See the article below from the Washington Business Journal on the responders to a RFP for a lot in Shaw at 7th and Rhode Island Avenue NW called Parcel 42.
One of the seven responders to the RFP for Parcel 42 is Thoron Development — as in the Thoron Development that was supposed to develop 1322-1330 North Capitol Street NW and 7 Hanover Place NW into a project named “Dunbar Place.” (See this 3/11/2009 DC MUD blog post on Thoron Development’s project).
How does everyone feel about Thoron bidding on a * new * development project in Shaw while its existing project in the Bates Area has been stalled for a number of years?
Solicitation for D.C.`s Parcel 42 nets hotel, housing bids
Washington Business Journal by Michael Neibauer, Staff Reporter
Date: Wednesday, August 15, 2012, 5:17pm EDT
The District`s bid to finally redevelop a vacant 17,008-square-foot parcel in Shaw has netted more than a half dozen responses that would seem to run the gamut from affordable housing to a hotel.
The Parcel 42 request for proposals, issued April 20, generated seven bids from 11 firms to redevelop the parcel at Seventh Street and Rhode Island Avenue NW. The District`s solicitation sought a transit-oriented, mixed-use project of “high architectural design quality that maximizes density.“
While it has released the bidders` names, the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development has not released the bidders` development proposals. The submissions, said DMPED spokesman Jose Sousa, “are still being screened to determine full responsiveness to Solicitation requirements.“
The bidders are:
Warrenton Group and Four Points LLC;
Thoron Development LLC;
Pounds Properties and Jubilee Housing;
United House of Prayer for the People;
Neighborhood Development Corp.;
Tensquare LLC and Chapman Development Group LLC; and
Baywood Hotels and Dantes Partners.
The District last solicited Parcel 42 in 2009. Its selection of Parcel 42 Partners turned into a disaster when, in the summer of 2010, affordable housing advocates seized the site and built a makeshift tent city to protest the city`s plans to scale back the project.
Thoron has TWO projects in North Cap and O vicinity that have stalled. The lot at 1322-1330 North Cap has been vacant for three years now, with a ramshackle fence surrounding overgrown weeds and trash. I had to call the fire department twice in the week after the 4th because kids were setting off explosives there and setting the dry brush on fire. The fence regularly gets covered in tags
ReplyDeleteThe other stalled project is on the unit block of O Street, where they have several townhouses that have steadily deteriorated. The siding is falling off in the alley and along the back of the units, and windows are broken and boarded up. 14 O Street has been broken into more times than I can count, and is regularly used for drug trafficking and squatting.
So no, I don't really have much faith in them picking up a new project while they can't or won't take care of the parcels they have. If they get this bid, I don't imagine that the existing projects will ever get any attention.
Those buildings should NEVER have been torn down. The fact that the city allowed it to happen was, and is, criminal.
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