proposed hours of operation, parking, trash disposal, and the noise that may accompany operation of this business. We will issue an invitation to the owners to address the community on behalf of their business.


Neighbors with any other business to bring before the Civic Association should contact us at bloomingdaleca @ gmail.com to ask for a place on our agenda.

The meeting will be held at St. George's Episcopal Church, located at 160 U St, NW. It will begin promptly at 7:00 p.m. and refreshments will be served.

baraki and yoga

thought i'd post a link to Veranda, considering this

and oh.. it seems like there may be a yoga place across the street.



first street is gonna be kickin it, huh?

Truxton Circle, North Capitol, and the Great Divide of Bloomingdale and Eckington.

How would you feel about rebuilding Truxton Circle?
What effects do you think it would have on foot traffic in the north capitol corridor?

DDOT did a study ( PDF)and had this diagram of traffic flow:


Here is a shot looking south toward that intersection:


A little further up North Capitol Street, there is a trench dug out of the road allowing traffic to pass under T Street and Rhode Island Avenue.
I'd like to suggest the open area between T and Rhode Island be covered to allow for greenspace on top



currently the division between the neighborhoods of Bloomingdale and Eckington is rather stark.

I;'d love to bridge that division.

imagine if that trench was covered to create a public space. summertime movie nights with the capitol in the background, perhaps?
how about a sculpture garden?


It seems as though Martini 2020, otherwise know as the old firehouse, is moving forward. The Borf Mansion seems to generate a lot of foot traffic in the neighborhood when they have events.



Here is a recent shot of that strip:


and an old shot:

Wouldnt the empty Savemore building make a nice new home for Olssons?
or maybe The Garden District? or better yet, does someone in the neighborhood have the desire to open up their shop here? i hear that Stu Davenport wants a Pizza Parlor.


There was talk on neighborhood listserves about marketing the area to developers and to create a "theme" for this corridor. I find this to be quite a bit tacky and wildly inappropriate, personally. To me, marketing the strip as "italian" as some have suggested, is insulting to who we are as a present day community. An ethnically oriented marketing only serves its purpose if its homegrown. and while there may be some history to that claim, there is little present in it. i prefer to live in my present day community, which i love, than some romanticized version of the past. granted, i love that people care enough to make suggestions, and to wish for things to become better, and to reverse the history of disinvestment. Still, we need to recognize our diversity and our present day culture in trying to grow.
My hope is that we can find ways to encourage those that live in the community to fill niches they feel are missing ( like the Big Bear) or encourage existing business to grow and change ( like Windows cafe) and to also encourage the type of DIY mentality that has made the borf mansion a vibrant scene ( yeah.. i know.. i know, but i like their direction, and people defintitely come out for their events.)

Anyway, i hope that people can use the comments here to engage in a (civil) discussion about what you'd like to see. we all know the hurdles, we all know the negatives, but it'd be great to hear of possibilities and solutions.

Additionally, if you have ideas that might be lengthy to post, shot me an email and i'll let you create your own posting here.

Old photos found here

more talk about the firehouse..you know.. the martini sushi pizza tapas waterslide place.

a developers agent vlogs about the firehouse on north capitol

whats going on?

these are projects that i've heard about but don't really know the current state of. anyone have any info on:

-joe mamos lot at north cap and florida

- the potential store in the building on the ne corner of first and r

- the car stereo place that was going to go in on the se corner of north cap and r

-hellers bakery that was to go in at first and t

-"the perfect glass" ( or anything?) at first and seaton

- ground floor at 3rd and florida?

- the former pizza place at north cap and florida

art spaces and developers in brooklyn

one can easily say that brooklyn, is a much hotter real estate market and a more dynamic area than DC. Sure Brooklyn is way bigger than DC and part of one of the larges economic city-states in the world, so that type of market is expected.

Whats not expected is that artists can find studios at $6.82 per square foot a year.
$6.82!!!! thats amazing. i had moved my studio out to Mount Rainier, Maryland for the allure of 10.00.

Last i checked that ground floor store front at 3rd and Rhode Island was going for 30-ish.
The difference is staggering.

So why did i bring up brooklyn and this rent? read here to see why these artists are getting that deal
.
Imagine a developer in DC savvy enough to pull that off. Imagine people with means that truly embrave the Arts as Catalyst model.

a collection of posts about LeDroit Park, Bloomingdale and Shaw on a real estate site, On The Radar

BUY ME, Bloomingdale!

For Sale.
Corner of Seaton and North Capital, NW (1822 N. Capital Street).
$1.115 million.





Play ball with me.

