Thanks to Washington Business Journal reporter Michael Neibauer’s resport below on So Others Might Eat (S.O.M.E.), which has a feeding facility in the Bates area on the unit block of O Street NW.
SOME details its plans for Benning Road Metro project
Michael Neibauer, Staff Reporter- Washington Business Journal
Oct 24, 2013, 10:21am EDT
A year after landing three properties adjacent to the Benning Road Metro Station, So Others Might Eat is explaining to residents how it will transform those parcels into a mixed-use project dubbed Benning and East Capitol Gateway.
The project, funded in part with a $5 million grant from Joanne and William Conway of the Carlyle Group, will include 202 units of affordable, workforce and senior housing (all drug and alcohol free), a sit-down deli, a seven classroom expansion of SOME’s Center for Employment Training, a 36,000-square-foot medical and dental clinic, and administrative offices.
“The Benning and East Capitol Gateway is being developed in response to the severe decline in affordable rental housing, a need for better paid jobs that require training and an expanded need for medical and dental care in a modern facility,” the nonprofit details in a single page document circulated throughout the community.
A handful of residents have expressed concerns, according to Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Janis Hazel, from traffic (too much) to parking (220 spaces, too much) to the deli (there’s a Subway nearby). During Mayor Vincent Gray’s Ward 7 Economic Development Summit, held in late June, 68 percent of participants said the Benning Road Metro area had the highest value in the ward from a private sector investment standpoint. Capital Gateway and Penn Branch were a distant second and third.
SOME owns and manages affordable housing at 12 other D.C. locations, including Capitol Hill, Logan Circle and Eckington. It acquired the three Benning Road parcels – 4414 and 4430 Benning and an adjacent vacant lot on 45th Street NE – last October for $6.7 million.
The property was formerly owned by DBT Development Group, but the developer’s bid to land the D.C. Child and Family Services Agency as a tenant didn’t work out, spurring the sale.
“We see the project as a gleaming example of a public and private partnership to create a well-managed, secure, multi-purpose project that will incorporate the community needs for housing, training and healthcare,” the organization states.
Check out the renderings above.
Bates Area Civic Association 