Norton's Big Southeast Federal Center Project Breaks Ground Wednesday (10/2/07)

Norton's Big Southeast Federal Center Project Breaks Ground Wednesday
October 2, 2007

Washington, DC-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will help break ground at 10:30 AM, Wednesday, October 3, on a major development now known as The Yards along the Anacostia waterfront, that resulted from Norton's Southeast Federal Center Public-Private Development Act of 2000. The bill allowed private sector development of a federal tract for the first time and is the only public-private mixed-use project in the United States. Norton will join federal and city officials at the 5.2 million square foot office, retail and residential project at Fourth and Tingey Streets, SE, formerly called the Southeast Federal Center (SEFC). The groundbreaking will mark the most significant step since Norton announced in 2002 a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to develop the entire 55 acre SEFC site where the headquarters of the Department of Transportation also is being built and Forest City later was chosen as the private entity to build on the federal land. Norton wrote the unique legislation after the federal government failed to locate federal agencies on the SEFC site, launching a new direction in federal land use to the benefit of the federal and District governments, the private sector, and the local economy.

The private development will produce sizable financial benefits for the District in the form of tens of millions of dollars in annual income, corporate and real estate taxes. A plan for apprenticeships and jobs, tapped for District residents that Norton has negotiated for all federal construction and renovation here, will be used on the project. "D.C. residents will get good paying jobs for some 20 years, as parcel after parcel is developed," Norton said. Certified apprenticeships using the Norton agreement are already being used by the General Services Administration (GSA) and other federal agencies on many projects including the Department of Transportation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives and other federal renovations across the city. Combined with the movement of 10,000 jobs to the Navy Yard, which Norton secured in 1995, and the DOT headquarters, the SEFC is helping to revive and transform an entire area of the District with city residents and businesses getting benefits in land and income from the federal government.

The GSA is leasing and selling different parcels of the federal property to Forest City. The developer will build public infrastructure and a new waterfront park open to the public that GSA will relinquish for District use. The Yards will include 3.2 million square feet of affordable and market rate housing; 2 million square feet of commercial, retail and cultural space; open space; and amenities that will attract residents, visitors and office workers.