Please remember to sign up for retail & public space programming focus groups being conducted for Art Place at Fort Totten on May 29 & 30 at 5:00 pm & 7:00 pm on both days. Each session will be identical so you only need to sign up for one session. Several 5:00 pm seats are open on both days, so if you can attend the earlier time that would be great. If you can only attend the 7:00 pm session, go ahead and sign up for that time slot. Each session will last approximately 90 minutes.

TO SIGN UP: Send email to artplaceprogramming@gmail.com with one preferred day & time to attend. Focus groups will take place at The Modern at Art Place, 400 Galloway Street NE. Pizza and refreshments will be served.

This is your chance to have a say in what goes into the development so please participate! See the Art Place team message below.
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Dear Neighbor,

You are cordially invited to participate in a focus group to help us program future retail, activities, and amenities at Art Place at Fort Totten. Four focus groups will be held at The Modern at Art Place (400 Galloway St NE, Washington DC 20011). Each session is limited to 20 people. Please respond to this email indicating the ONE time slot that you would like to attend.  Sessions will be held the evenings of May 29th and May 30th.

Each night we will hold a session at 5:00 PM and again at 7:00 PM.  The four sessions are identical and will each last 90 minutes.  Pizza and refreshments will be provided.

Parking can be found either on the street or in the retail garage (entrance on South Dakota Avenue).

Your participation will help make Art Place at Fort Totten a lively and active destination filled with things to do at all times of day and for all ages. We look forward to seeing you there!

–The Art Place Team

The Art Place at Fort Totten team is conducting retail and public space programming focus groups on May 29 & May 30, at 5:00 pm & 7:00 pm both days at The Modern at Art Place, located at 400 Galloway Street NE. Each session is 90 minutes. Pizza and refreshments will be served. If interested, send an email with the one day and time you would like to participate to artplaceprogramming@gmail.com.

Also, if you have not filled out the Art Place survey, you can do so until May 28 here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9M26PYZ.

These are opportunities for you to directly let the Art Place team know how you think the development can become a lively retail and programming destination.

As promised, you can now take a survey regarding retail and public space programming at Art Place at Fort Totten, the development on Galloway Street and South Dakota Avenue NE. Please be as specific as possible where you are able to enter in your ideas and thoughts about retail and programming. The survey will close on May 28. Please let your neighbors know.

On November 27, 2017, Mayor Muriel Bowser cut the ribbon to celebrate the opening of the first phase of Art Place at Fort Totten, The Modern at Art Place. Developed by the Cafritz Foundation, the first phase brings 520 rental apartments and over 100,000 square feet of retail to Riggs Park.  

Calvin and Jane Cafritz gave opening remarks. Mr. Cafritz spoke about his late father Morris Cafritz, who developed the Riggs Plaza apartments as workforce housing in the 1950’s. Most of those apartment buildings were torn down in 2012 to make way for the new development.

Mrs. Cafritz followed by speaking about the role of art in bringing a community together. The Modern features works by various artists influenced by the Washington Color School. Mrs. Cafritz noted that the first phase will have a 24-hour gym (X-Sport Fitness), pharmacy, pediatric dentist, daycare facility, ANC 5A office, and possibly a coffee shop and eyewear shop later on. The retail portion is not completely built out just yet and is expected to open after the new year. The Explore! Children’s Museum is lined up for the second phase. Future phases could bring additional retail, community and family recreation space, cultural spaces, and even another school to the neighborhood, this one focused on art.

Mayor Bowser focused her remarks on the importance of maintaining affordable housing. Of the 520 apartments at the Modern, 140 are offered at below-market rate for seniors and for the tenants who resided in the Riggs Plaza apartments.

This is the second ribbon cutting for the mayor during the month of November in our neighborhood. Mayor Bowser, who lived in Riggs Park for 17 years, celebrated the opening of Culture Coffee Too on November 13. It is really exciting to see long-planned development delivering in Riggs Park.

To view video of the ribbon cutting of The Modern at Art Place, click here.

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of October 23 2017 thru the week of October 30 2017 FINAL (pdf)

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of October 9 2017 thru the week of October 16 2017 FINAL  (pdf)

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of September 25 2017 thru the week of October 2 2017 FINAL

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of September 11 2017 thru the week of September 18 2017 FINAL (pdf)

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of August 21 2017 thru the week of September 4 2017 FINAL (pdf)

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of August 7 2017 thru the week of August 14 2017 FINAL

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/explore-summer-family-festival-tickets-36063548043

Explore! Summer Children’s Festival
August 5, 2017
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
5234 4th Street NE

From Explore! Children’s Museum:

Our final festival of the Summer is here! Come learn about Explore! Children’s Museum, create something new with Imagination Stage and play with members of your DC community and local teaching artists – all at the site of the future Children’s Museum!

