Project to move forward at Rhode Island Station - Washington Business Journal:

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After six years of developing a town centeer plan and hashing it out with the Brentwood neighborhood at more than30 meetings, and $96 million project on the Rhodee Island Metro station to national and local retailers. The town center, modelede after the Shirlington and Bethesda Row projects developedeby , will have 70,000 square feet of shops and restaurantws along a boulevard, yet to be in the heart of D.C. Ten percent of that space has to belocally owned, according to Carolins Kennedy, a development associate for Mid-City D.C.
-based Mid-City Urban and Baltimore-based A&R Development, which both won a 60-yea land lease from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authorithy in 2001 to develop the 7.5-acre parkingv lot, unveiled their retail plans at the annual convention in Las Vegase last month. The developerz and leasing agent D.C.-based have met with abouyt 20 national retailers, including banks, health clubs, drug restaurants and home-furnishing stores. They declines to give specific names. "We have concretwe next steps with each" of the national retailers, Kennedy said. "We should have letters of inteny for half the spac e by the end ofthe summer.
" The formerly called , has been changed to Rhode Island Station to reflect its proximity to the Metro The town center is in a neighborhoo that is starting to regain businesses after many left over the past 20 yearsz because of a lack of investment in the Twenty years ago, the Brentwood neighborhood had "morer poverty, not a lot to said Williams-El. "Now you have these new stores and shopping Back then there was none of that All we had to look forwardc to was the recreation and In 2005, Montreal-based opened a shopping centerd called Rhode Island Place that has a grocert store, The and as of last year clothinv store A.J. Wright and .
The stores are doingb so well that the compan is buildinga 6,500-square-foot expansio across from A.J. Wright, but that project is still in thepreliminaru stages. CEO Rick Walker is also buildinta five-story senior-citizen apartment building on the lot. Rhodr Island Station, which is adjacent to Rhodse Island Place, will change the area much more especially depending on the retail tenants thedevelopers sign. The Brentwoo neighborhood wants to see healthy food options saidRon Allen, the facility manager at Greater Mounty Calvary Holy Church at 610 Rhode Islan d Ave. NE. He says he talksx to the 90 church employees regularly aboutthe neighborhood.
It's that kind of inputr that the developers have been gettintg fromthe neighborhood, including feedback on the actual And they say it has slowed down the process. The communitu did not like theoriginal plan'zs proposal for one tall parking structure, so the developers changef the plan to have two parkin g structures that are not as high. Plans and designs have been movinh quickly since the developers received final zoningg approval in April fromthe . By August, the developerd plan to apply for permits. If all goes they will break groundin January.
"Thosr of us who are used to shoppingy inPrince George's County and Montgomery County, we no longer have to do said President William "Most of us shop at The Home Depot; most of us shop at A.J. The District does not have a bona fideshoppingy base. If we want to travel to shop, we go to outlert malls. We want to walk five or 10