MidCityDC article: "McMillan development arrives at a crossroads"

Click on the link to read the entire MidCityDC article by Jeffrey Anderson on McMillan:

McMillan Development Arrives At A Crossroads

Eyes on McMillan: Making Decisions on the Best Use of the District’s Historic Green Space

BY

 JEFFREY ANDERSON 

With DC still in building mode, and a pile of development projects on her plate, Mayor Muriel Bowser faces unique challenges in ordering her priorities. One project particularly fraught with complexity and controversy has landed on the desk of her agent for historic preservation, who is expected to make major decisions in the coming weeks: The McMillan Sand Filtration Site.

Slated for residential, retail and medical office space, and a park, the 25-acre historic water filtration facility is located in Ward 5, bordered by North Capitol Street, First Street, Michigan Avenue and Channing Street, NW, adjacent to Children's National Medical Center, MedStar Washington Hospital Center and Veterans Affairs Medical Center. It consists of 20 underground sand filtration cells, 20 cylindrical, ivy-covered brick storage bins and regulator houses, and an expanse of open space adjacent to McMillan Reservoir, which is still in use.

The reservoir, named for Michigan Senator James McMillan,was designed and built in the mid-to-late 19th century by Army General Montgomery Meigs as part of the Washington Aqueduct, which carried water from the Potomac River to the site, where it was filtered and purified for drinking in a sand bed filtration system designed by hydraulics expert Allen Hazen. Upon its completion in 1905, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. was commissioned to design the entire area consisting of the reservoir and the filtration site. The public enjoyed the grounds until the early 1950s when the government fenced off the facility to ward off attack by foreign enemies. The Army Corps of Engineers decommissioned the site in 1985 after installing a chemical filtration plant at the reservoir.

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Meanwhile, the city is paying VMP's bills and those costs are adding up. Last October, the DC Council approved a $1,340,000 budget for VMP for development services in FY2015 alone. According to contractor and subcontractor invoices submitted to the mayor's office, the District already has paid out more than $6 million, for landscape design, consulting fees, public relations services, and lobbyist and lawyer fees.

All of which suggests that Bowser's agent for historical preservation is about to make a decision that could be an early but key piece of her evolving legacy -- one that she'll have to figure out how to pay for.

This is the first of the Eyes on McMillan series that will examine how the District is making decisions on the best use of its land and resources.