maurice martin : : freelance journalist & playwright

Convention Center Authority moves to protect businesses during construction

By Maurice Martin

From the August 20, 1999 Washington Business Journal

Let's say your new neighbors were building on their property and they had to move some dirt -- about 1.3 million cubic yards of it. Odds are, you'd find that disruptive, what with the airborne dust, the building of slurry walls and the rerouting of utility lines.

That's pretty much the situation faced by the businesses surrounding the site of D.C.'s new convention center. By the end of this summer, construction crews will have moved half a million cubic yards of dirt from an area bounded by Mount Vernon Place, Seventh Street, N Street and Ninth Street NW. Later, the hole will reach its maximum size when 1.3 million cubic yards have been excavated -- it will encompass an area the size of six city blocks to a depth of about 60 feet.

The merchants along Ninth Street are having a particularly hard time now because their street has been temporarily moved 25 feet to the east. Between the sidewalk and the street is a new gully acting like a moat separating businesses from their vehicle-borne customers.

The road is scheduled to be moved back in November, but the construction will continue for a long time. The new convention center won't open until March 2003.

You'd think the local merchants would be up in arms. But, for the most part, they are not.

Ed Fleming, owner of Modern Liquor on Ninth Street, has been at his current location for 25 years and said the effects of the construction on his business have been "devastating."

But he followed up by saying: "I backed the convention center before they started work, and I still back it."

The surprising and strong support by local merchants flows, at least in part, from an aggressive, proactive effort by the Washington Convention Center Authority -- an independent authority of the District of Columbia charged with building the new center -- to mitigate the negative impact of the construction.

WCCA has started a number of programs to reach out to local businesses and residents, including a program of grants for local businesses that lose money due to construction-related disruptions. WCCA is fighting to keep locals like Ed Fleming on its side. Many of them, in turn, believe that WCCA is setting a new standard for neighborly behavior by large construction projects in D.C.
Hotline, newsletter and meetings

Lewis Dawley, general manager and chief executive officer of WCCA, said the location of D.C.'s new convention center is unusual.

"When building a convention center, cities usually choose to build away from everything else. The D.C. site isn't like that -- it's a historic area with businesses, residents, churches and schools. For that reason, I don't know that there's ever been a [convention center construction] project as complicated as this one."

To stay in touch with the diverse elements of the area, Dawley has established multiple channels of communication. There is now a 24-hour hotline for people with questions or complaints related to the construction. WCCA puts out a newsletter every other month filled with information about the center. WCCA representatives attend community and church meetings, or pop in on local businesses to find how construction is affecting them.

When it comes to easing the impact of construction, a memorandum of agreement signed by WCCA, the D.C. government and the National Capital Planning Commission defines certain tasks that WCCA must perform.

Some tasks amount to making things easier for area businesses -- such as studies to determine the best way to reroute traffic. Some are community improvements -- like the $2 million earmarked for improving the nearby Carnegie Library (see box for more WCCA programs).

However, WCCA has also established programs over and above what is required by the memorandum. One of these is the WCCA Business Assistance Grant Program, which makes available up to $20,000 for affected businesses.

To qualify, businesses must have been operating under current ownership for one year prior to construction, be recognized by the D.C. government as a legal entity, have a lease for at least two years or own their property, and prove that all District and federal taxes are current. The businesses must then provide past financial statements or copies of business tax returns and current profit and loss statements that document loss of income.

The program, which will be administered by the North Capital Community Development Corporation, is a groundbreaking effort for a large D.C. construction project -- neither Metro nor the MCI Center had such a program during their construction phases.

For those businesses with losses of more than $20,000, WCCA will help merchants apply for additional grants available through D.C.'s Department of Housing and Community Development.

Another WCCA effort above and beyond the memorandum requirements addresses parking spaces lost to construction along Ninth Street and the west side of Seventh Street.

To make up some of the spaces, WCCA has rented lots at Seventh and L streets and Ninth and M streets and made these lots available to customers of the businesses along Seventh Street and Ninth Street.

WCCA has also exceeded what is required by the memorandum of agreement for community improvements. WCCA has instigated a $980,000 job training program for local residents. Although not a direct benefit to the local businesses, Lewis said the increased earning potential will strengthen the community surrounding the convention center.
Learning from Metro's mistakes

Lewis said that WCCA has benefited from the fact that local businesses have organized and been able to communicate their needs in a unified voice. Part of this unity comes from having lived through a similar upheaval a decade ago, when Metro built its green line up Seventh Street.

Memories from that time are not happy ones. Jim Carr, manager of Al-perstein's Furniture on Seventh Street, points out of his shop's front windows.

"Metro used Seventh Street to store their excess dirt," he said.

The dirt formed an effect barrier against customers.

Helen Durham, owner of Crimpz, a hair salon on Seventh St., has been in her current location for 15 years and also remembers the bad old days of Metro construction. Two years ago, at a prayer breakfast at Shiloh Baptist Church, she and other local business owners started talking about ways to address problems related to the convention center construction.

That meeting resulted in the formation of the Mount Vernon Business Alliance, a group of approximately 35 businesses ringing the construction site. Durham currently serves as co-chair of MVBA.

"We wanted to address three issues: getting tax relief for our business losses, replacement parking spaces and grants to offset business losses," said Durham.

Tax relief is still under discussion, but WCCA has already secured the parking spaces and organized the grant program.

"WCCA has also provided signage to help customers navigate the area," said Durham. "They've been great to work with."

Carr gives WCCA high marks for its "Keep It Clean Team." Under this program, mandated by the memorandum of agreement, workers are dispatched six days a week to sweep streets, gather debris and generally tidy up in a two-block radius around the construction site. The workers employed are formerly homeless.

"This is so much better than Metro," said Carr. "They weren't neighbors, they were tyrants."
Room for improvement

Not all businesses in the area are impressed with WCCA. Onabe Tashi, owner of Perforations, a tattoo and piercing shop on the basement level at the corner of Ninth and M streets, said that WCCA was two months late getting parking passes for her customers to use the nearby lot. Tashi, whose shop has been there four years, said her business is off by about 78 percent lately.

"We've also had problems with construction workers hassling employees and customers," she said. "One day we were evacuated because of a broken gas main -- we pretty much lost a day's worth of business."

Rocky Lumpkins, co-owner of Central Key and Lock said the "Keep It Clean Team" hasn't been by his Ninth Street location that much. But he said that overall, WCCA has "been fairly responsive."

When he told them that the temporary plywood sidewalk wasn't suitable for moving safes in and out of his shop, WCCA responded by setting down extra-thick layers.

Despite the conflicts, Dawley points with pride to what WCCA is bringing to the community. He's announced a number of community minded goals for the convention center: 51 percent of all new construction jobs are to come from the District, and 35 to 45 percent of the center's construction and other services are to be performed by businesses legally designated as local, small, disadvantaged business enterprises.

Dawley hopes efforts of the WCCA will ensure the relationships forming between the convention center, local businesses and the surrounding residents will continue after the construction is done.

"We're a neighbor in this community," he said. "Our attitude is, let's make it a stronger community. That's to our benefit."