May 6, 2024 Emily Wishingrad, Washington, D.C.

With the Washington Capitals and Wizards recommitted to Chinatown, the vision for the future of the area around their arena has come into clearer focus.

The Gallery Place-Chinatown Task Force — created in the wake of the announced, then scuttled, move of the NHL and NBA teams to Virginia — presented eight initial proposals for the future of the area to the public at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library Saturday.

At the forefront of the vision is bringing more people, events and vibrancy into the 130 acres that make up the downtown district, anchored by cultural landmarks like Capital One Arena and the National Portrait Gallery.

The group is headed by three women with a history of developing transformative projects in D.C.: Edens CEO Jodie McLean, Uplands Real Estate principal and former Forest City Washington President Deborah Ratner Salzberg, and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert.

“Jodie and I plan neighborhoods,” Ratner Salzberg said at the unveiling. “That’s what we do. We plan. We build. We execute. And we know that the core of a neighborhood is the people of the neighborhood.”

Some 7,550 residential units could be created in the area, the task force said Saturday, through nearly 5.7M SF of potential office conversion and infill development.

The task force focused on three federal sites that could be redeveloped into apartments and a mix of other uses: the 6.4-acre Government Accountability Office site, the 11.6-acre Department of Labor headquarters and the 6.5-acre site of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the FBI’s headquarters.

The General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate arm, is already set to weigh disposing of the Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue as the agency prepares to relocate to Greenbelt, Maryland. The DOL’s hulking, 1.9M SF headquarters had a 9% occupancy rate last year, according to a report by the Public Buildings Reform Board.

The bulk of the task force’s proposals focused on creating functional streetscapes and gathering places for activities like marketplaces and festivals, as well as incorporating it into the broader network of the District.

“We need to learn how to really turn this district, turn our great institutions, sort of inside out,” McLean said at the event. “Bring them out, bring them to life, bring them together in one place.”

With the Capitals and Wizards now signed on to stay at Capital One Arena through 2050, one of the concepts focuses on connecting the 20,000-seat arena with the outside.

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