Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GM heard through the grapevine that Griffin Market has been leased to someone who want to turn it into a neighborhood butcher shop (yay). Plus the old Consignment Shop next door may reopen as a coffee shop (double yay). Also, Panera might move in to the space next to Five Guys (boo).
• New NBC show stars Georgetown native Whitney Cummings. The show’s called “Whitney”, she plays (obviously) the title character, and her character’s mother is named “Patti” much like Whitney’s actual mother (and neighbor of GM) Patti Cumming.
• Streetcars to Georgetown as a jobs-driver.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Ken Archer argues for Georgetown to embrace the streetcar’s return to Georgetown as an expression of historical preservation.
• Ugh.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Tons of good stuff in the Current yesterday:
  • The National Pinball Museum should open in the mall by September
  • The out-of-place Eagle Bank mural was rejected
  • Streetcars should be at Georgetown’s doorstep by 2015
• Wingos still king.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Errata: GM reported over the last week that a vote was possible soon from the Council on the Hurt Home surplussing. That was incorrect. The meeting last week was a roundtable discussion and it was adjourned until July 1. Before the Council can vote on the surplus recommendation it has to be voted out of the committee, which hasn’t happened yet. More explanation here.
• Georgetowner’s love of Georgetown not contingent on clear vistas.

Just hours after taking the above photo of the idyllic southern Massachusetts coastline, GM found himself racing back to Washington in order to attend the June ANC meeting. This fact has no bearing on the meeting itself, but GM just felt you ought to know what sacrifices he makes to keep you informed.

That said, the ANC meeting last night was jam packed and more than justified GM’s sacrifice. Unfortunately, it ran rather long so GM is going to have to keep it short in order to avoid falling asleep at the wheel.

Streetcars

DDOT presented plans for the streetcar and how those plans would affect Georgetown. In DDOT’s ambitious 37 mile plan, the agency calls for a cross-town route to come into Georgetown along K St.

The ANC is generally supportive of the plans but is nervous about how the streetcar could affect traffic, parking, and the viewshed. The overall message from the DDOT representative is that it is way too early to really say what DDOT is going to decide for Georgetown, but he also added that it is likely that there will not be dedicated lanes and that no overhead wire will be used in Georgeown.

On that last point, though, the DDOT representative was a bit ambivalent.  He showed up with an actual cross-sections of the proposed 3/8th inch overhead wire along with several images of what that wire would look like in action. He also discussed the council’s proposal to authorize overhead wires along H St. NE (areas outside of the L’Enfant Plan and Georgetown allow overhead wires already). You could argue that he was trying to soften up Georgetown to accept overhead wires, at least temporarily.

And surprisingly enough, it looks like the ANC may go along with that. They unanimously adopted a resolution that was split into two parts. The first part essentially said that the ANC supports streetcars on K St. so long as there are no dedicated lanes, no parking was removed, and any overhead wires are approved by the Commission of Fine Arts (there was also a request to consider what effect the possible removal of the Whitehurst would have on those plans).

Secondly, the ANC would not object to streetcars on Wisconsin Ave. (or M St., which was added to the resolution after the DDOT rep mentioned that streetcars could end up coming into Georgetown by M St. not k St.) again so long as there are no dedicated lanes and no removal of parking. For Wisconsin and M, however, the ANC put its foot down and said absolutely no overhead wires.

All in all, it was a good resolution for supporters of streetcars in and through Georgetown.

Washington Harbour

Three restaurants in the Washington Harbour complex came before the ANC last night to request a termination of their respective voluntary agreements. They are Cabanas, Nick’s Riverside Grille, and Tony & Joe’s.  Essentially they would like to redraft the agreements from scratch since, they argue, the agreements are overly complicated and cause a form of double jeopardy since they restate the law throughout (thus, when the bars violate the law, they also violate the agreement).

The ANC appears open to redrafting the agreements for the sake of streamlining, but they are likely to oppose some of the additional requests that the restaurants are seeking, most notably their request for amplified music.

How Are Our Hours?