We will be providing free books again from local author Tom Noll and coloring books from Color with Luna! Learn to play different instruments at the Percussion Playground from The Uncle Devin Show!
There will be a Mad Science show from 11:30 – 12:15 p.m. – Don’t Miss it! Light snacks and water will be available.

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of July 24 2017 thru the week of July 31 2017 FINAL

In response to DC’s Zoning Commission, the Cafritz Foundation provided a more detailed status update on Art Place at Fort Totten. See: Submission on behalf of Cafritz re further status update on Buildings A and B-6-29-2017 (pdf)

For the first phase (Building A), the development team still anticipates that residents will begin moving into the residential apartments called The Modern at Art Place around August 2017. Retailers are expected to be open for business around first quarter 2018.

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of June 26 2017 thru the week of July 3 2017 FINAL (pdf)

Yesterday, we provided a status update on the first two phases of Art Place at Fort Totten. Bisnow also reported in a newsletter yesterday that the Art Place team has reached out to Trader Joe’s and MOM’s Organic to anchor the second phase, noting that residents have expressed a desire for some type of organic grocer in the neighborhood.

‘Tis true. For several months, there have been rumblings about a Trader Joe’s in the neighborhood. And something of a grassroots campaign has started with residents requesting a Trader Joe’s in Riggs Park through the company’s official location request page. The page allows anyone to “request a TJ in my city.” It states, “There are no guarantees, but being wanted matters to us.” We have been told by a knowledgeable source that the company does pay attention to these location requests and if it receives say around 300 requests to locate in a neighborhood, as opposed to receiving just 12, then it really pays attention. So we won’t go so far as to say that 300 is the magic number to show that the store is wanted, but if you are so inclined to assist your fellow neighbors in getting to that ballpark figure, then go to the location request page and ask for a Trader Joe’s in Riggs Park at Art Place.

Some of the things people have noted in their requests:

• Art Place at Fort Totten is a multi-phase development with the necessary square footage for a Trader Joe’s. It is centrally located to draw customers from different parts of DC (north, south, east, and west) and from areas in Maryland like Hyattsville and Takoma Park. It is also right near Fort Totten metro station, which serves three different lines and several bus routes.
• Trader Joe’s has a positive reputation for being a high-quality store and can compete on price with Walmart and Giant. Also, the store can sell wine and beer if it locates in Art Place, which is on the Ward 5 side of the neighborhood.
• New housing, both rental and for sale, is under construction in and around the neighborhood. Fort Totten Square recently delivered. Art Place will soon deliver 520 rental units in the the first phase. Roughly 40 townhomes are expected at Totten Mews. Additional multi-family housing is expected through WMATA’s partnership with Donatelli to redevelop the long-term parking lot at Fort Totten metro station. And 180 townhomes are expected for the second phase of Fort Totten Square.
• A new children’s museum is coming to the neighborhood at Art Place, which will be an added draw to residents and visitors alike.
• Neighborhood annual median home value is steadily increasing.
• The neighborhood has relatively low crime and is economically stable. See this year’s neighborhood profile sheet: Fort Totten/Riggs Park 2017 Neighborhood Profile Sheet (pdf).

This is what Riggs Park resident David wrote in his request:

My wife and I moved to Riggs Park in . . . . This neighborhood is safe, economically stable, and growing. Fort Totten Square has been completed and the first phase of Art Place at Fort Totten is soon going to be delivered.  Following are several more phases of development to include condos, restaurants, and community art spaces. The [Explore!] Children’s Museum will also be located within the upcoming development. A Trader Joes in the Riggs Park neighborhood will pull customers from Brookland, College Park, Takoma Park, and Hyattsville and likely several other neighborhoods as three metro lines run through the Fort Totten metro station. Additionally, no alcohol at MD Trader Joes will pull people to the Riggs Park location which I assume would sell a selection of beer and wine. There would be no serious competitors to Trader Joes in the area. Yes Organic is in Brookland, but it does not tend to be the main grocery store for customers like a Trader Joes. Giant cannot compete with the prices of Trader Joes (and does not sell alcohol) and Walmart does not have the positive reputation of a Trader Joes nor the high quality selection of a Trader Joes. Please come to Riggs Park. I am including the link to H&R Retail who is responsible for leasing space in the building (http://hrretail.com/#property-2409832-art-place-at-fort-totten.

