As reported in the Washington Business Journal, the auction for the West Heating Plant began last Friday but has yet to receive a single bid.
The auction runs until February 19th, so there’s still plenty of time until the gavel comes down. But the lack of initial interest may be telling of significant challenges GSA will have finding eager buyers willing to pay a high value for the property. Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
As reported over the weekend by Aaron Wiener of the Citypaper, Paul Simkin, the owner of Jack’s Bathouse, is asserting the the National Park Service no longer owns the Georgetown waterfront.
Simkin’s assertion is based upon a reading of the original council resolution regarding the transfer of the land from the city to NPS in 1985. The resolution provides that the transfer will revert to the city if there are any amendments to the deed. There have been two amendments, in 2000 and 2005.
GM’s worst grade in law school was in property law, so he has zero idea how strong a case Simkin has. His initial thought is that it’s not terribly strong since the reversion language is in a council resolution and not the deed of transfer itself. But that’s a C+ property law student talking.
Filed under Uncategorized
One of GM’s favorite things is Google Maps’ Streetview. It enables you to explore a city on foot from the comfort of your computer. One drawback to the service is that the photos they use for the service are pretty old. So if you want to, say, see what a new (or even somewhat new) restaurant looks like, chances are all you’ll find is an image of what used to be there.
But for DC’s Streetview, Google has now jumped forward in time. It’s not quite the present, far from it, but it’s better. Specifically it now shows what DC looked like as of the summer of 2011.
How does GM know it was then? Because he remembers them driving by:
There’s GM, out prowling with his camera, captured for posterity by Google (at least till the update the photos again).
It would be great to have a more updated photo, but it takes a long time to go through each frame a blur faces and signs, etc.
Filed under Around Town
Photo by Elvert Barnes.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Last night DDOT hosted a meeting with the community to discuss parking. The meeting came out of a long series of discussions that have been going on for years between representatives of the ANC, CAG, and the BID to address the parking situation in Georgetown.
As expected the meeting was lively and well attended. After a short introduction by DC’s parking Czar Angelo and his colleague Damon Harvey, the crowd of about 40-50 was broken up into three discussion groups to tackle three topics of challenges: residential parking, parking for commercial establishments, and institutional parking.
The bulk of the crowd (and GM) gravitated to the first group, where opinions were strong although not always in agreement.
For instance, early on in the discussion, someone suggested the creation of a ANC2E-only parking permit. Under such a scheme, only those who live in Georgetown or Burleith would get the benefit of unlimited parking in those neighborhoods. As it stands now, anyone who lives in Ward 2–which stretches all the way to the Convention Center and down to Southwest DC–can park without restriction in ANC2E.
Lots of heads nodded in approval for that proposal. But then one member piped up, essentially, “Hey I like parking in Dupont. If our zone is reduced, then I can’t drive and park there unrestricted.” Some other heads then bobbed in approval of that, and cited the distance to the Metro. Others then responded, hey if you want to go to Dupont, take a bus. It’s not like there’s any parking anyway.
And that pretty much set the tone for the evening. Lots of impassioned opinions, with nods of agreement often followed by rebuttals.
Probably the most contentious issue was that of the idea of making the side streets pay-for-parking. Some of the objections to the idea were to the aesthetics of not wanting physical meters on the side streets. That, in fact, is not a likely proposal anyway. Any plan for pay-for-parking in the side streets would involve the use of pay-by-cellphone, which only necessitates the signs be changed.
Filed under Transportation
Photo by Ariel Design.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
GM was recently browsing the website the GSA created in anticipation of the auction of the monumental West Heating Plant in Georgetown when he came across some fascinating historical photos on the site.
They even have what would now be described as “construction cam” photos. GM gif’d them:
It’s too bad that small building just north of the West Heating Plant was torn down at some point.
There’s more great stuff. Like here’s a photo of the empty lot before construction began: Continue reading
Filed under History
Photo by GUCNDLS.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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