D.C. Moves Forward With Efforts To Develop 110-Acre Waterfront Site

The D.C. government is taking its first major step forward in years in the long-planned effort to turn a 110-acre site on Poplar Point in Anacostia into a mixed-use waterfront destination.

Mayor Muriel Bowser's administration is releasing a new request for proposals for an owner's representative to guide the waterfront site through a series of complex approval, relocation and development processes that are set to take place in the coming years, Bisnow has learned.

Though construction on the site is still years away, interim Deputy Mayor Keith Anderson told Bisnow he expects the Poplar Point project to be “a very large-scale development,” akin to the Navy Yard or The Wharf.

“Poplar Point is one of the largest potential waterfront development sites on the East Coast, quite frankly,” Anderson said. “What we have here is a 110-acre site that we envision will connect the Anacostia neighborhood to the Anacostia River and provide a much-needed resource for the community going forward.” 

The agency is launching the RFP with a three-week solicitation period and expects to make a selection soon after that. It is seeking an owner's representative, likely a firm with architectural and engineering expertise, because of the complexity of the site. 

In planning out the area, Anderson said DMPED and the chosen owner’s representative will initiate conversations with Ward 8 residents about what they would like to see out of the development. 

“This is a place where we want to ensure that we celebrate community, we celebrate our culture and our history,” he said. 

Anderson said preserving the natural environment, creating green spaces and providing affordable housing will be priorities as development plans move forward. He also said he believes there’s a “tremendous opportunity” to bring a large office user to the area, either a government agency or private sector tenant. 

The property sits directly across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge from Nationals Park and the fast-growing Navy Yard and Buzzard Point neighborhoods. The new bridge, which opened in September 2021, was eyed as a way to bring the economic growth those neighborhoods have experienced into Anacostia. 

Plans to develop the site have been in the works since as far back as 2006, when Congress passed legislation to set the requirements the District must meet in order to acquire the land. It is still working to meet all of those requirements, and the federal government still owns the land, but the site has undergone multiple environmental assessments and cleanup efforts in the years since.

A 2009 proposal from Jair Lynch and ERA Architects called for 1.5M SF of office, 405K SF of retail, 3,200 residential units and 224K SF of hotel in the area.

In 2018, the District and the National Park Service began the first phase of the Remedial Investigation process, a required step in the site's environmental review, and last year it began the second stage of that process, according to a timeline on D.C.'s website.

Before development can start, the owner's representative will have to help DMPED relocate the existing National Park Service and U.S. Park Police facilities on the site, including finding a new location for a helicopter base. It hopes to start work on that helicopter facility by 2025.

Only after those relocations happen can the land be transferred to the D.C. government. The owner's representative would also assist DMPED In the planning and design required to redevelop the site after the transfer. But DMPED expects to seek a separate development team to build on the site once it controls the land. 

Poplar Point is located next to RedBrick LMD’s Bridge District development, the first building of which, mixed-use multifamily project The Douglass, is expected to deliver in 2025. 

Anderson says he’s looking forward to bringing on an owner's representative and moving forward with the process to develop the site. 

“I’m really excited about getting this RFP on the street for the owner’s rep and beginning that process to ensure that we can have the land transferred to the city and then really begin taking the steps towards developing Poplar Point.”