Can the neighborhood actually support a specialty grocery store with a Giant grocery store just on the other side of the DC/Maryland border, a Walmart with a grocery component in the neighborhood, and a Yes! organic market in Brookland? The short answer is likely yes. Longtime readers might remember that we covered a Vibrant Street Retail workshop conducted for this neighborhood through a partnership with Streetsense, DC’s Office of Planning, and the Lamond-Riggs Citizens Association. [Disclosure: We participated in that workshop, facilitated the asks, and arranged a community meeting on the topic]. Through that partnership, Streetsense completed a market analysis (pdf) of a post-Walmart neighborhood and found that the neighborhood could support a specialty grocery store like an organic or gourmet grocery store.

So if you want a Trader Joe’s, ask for one. Same goes for any other retailer residents want in the neighborhood. There are no guarantees, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Catching up on news…

Art Place at Fort Totten, Bldg A under construction, view from new Ingraham Street NE extension

On June 2, 2017, the Cafritz Foundation filed a status report update for the multi-phase Art Place at Fort Totten development in response to a request from the Zoning Commission. See Art Place Status Update June 2-2017 (pdf).

Building A: Gym, dentist, pharmacy, cell phone store, possible coffee shop & restaurant

Building A (the first phase) is the building currently under construction. Pre-leasing has started for the residential apartments called The Modern. Hardhat tours are available for prospective tenants. A certificate of occupancy is expected by mid-June, with move-ins anticipated to begin around August.

As previously reported and confirmed in the letter, the developer has executed leases with a few retailers for Building A: X-Sport Fitness, T-Mobile, a dentist, and a pharmacy. They anticipate securing leases with a coffee shop and a restaurant in the near future. The letter does not identify the coffee shop and restaurant, but we believe they will be a Starbucks and a restaurant from the proprietors of a Virginia-based restaurant. We have been told that the retail components should be open by late fall/winter 2017.

Building B: Children’s museum, community recreation, possible grocer

The development team is still working to figure things out for Building B (second phase). Recall that the Commission previously raised concerns about the design, uses, and amenities proposed for Building B (e.g., recreation components including ice rinks). The team had put Building B on the backburner to focus on delivering Building A. The status report indicates that the delay in relocating the Riggs Plaza tenants, the presence of Walmart, and anticipated financing challenges for the planned unique uses of Building B all present obstacles for planning.

The letter states they are close to executing a letter of intent with an unidentified specialty grocer for 20,000 square feet for Building B. [Editor’s note 6/13/2017: After publishing, we learned from this Bisnow newsletter that the development team has reached out to Trader Joe’s and MOM’s Organic]. They are also looking at community recreational uses for Building B (but no specifics yet), and of course the Explore! Children’s Museum has committed to being part of Building B.

With respect to Building B, the Foundation will file prehearing statements within 90 days of executing letters of intent with retailers for not less than 70,000 square feet; they will file a building permit application within one year of 2nd stage approval order; and construction will begin within one year of filing permit application.

The Foundation will give the Commission periodic updates on the development of Building A and the proposed development of Building B no less than semi-annually beginning in Jan 2018, or within 30 days following a request for a status update from the Commission.

Finally, not stated in the letter, but important to know, we reported previously that a new neighborhood library will not be part of this development.

That’s the Art Place update for Buildings A and B. What are some recreation or community uses that you think would be ideal for the second stage of this development?

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of June 12 2017 thru the week of June 19 2017 FINAL (pdf)

Explore! Children’s Museum Jumpin’ June Festival
11:00 am – 1:00 pm
5234 4th St. NE

From Explore!:

– Take part in a mission in Space aboard the Explore! Mission Mobile at 11:15 & 12:15

– Imagination Stage will be leading two 30 minute Hip Hop Instructional sessions at 11:30 & 12:30

– Color With Luna is going to have a coloring station open & Explore! is providing a FREE Color with Luna book to the first 50 children!

– Tom Noll will be bringing the Recycled Rainbow Truck & Explore! is providing the first 50 children with a FREE copy of one of his books!

– We will be decorating and creating tambourines!

– Hoola Hoops, Bubbles & Jump Ropes will be available

– Explore! prizes will be available for participation in a Simon Says Showdown!

– A Represent Your Ward! giveaway for adults

Funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of May 29 2017 thru the week of June 5 2017 FINAL

Art Place – Construction Notification Weeks of May 15 2017 thru the week of May 22 2017 FINAL (pdf)