Big GDS news

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tenley has never been Georgetown -- but it is a nice place to live. Zoning helps keep it that way. Hipper restaurants, bars and retail could be great. BTW -- Connecticut Ave. used to be cool, too. But it is looking vacant as well. Letting landowners determine density is the wrong approach.

There's nothing wrong with trying to stay a nice neighborhood in which to live. Several decades ago, for example, Cleveland Park faced a choice whether to bulldoze much of Connecticut Ave. and become a restaurant and bar destination like Adams Morgan. Instead, they put in an historic district and tried to maintain a mixture of restaurants, shops and a great movie theater through zoning. Today, U Street may be a hipper destination, but the C.P. is highly valued for its green spaces, walkability and historic streets. The great thing about Washington is the diversity of neighborhoods where people can choose what's important to them -- it's not necessary that Tenleytown or Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase DC be just like Friendship Heights, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tenley has never been Georgetown -- but it is a nice place to live. Zoning helps keep it that way. Hipper restaurants, bars and retail could be great. BTW -- Connecticut Ave. used to be cool, too. But it is looking vacant as well. Letting landowners determine density is the wrong approach.

There's nothing wrong with trying to stay a nice neighborhood in which to live. Several decades ago, for example, Cleveland Park faced a choice whether to bulldoze much of Connecticut Ave. and become a restaurant and bar destination like Adams Morgan. Instead, they put in an historic district and tried to maintain a mixture of restaurants, shops and a great movie theater through zoning. Today, U Street may be a hipper destination, but the C.P. is highly valued for its green spaces, walkability and historic streets. The great thing about Washington is the diversity of neighborhoods where people can choose what's important to them -- it's not necessary that Tenleytown or Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase DC be just like Friendship Heights, etc.

Even of this dull grouping, which is the dreariest?

[Anonymous]

Frankly, Wilson HS and, yes, GDS students themselves create a drag on the Tenley commercial area -- which lead to a preponderance of fast food and fast casual restaurants. It's unlikely that things will change, particularly with the almost daily "wilding" when Wilson lets out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, Wilson HS and, yes, GDS students themselves create a drag on the Tenley commercial area -- which lead to a preponderance of fast food and fast casual restaurants. It's unlikely that things will change, particularly with the almost daily "wilding" when Wilson lets out.

Yeah, I guess that's why Tenleytown is dominated by mattress discounters, car dealers, faded sushi places, and the Container Store. It's all those Wilson students wilding after school. DH just told me that Tenleytown's famed Dancing Crab went under (maybe a victim of wilding too?).

[Anonymous]

Wait, you want -- neighborhood serving retail?!? Square! You're the reason we can't have nice things.

Anonymous wrote:Lots of people -- including people with school-aged kids --don't want to live in everyone else's go-to neighborhood for nightlife. And when we want a night out, we'd rather head downtown than around the block.

Around the block, we want everyday stuff like grocery stores, drugstores, schools, playgrounds, gym/yoga studio/pool/dojo, places to buy toys, books, and music, a library, fast casual dining and takeout, a hardware store, a dry cleaner, and a Metrorail station. We've got all that -- and more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try walking more/farther. Seriously, Van Ness and CC border Tenleytown.

I walk to Child's play instead of Sullivan's and go to Van Ness all of the time. It would be nice to do stuff in my own neighborhood though rather than clog up everyone else's neighborhood.

Realistically, you aren't going to get another toy store when you're 1.5 miles away from two others, one of which is large, excellent, and very well- established. And it's bizarre to think you're "clogging up" someone else's neighborhood by walking there, while at the same time supporting a project that will bring 700 more students and 200 apartments to a couple blocks of Tenleytown.

[Anonymous]

Not suggesting another toy store. Suggesting anything that we can walk to in our own neighborhood other than a used car lot and barren streetscape.

[Anonymous]

Unless you want to walk to an apartment or GDS's L/MS, then this project is unlikely to have much to offer you. Maybe another mini-mart or another fast casual place. I'm baffled by the suggestion that this project is going to make Tenleytown hip. There will be a clusterf**k of traffic a couple of times a day and even more students, which is part of what gives the area the kind of retail environment it has. Hardly a game-changer.

[Anonymous]

I support GDS moving forward with a revised plan but I have no expectations that more condos or retail are going to improve the neighborhood in any way. There is nothing I like about GDS plan other than improving the school's facilities - I think every school should be allowed to do that. But condos and retail as a game changer - nope. it's just stacked boxes for people to live in.

[Anonymous]

Until and unless population density increases, Tenleytown will continue to be a dreary strip surrounded by a startingly (for DC anyway) homogenous residential population. Of course the GDS development isn't going to solve problems caused by decades of chasing away any change, but it will be a step in the right direction of starting to create a more urban village within our great city.

[Anonymous]

There's nothing villagey about what's proposed. And nothing particularly urban either. Kind of a worst of both worlds scenario -- you get the sterility of the suburbs with all the inconveniences associated with cities.

[Anonymous]

Urban planning 101. Not every bit of development has to be villagey, but should help increase pop density, which will then let the bits and pieces of Tenleytown that could actually be nice , then become nicer.

Is there anyone there who really longs for a decrepit Safeway or a Volvo dealership? Hard to see how things can go anywhere but up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I support GDS moving forward with a revised plan but I have no expectations that more condos or retail are going to improve the neighborhood in any way. There is nothing I like about GDS plan other than improving the school's facilities - I think every school should be allowed to do that. But condos and retail as a game changer - nope. it's just stacked boxes for people to live in.

Actually, each time a new development adds a few hundred more residents, it changes the equation for retailers and store owners who are deciding where to open a new place, so i reality, while this individual project may not change much (though there should be more ground floor retail space), the aggregate of more people will help provide the necessary demand for new and better places.

[Anonymous]

And as for students alone driving what retail goes in, that shouldn't happen if there are enough other people (with far more disposable income than a bunch of teenagers) living and walking around the neighborhood. Look at Barracks Row on Capitol Hill, which used to be a hangout for Marines at the Barracks and lots of college interns looking for cheap beer. It now has places like Rose's Luxury, Garrison, and $250/person Pineapple and Pearls--all within a block of a couple of thousand Marines (who still have their own bar or two).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not suggesting another toy store. Suggesting anything that we can walk to in our own neighborhood other than a used car lot and barren streetscape.

I kind of like the businesses there now -- the bike store is absolutely terrific and and "used car lot" features antique and vintage autos. That's more interesting to me than six stories of hipster flats on top of yet another Five Guys and a Starbucks.