The question of operating hours seemed to wind its way through many items last night. First of all, apparently ABRA will be allowing bars to apply to open up very early to show World Cup games (the games will be early since they’ll be played in South Africa). Specifically, from June 11th till July 11th, bars that apply to ABRA will be able to open at 7AM Monday through Saturday and start serving alcohol at 8 AM (10 AM on Sundays). However, if a bar is subject to a voluntary agreement restricting what hours it may operate, it must get approval from the agreement’s signatories. Unlike how it handled the late inauguration hours, the ANC gave blanket approval for those changes.

Also on the hours topic, three different restaurants requested extensions of hours. All three got the backing of the ANC for those changes. They are:

• Chop Sticks: Monday through Wednesday till 12 AM, Thursday through Saturday till 2 AM, and Sunday till midnight
• Il Canale: Sunday through Thursday till 2 AM, and Friday through Saturday till 3 AM
• Crepe Amour: Sunday through Thursday till 12 AM, and Friday through Saturday till 3 AM. (Earlier they had requested to become a 24 hour operation, but they’ve backed off from that request.)

This Mural Brought to You by Eagle Bank

Eagle Bank brought a proposal to paint a mural on the side of its building at 1044 Wisconsin Ave. They hired local artist Byron Peck to come up with a plan. Peck is well known for painting some of the more memorable murals around town such as the one of Duke Ellington on U St. In GM’s opinion though, this design was not up to his usual standards and would be terribly out of place in Georgetown.

Essentially what they proposed was a giant bald eagle swooping down with a blue sky (and what looked like the moon, oddly enough) behind it. To be perfectly blunt, it looked like something that the Franklin Mint would sell.

The ANC adopted a resolution against it (both because of the design and because it operated like a billboard for the bank), and GM hopes the Old Georgetown Board agrees.

Safeway Development

As discussed here, Safeway is proposing a massive new development just south of its new store on Wisconsin. They didn’t present much more information than what GM already discussed last week. The only really interesting new piece of information is that they intend the car traffic in the new buildings’ parking lot to come from the Safeway driveway and flow one-way back out to Wisconsin.

The ANC objected to this traffic pattern since it would seriously complicate the already messy intersection. They also objected to the design, sort of (they simply asked OGB to require more references in the design to the Georgetown “vernacular”.) We’ll see how this project advances.

The End

Actually, that wasn’t so short after all. Oh well. Here are a few last points:

• Cafe Divan wants some sidewalk tables. It looks, though, that they aren’t likely to get approval for more than a couple of tables on its northernmost corner.
• We’re soon going to lose our Chevy Chase Bank. It’ll finally be renamed Capital One to reflect their merger.
• Violent crime is apparently down, which Commissioner Solomon was quick to attribute to all the reimbursable details Georgetown organizations support

EastBanc’s Plans for Fillmore

GM has covered this, but for those just catching up: EastBanc has agreed to purchase the historic Fillmore School building at 1801 35th St. from the Corcoran (the ANC agenda mistakenly calls this the “Corcoran School”, which is a little confusing to history nuts like GM who know that the historic school building at 1219 28th St. was called the Corcoran School.)

EastBanc plans on converting the building into 15 condos and wants to construct rowhouses on the parking lot (GM estimates they want to build 16-20). EastBanc will come to the ANC to present their plans. When they presented similarly ambitious plans for the post office, they received a pretty warm reception from the ANC and the public. GM doesn’t imagine it will be much different this time.

Streetcars

DDOT was asked to send a rep to last month’s ANC meeting to discuss their streetcar plans for Georgetown. Unfortunately nobody came. They are back on the agenda next week, so hopefully someone will come.

Georgetown Scoops

Something called Georgetown Scoops will be opening up at 2818 Pennsylvania Ave. (which used to house Moda Salon). Sounds like a ice cream shop. With Thomas Sweet’s, Ben & Jerry’s, Haagen Dazs, and the soon to be Serendipity 3 (not to mention frozen yogurt at Iceberry and Sweet Green and gelato at Dolcezza) will there be enough room for another ice cream parlor?

Answer: Of course there’s more room for ice cream.

