Capital City Market
Interview with Bruce Baschuk, president of J Street Development
Interview with Omowale Sia, manager of the flea marketA market of many names
The Capitol Dome is seen from the Capital City Market. (Photo by Stephen Weigand)
The no-frills Capital City Market has been the District’s “breadbasket” since 1931. With new development ongoing in northeast D.C., are the market’s days numbered?
By Stephen Weigand
Interactive journalism, American University
It’s easy to miss the Capital City Market from the two main roads that pass the wholesale and warehouse district.
Tucked between the Metro train tracks and Gallaudet University in Washington’s northeast quadrant, the buildings along Florida Avenue on the market’s southern border appear to be abandoned. Commuters traveling to the Maryland suburbs using New York Avenue to the north likely don’t notice the market because it’s downhill from the busy route.
However, a driver pulling into the market will find a no-frills, functioning warehouse district that is busy in the mornings with trucks delivering goods to the wholesalers and ethnic markets in the 24-acre site.
The people who have taken notice of the market precisely because of its location near a Metro station near downtown Washington are developers.
The market is adjacent to the redevelopment corridor the city created in 2007 called NoMa — short for north of Massachusetts Avenue — that is turning the area north of the Capitol and Union Station into a neighborhood of mixed-use buildings with space for condos, retail and offices. Indeed, several cranes are clearly visible on the skyline looking south toward the Capitol Dome.
In late 2006, the D.C. Council gave one of the market’s 69 property owners exclusive rights to redevelop the site, which caused some consternation among business owners and community members. There are now other players involved in remaking the historic market district.
In October 2008, the Washington Business Journal reported the council approved to split the plan into side-by-side developments among Sang Oh Choi, who owns Sam Wang Produce, with Gallaudet University and J Street Development.
Choi’s New Town Development LLC and partner Apollo Real Estate could develop the market west of 5th Street Northeast while the university, J Street and partner Edens and Evant control the market east of 5th Street and north of Penn Street Northeast.
“We love working in emerging markets and helping transform what may be underutilized sites…and transform them into a vibrant mixed-use environment,” said Bruce Baschuk, president of J Street Development. “We got a vibrant, dynamic market that has eroded over a period of time. It’s smack dab in the middle of what’s happening in terms of growth of the city.”
“We looked at this as an extension of what will happen in NoMa, but in a different way because it now has an opportunity to be a town gown redevelopment where you have a vibrant university that has very longstanding roots in the community and has been an anchor for the residential and livelihood for the area," he continued. "They’ve been waiting a very long time for something like this to happen.”
Splitting the property is a departure from the 2006 plans. That action, ushered through by outgoing Ward 5 Councilman Vincent Orange, was a $1.2 billion plan that gave Choi exclusive rights to redevelop the site. According to a Washington Post article, Choi and his family members contributed $10,000 to Orange’s failed mayoral bid.
Further complicating the project, the 2006 legislation required 50 percent of the market’s property owners to sign off on the proposal before it could move forward.
Current Ward 5 Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. was able to change the project’s boundary by splitting it between Choi’s New Town Development and J Street Development. Splitting the property makes meeting that 50 percent threshold easier. Niether Choi nor Thomas returned phone calls seeking comment.
The Washington Business Journal criticized the boundary change in an August 2008 editorial and called for the city to restart the process, one that includes all of the landowners. Councilman Thomas responded to the editorial by characterizing the boundary change as accommodating the differing schedules of the two projects.
Story continues » "Plan meets resistance"