The resident organizers of a
drive to transform the warehouse at Half and L Streets SE into a "
Half Street Market" are holding a public meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 7 pm at
200 I Street (aka the Post Plant, aka 225 Virginia Avenue).
The "idea and design team" -- now with neighboring ANC 6D07 commissioner David Garber taking on a larger role and 6D02 commissioner Ed Kaminski having "stepped away," according to Garber -- are wanting to have the building become a "public market, restaurant(s), and culinary incubator/training center."
There's no indication from GSA that the building's move to the surplus list is imminent, and there's also questions on how exactly the building (on such valuable land, just north of the Navy Yard Metro station's Half Street entrance) would escape being auctioned to net the feds millions of dollars and instead be transferred to the city and/or some as-yet-uncreated nonprofit group. This would have to happen under the federal guidelines for
acquiring federal real property for educational purposes, which includes applying to the Department of Education to
sponsor the transfer and which would seem to require that the incubator/training center be the centerpiece of the building's new mission. On the other hand, Garber recently described the project in an e-mail to his neighborhood mailing list as "still in its infancy and constantly evolving," so no doubt the organizers of the drive to acquire the building have a plan they feel will meet the feds' requirements.
I probably won't be at the meeting, so if you're interested in the project, best get thee to 200 I on Tuesday rather than looking for a summary here.