Liquor Licenses

Oh, about those liquor licenses: If you have a problem with any of the following establishments, you ought to let the ANC know it:

• Arisu, 1734 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
• 1789 Restaurant Tombs F Scotts, 1224 36^th Street, NW
• Bangkok Bistro, 3251 Prospect Street, NW
• Billy Martin’s Tavern, 1264 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
• Additi Restaurant, 3299 M Street, NW
• Casbeh Café/Ledo Pizza Restaurant,  1721 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
• J Paul’s, 3218 M Street, NW
• Pizzeria Paradiso, 3282 M Street, NW
• Pizzeria Uno, 3211 M Street, NW
• Neyla, 3206 N Street, NW
• Four Seasons Hotel, 2800 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
• Miss Saigon, 3057 M Street, NW
• Los Cuates Restaurant, 1564 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

• Epicurean and Company, 3800 Reservoir Road, NW
• La Ruche, 1039 31^st Street, NW
• Filomena, 1063 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
• Harmony Café, 3288 M Street, NW
• Leopold’s Kafe Konditorei/L2, 3315 Cady’s Alley, NW
• Ritz Carlton Georgetown, 3100 South Street, NW
• The Guards, 2915 M Street, NW
• Morton’s The Steakhouse, 3251 Prospect Street, NW
• Vietnam Georgetown Restaurant, 2934 M Street, NW

• Sequoia Grill, 3000-3050 K Street, NW
• Peacock Café, 3251 Prospect Street, NW
• Rugby Café, 1065 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
• The City Tavern Club, 3206 M Street, NW
• Mie N Yu, 3123 M Street, NW
• Georgetown Inn, 1310 Wisconsin Avenue, NW

• Leavey Center, 3800 Reservoir Road, NW
• The Sea Catch, 1054 31^st Street, NW
• Ristorante Piccolo, 1068 31^st Street, NW
• Latham Hotel, 3000 M Street, NW
• Clyde’s, 3236 M Street, NW
• Johnny Rocket, 3131 M Street, NW

The ANC met for its May session last night. Heavy on liquor discussions and mercifully short on residential permit issues, the meeting was a lively one. But are you even reading this or are just thinking about how much you’d love some peach crepes right now?

About Those Crepes

Sometimes words said just cannot be unsaid. Exhibit A: Last month the proprietors of the new Crepe Amour restaurant on M St. described their restaurant as a “grab and go”-type restaurant while asking to get approval to remain open 24-7. There are probably few phrases that they would be worse off using than “grab and go” if they ever hope to get approval as an all-night dining option. For that reason, the owners were back this month desperately explaining all the ways in which they are neither grab nor go.

The commissioners weren’t buying it. They believe that if Crepe Amour is permitted to go to 24-7 operation, they will become Philly Pizza redux. While GM can sympathize with the fact that that part of Georgetown might be sensing a bit of deja vu all over again, he believes that there are fundamental differences. Most importantly, Crepe Amour is on M St. not a side street like Potomac. This is a key difference. The reason that Philly Pizza was such a problem was that it attracted drunk and loud revelers off of M St. who then congregated outside of the restaurant, which happened to also be the outside of a bunch of homes. The commissioners kept harping on the idea that Crepe Amour would “attract” only drunks. But so what? If a drunk student is going to walk back to the campus or their off-campus home through the lower West Village, they are going to do so regardless of whether they stop by for a crepe on M St. beforehand. Maybe 24 hour service is unacceptable for other reasons, but GM thinks the ANC is making an illogical comparison to Philly Pizza in this instance.

About That Liquor

Several different liquor license issues came up last night. The first was an update on the Georgetown moratorium. Last month ABRA approved a temporary extension of the moratorium to prevent the moratorium from expiring while giving the interested parties a bit more time to come up with an agreed upon game plan. What they are likely to approve is the creation of seven new liquor licenses for the Georgetown moratorium zone. Originally the ANC was discussing adding only two, but when research showed that about 14 licenses have “gone” from Georgetown since the institution of the moratorium (either they were transfered out of Georgetown or expired) they felt that a larger increase would still be in keeping with the original intent of the moratorium. Commisioner Charlie Eason made the observation that as long as we still have 16 or so licenses in safe-keeping (i.e. they are issued to licensees but not currently in use) then maybe we ought to address that issue instead of just adding seven more to the mix. During the conversation it was mentioned that there is legislation under consideration that would force licensees holding licenses in safe keeping to use it or lose it (a good idea, if GM doesn’t say so himself). Since that legislation is still speculative and the moratorium won’t come up for review for another five years, the ANC voted to support the addition of seven new licenses.

