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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just wanted to note that La Cosecha has a large parking garage underneath it where you can park for free for the first three hours. It is also used as overflow parking for Union Market.

Every large building being built in the Union Market area has a parking garage, there is zero reason to rely on street parking there. Eventually they'll get rid of the lot at UM to build another building there (with underground parking). Also eventually none of the parking in that neighborhood will be free unless you are shopping at Trader Joe's.

This is how urban development works.[/quote]
Surface parking lots and then above ground garages are more highly preferred than underground garages from a consumer standpoint. All of the surface lots at Pike and Rose fill first before the garages. In downtown Bethesda, the above ground lots fill before the underground lots which never fill. People will circle the garage in Bethesda Row for 15 minutes and not even consider parking in the underground garage just around the corner that has 700 spaces. [/quote]

It doesn't matter. Pike and Rose is in the suburbs. Surface lots are incredibly inefficient in the urban core and surface lots don't last. The surface lot at Union Market will be eliminated in the next few years. It's not even well maintained now -- it's nothing like the lots at Pike and Rose which were built to last a long time.

The developers who are building up Union Market are going to force all the parking underground because it allows them to put up buildings with street level retail and then high rise apartments, greatly increasing the value of the lot. Also, since the build up of the neighborhood involves so many apartments, the development is building in a customer base that does not even need a car, on top of the people who live nearby in NoMa. None of those people are going to drive to Union Market. These are people who bought there specifically so they could walk to all the amenities.

Development in the city and in the suburbs operates differently. Eventually it will be close to impossible to park in Union Market, and when you do, it will cost a lot of money, just like in Navy Yard or the Wharf. And suburbanites will complain. And no one will care because the neighborhood will have enough well off residents to sustain business there, and people from outside the city will just have to suck it up and pay a premium for underground parking, or use public transportation. And many of you will, because you actually like these destinations and they offer a lot more than anything you have in the burbs. Even at a place like Pike and Rose or the Mosaic District, which ultimately are just facsimiles of what the city offers. Sorry.[/quote]

Hm. The ratio of 28 yr olds without kids or a mortgage relative to the rest of the adults in DC and the close suburbs is lopsided in favor of the latter. Spoiler alert - the group that doesn’t live in the micro apartments has more disposable income.

But, feel free to push the vision that the younger, carless renters alone can sustain the kind of CRE conversion needed in downtown DC[/quote]

I don’t even understand what that word salad meant.

The rest of us get that driving to a city center and parking in a surface lot or street for cheap, right in front of the restaurant you want to go to, is not really a thing.

If you chose to live driving distance away from the[b] city core [/b]and won’t take metro, it is what it is.

I don’t think turning downtown DC into a stripmall is anyone’s notion of an economic turnaround plan. [/quote]

What is it with you "Urbanists"?!  Talk like a real person, not some AI bot version.  "Downtown" will do just fine.[/quote]

We “urbanists” actually know DC well. The Wharf and Union Market are not “downtown.”. [/quote]
Neither have significant levels of housing, so why are they doing so well and downtown not so much? Kind of kills that excuse. [/quote]

Actually there is tons of housing in those neighborhoods. What are you talking about?[/quote]
“Tons”. LOL.

There is a lot of new housing in Navy Yard. The Wharf has a few hundred multi-million dollar condos complimented by DCHA and Section 8 housing in the adjacent community. There is clearly not enough people that live there that could ever keep that boardwalk of mediocre restaurants viable.

Union Market area similarly just has a few apartment buildings and clearly not enough to make the vendors at La Cosecha viable because it’s at the ground floor of a large building.

Union Market itself has no housing above it (how awful!) and sits next to a good sized surface parking lot and it’s thriving.

Go figure. 
[/quote]

Wtf are you talking about? NOMA is crammed with housing, then you have all of the rowhouses/small apartments south of Union Market. Granted SW doesn’t have as much new housing but still absurd. You really need to get out of Barnaby Woods more often. [/quote]
The fact that you think NOMA is contiguous with Union Market says a lot about how well you know DC. Not much evidently. A lot of the so-called progressives trying to influence DC politics seem to live in Takoma Park and Hyattsville, which probably explains why you don’t know basic geography or neighborhoods. [/quote]

wtf are you talking about? there is new housing ALL AROUND Union Market, which yes, includes the area known as NOMA. Literally, wtf are you talking about? and of course new buildings right in the Union Market area, and the existing dense residential south of it and Eckington to the North. Some of these areas could be better connected to market itself, but they are working on that with the new NOMA metro exit and Dave Thomas circle and improvements to the Met Branch trail. [/quote]

Like I’m just scratching my head about this. Are you thinking that the fact that someone has to walk or bike down M St to get from NOMA to Union Markt means they are not contiguous? That’s just really odd. It sounds like you must drive everywhere and can’t fathom walking 10 minutes to get to dinner?[/quote]
It’s funny how angry you get when confronted with the fact that you don’t know DC neighborhoods. Now NOMA is a 10 minute walk to Union Market.

Guess what. NOMA is also a 10 minute walk to downtown. So why isn’t downtown thriving?

You’re a joke. 
[/quote]

Honestly can you show me on a map wtf you mean? Every building in NOMA is close enough to Union Market to walk there. I live in the neighborhood. By what definition is  NOMA not next to Union Market? [/quote]

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