There is a property on the corner of North Capital and Seaton Place (or is it street), NW. It currently houses the Seaton Market. It is expensive… if one were to go it alone….but wait….YOU, BLOOMINGDALE, are not alone.

Last week I presented three possible scenarios for helping to improve North Capital Street, and by extension, our Bloomingdale.

What if we, as neighbors, did form an LLC (limited liability corporation) as a non-profit? Say (for easy math), we could get the property for $1 million (it’s been on the market for over 150 days). If 10 investors came forward with $10,000 each we would have a down-payment of 10%. So we would mortgage 900k. (again, this is a game, right….maybe 10k is too much/too little).

Next, we hire an architect. We present the plans to a bank and apply for a renovation loan. I am familiar with a renovation loan because that is how my husband and I were able to afford to renovate our home. The renovation loan is generally based on how much the property would be worth once the renovations are complete. If we applied for a $1 million renovation loan, would the property be worth at least the cost + renovation (so 2 million). If yes, then it’s a go (of course, remember, this is all play right now…so there would be more to think about).

What would a 1.9 million dollar mortgage payment be if it were shared by 10 investors? Well, at 6% interest, 30yr fixed the total mortgage would be about $9500 per month. If that were divided by 10 investors, it would be $950 per month per investor.

Now, what if, in the example of the Seaton Place property, we found a tenant to rent the top floor (approx 1600 sq feet). Perhaps we could rent it for $2500 per/month. And what if we found a business (restaurant, yogo studio, garden ctr…anything that Bloomingdale needs) to take over the first floor. Could we charge $3000/per month (more? Keep in mind that one of the reasons Pyramid’s Restaurant closed was that the rent had increased to $5000/month). So, now we have an income of $5500/month…and a remaining mortgage payment of $4000/month divided by 10 investors…so $400/month.

Would anyone play ball…how many of us could realistically afford this? And should the initial investors be silent, or should the initial investors have to commit to 5 years of their ‘seed’ investment…or have to understand that it may not work and they could lose their seed money.

Hmm.

Think about it. Perhaps we could do something as neighbors. Perhaps we live where we live in order to be able to make a difference. Would we even be having this conversation if we lived in Georgetown ....or a more affluent part of town? Hmm.

Oh Bloomingdale!

My first blog. Ever.

I am an open-house-slut...meaning if it is open, I will enter. My husband and I happened to be in Bloomingdale for just such an opportunity and fell upon four people (the ‘keeper’ of this blog, his fabulous artist wife, the brain and brawn behind the Bloomingdale list serve, and a sophisticated sassy Brit). How lucky for us.

We moved to Bloomingdale in 2004. We have lived in DC for 21 years and this is our first home. We claim to have moved here in order to walk to work...but the reality is that we stumbled into Bloomingdale. In those frenzied days, we had two minutes to act on an as-is fixer-upper. And so we did. We have counted our lucky stars since.

We wondered what it would be like to live in this neighborhood...so clearly, a neighborhood. Our neighbors are young and old, black and white, straight and gay, economically advantaged and economically challenged, artistic and not. We invited them over for dessert. At the end of the evening we sat back and sighed contentedness. Phew.

It has been almost 4 years. And now I want to let everyone know what a good neighborhood this is...and at the same time, I want to guard against being too discovered. But really, I would like to see the abandoned and boarded up buildings on North Capital rediscovered. Imagine, just a mile from the Capital of the United States of America! And yet it feels like a thousand miles.


So, my thought in writing here is to generate discussion. What might it take to bring the abandoned buildings on North Capital to life? I wish to keep my focus on the abandoned, boarded buildings. My ideal would be to purchase a small building (say the ‘Bobby Fisher Memorial Building’ 1644 N. Capital Street.)

Here are a few ideas. And I would love to hear your feedback.

1. Form a neighborhood LLC to purchase a building. As neighbors we have a vested interest in seeing these buildings restored and reopened. The building could be cleaned up, restored, a business opened and proceeds used to purhaps buy the next abandoned building. The goal would not be so much to make money (though certainly, we do not want to loose money) but rather to see the neighborhood improve.

2. Court deep-pocket investors. On a whim, I emailed some of the better-known developers in DC...people with deep pockets. I invited them over for coffee and to walk with me around the neighborhood to see all the possibilities. I do not wish to see our neighborhood developed into a tourist spot, but what if one of these individuals was the lead in purchasing and renovating one building...would that encourage others? No one responded. Yet.

3. Set-up a partnership between the architecture school at Catholic (or any area school...maybe even highschool) to work with existing business owners to energize their facades so that they actually look like the thriving businesses they could be. It would help the owners, it would help the students, it would help the neighbors and it might encourage others to invest.

Think about it.

And so. Here lies my first blog. Ever.