Also discussed last night was George restaurant. George is an exclusive night clubish-restaurant that took over the Georgetown Billiards space last year. They want to change their voluntary agreement, which they inherited from Georgetown Billiards. The biggest item they’d like to change is the occupancy cap. The VA caps their occupancy at 99 while the actual space occupancy (per the fire department) is closer to 200. Additionally they would like to expand into the courtyard outside. The discussion grew heated at times. Both sides accused the other of acting in bad faith. The upshot is that some sort of conversation will take place between George and the powers-that-be, but that discussion did not start off well.

Finally, the ANC considered a handful of waterfront restaurants: Riverside Grille, Cabana’s and Tony & Joe’s. Essentially these three restaurants have their licenses up for renewal but have also applied to have their VAs amended. Commissioner Lewis wanted to just condense any consideration of a VA change with the consideration of license renewal, but efficiency lost the day and the discussion over their VAs will be split from the ANC’s non-objection to the license renewal.

The Overhead Wire Discussion is So Thin You Can Barely See It

The ANC wanted to discuss the issue of streetcars in Georgetown, in particular the question of whether overhead wires would be used on K St. and whether streetcars would be routed up Wisconsin. Unfortunately DDOT failed to respond to the ANC’s request to send someone to the meeting. There seems to be a will on the part of the ANC to object to overhead wires but keep an open mind on a Wisconsin Ave. streetcar (so long as major concerns are addressed) but they decided to just table the discussion until DDOT can give a presentation first.

Odds and Ends

For a meeting with a visually short agenda, it had an all too common ability to stretch out. Thus the bullets!

• There will be a tree forum held at the House of Sweden this Wednesday night at 6:00 to teach you all about the proper care of our precious trees. Teaser: Look out for the upcoming “Tree Week” here at the Georgetown Metropolitan. It’ll be like Shark Week except not nearly as interesting.
• The farmers markets start up again this week! Check out the Georgetown farmers market in Rose Park on Wednesday and the Glover Park-Burleith farmers market at Hardy on Saturdays.
• One architect presented a plan for a home on O St. that would be “off the grid” and be a totally green house. Oh except for the part about the garage they want to put in. That’s like quiting drinking except hard liquor.

Care of a comment to a Morning Metropolitan, GM became aware of the Wisconsin Ave. Streetcar Coalition. It’s a group of Wisconsin Ave.-based residents and others in the Washington area who support sustainable development and transportation. Their goal is to convince DDOT to make firmer plans to bring a streetcar to Wisconsin Ave.

Little background: Last fall DDOT announced an ambitious plan to bring streetcar lines all over the city.

As you can see, for Georgetown DDOT is planning a line that goes down K St. all the way passed Union Station, out on H St. NE to Benning Rd. What you also see in DDOT’s plans for Georgetown is a gray arrow heading up Wisconsin Ave. This is labeled a possible future route. That characterization is what the Wisconsin Ave. Streetcar Coalition would like to change. They would like it to be more firmly included in the initial plans.

GM would love to see streetcars head up Wisconsin Ave. and replicate the original 32 streetcar line that once traversed the whole city the way the 32 bus series does now.This is a heavily used bus line and Wisconsin Ave. has a string of vibrant yet transit-starved districts. A streetcar would induce way more people to leave the car at home (or not buy a car in the first place) than a bus can.

Yes, the majority of even the planned lines are more pie-in-the-sky than imminent, but the sooner that gray line turns into a colored line, the more likely we’ll see streetcars on Wisconsin Ave.

So join the Wisconsin Streetcar Coalition today on Facebook or contact its organizer Ben Thielen at benthielen (at) yahoo (dot) com to show your support.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Commander Salamander closing. Or moving. It’s not clear.
• The Current reports that the Glover Park ANC is pushing DDOT to more seriously consider a Wisconsin Ave. streetcar line. Right now it’s merely a to-be-considered-later line.
• Want to go to the World Series of Poker? Show up at the City Tavern this Saturday for your chance.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Republican legislators just really hate the idea of us biking.
• The Social Safeway is seeking LEED certification.
• DC Metblogs finds old footage of streetcars gliding through Georgetown heading out to Glen Echo.