jonetta rose barras: Muriel Bowser’s underwhelming moment

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser stood in a room inside the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Harman Hall across the street from the Capital One Arena, which could be seen just behind her right shoulder. Former DC Mayor Anthony A. Williams stood to her left. Esteemed onetime city planner Andy Altman and former DC Council finance wizard Jack Evans were also in that same room. Those optics may have given someone the impression the city‘s three-term mayor was preparing to make a game-winning slam-dunk. 

Think again. 

Bowser and her team produced an underwhelming presentation that, I guess, had been intended to convey all is not lost in the Chinatown/Gallery Place neighborhood just because Ted Leonsis, president of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, announced weeks earlier plans to relocate the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Alexandria. With his head planted on Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s shoulder, Leonsis seemed that December day to be purring like a well-fed cat.

Virginia officials have said that the two franchises would anchor their planned $2 billion sports and entertainment complex in Potomac Yard. That arrangement would, among other things,  allow Leonsis to take his company public, which translates into lots more money for him and his investors.

After the potential move became public, many leaders and residents in the city began to panic, declaring the economic end of DC. They wanted to know Bowser’s plan. This week they learned it appears to be more of the same: another task force.

“We’ve been successful in creating new and dynamic neighborhoods across DC by putting old spaces to new uses,” Bowser said at the task force announcement. “We’ve done this before — at Union Market, at Navy Yard, at The Wharf, at CityCenter. This task force will make it happen again.”

Bowser seemed to suggest that the outcomes of those projects justified the selection of developers Jodie McLean of EDENS and Deborah Ratner Salzberg of Uplands Real Estate as co-chairs of the Gallery Place/Chinatown Task Force — the two having worked, respectively, on the mixed-use redevelopment at Union Market and The Yards. Acting Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert is also a co-chair.

Unsurprisingly, various DC Council members, including Ward 2’s Brooke Pinto and Ward 3’s Matt Frumin, have embraced the creation of the task force. Chair Pro Tempore Kenyan McDuffie wrote in an email to me that he “has already engaged with some of the members on the work ahead.” 

“The vitality of our downtown, the sustainability of our tax base, and our business climate depend on bold, innovative and inclusive approaches to how we’ll shape our future,” continued McDuffie, who is the chair of the Committee on Business and Economic Development, responsible for oversight of the arena, among other things. 

“I stand ready to work with everyone who can help the District make that happen,” McDuffie added.

While Bowser may have said the task force will make the old new, truth be told, traditionally such entities have mostly issued reports or proposals that may or may not be implemented. 

Just to be clear (to use one of the mayor’s pet phrases), the brains and vision behind the projects Bowser cited as well as others that transformed a declining city and its downtown were Williams, Altman and members of that administration. In many cases, as chair of the legislature’s Committee on Finance and Revenue, Evans helped create funding models and streams that guaranteed their success and prevented DC from going bankrupt.

Rather than throw the ball to such seasoned players, Bowser inexplicably appointed Williams and former mayor Adrian M. Fenty to serve as “honorary co-chairs” of the task force. A spokesperson for the administration told me the two will act “in advisory roles.” 

Altman, now with Fivesquares Development, made it to the executive committee, along with José Andrés and Rob Wilder of the José Andrés Group; Rebecca Ende Lichtenberg from the Shakespeare Theatre Company; Rita Lee of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Washington, DC; Valencia McClure of Pepco; and Gerren Price of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District. There is also a set of subcommittees dominated by government functionaries.

Squandering resources, the administration left Evans completely on the sidelines. Notwithstanding the scandal that led to his departure from office in 2020, the longtime Ward 2 councilmember still has important skills and a wealth of knowledge to bring to bear to addressing downtown’s current woes. 

What’s more, one of DC’s most successful mayors — if not the most successful — wasn’t even invited to offer comments at the event, despite his proximity to the podium. Williams was left to look up at the ceiling in the room, as he listened to dumb, insignificant comments, like those made by Albert, who offered that it was notable that a “super team of women” was leading the effort.

Seriously. Was she there to launch the next wave of the feminist movement? Or was she advancing the revitalization of a diverse neighborhood whose viability is critical to the city’s economic future?

Don’t get me wrong. I am a strong believer in equal opportunity, regardless of gender. I am also a huge fan of personnel selections based on merit and experience.

Bowser’s current advisers seem to be moving her toward the Sharon Pratt path of political disaster. During her single term as mayor in the 1990s, she, too, was fixated on how many women she brought into her administration, rather than who could produce the best results for District residents.

The “golden shovel” pol arrived at the mayoral suite with high public support and expectations. Pratt left with a 13% approval rating. 

The numbers for Bowser, who has twice won re-election, may not be there — yet. But press events like the one on Monday don’t help her cause.

“I was sorely disappointed,” said one of several longtime business owners I spoke with after the task force announcement.

That’s understandable. Not much was right about what was supposed to signal that Bowser’s got this. 

She and her team came without an immediate action plan; they seem to have decided to limit the task force to the two blocks that comprise the arena’s footprint; they offered no deadline for when the work would be completed; and they did not present a budget. Instead they appointed task force members who may be successful business owners but who have minimal, if any, broad experience of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Discussing all these issues in depth would take me through my next three columns; I may come back to this subject. For now, let me say that, aside from using Williams as window dressing, one of the most egregious errors was the delay in providing an outline of immediate actions to stabilize the area.

Leonsis had been threatening for months to leave DC. It wasn’t just that he was having a difficult time squeezing money from the local government; it was also that the community surrounding his business had been sliding into a state of chaos and anarchy. Gallery Place/Chinatown had become a haven for criminals. There was little evidence of proactive policing. Further, the streetscape had become dated and dirty. Those problems were evident even before COVID-19 arrived. The pandemic-recovery speed at which the Bowser administration sought to address those issues was glacial, as were negotiations with Monumental.

Folks who attended the next-step announcements for Gallery Place didn’t get a list of next-steps. Will there be an increase in law enforcement presence? Will there be an effort to enhance the streetscape? What is the Bowser administration’s specific prescription for Gallery Place/Chinatown businesses dealing with a type of economic long COVID?

Who knows?

Equally disturbing is the Bowser administration’s chronic myopia. The task force will focus largely if not entirely on two blocks or five acres. That means it’s just dealing with the Cap One Arena. Deputy Mayor Albert appears to like that small-bore concept so much she offered that the administration might consider taking this “exercise” to other parts of the city — Penn West, for example.

Help us! Another task force in the making.

Albert is the person everyone raved about when she was appointed as deputy mayor. I am still evaluating.

On Wednesday, McDuffie held a hearing on her nomination. At least a dozen of the usual suspects — business leaders, developers and housing advocates — testified in favor of her nomination. The most effusive was real estate executive Joe Judge, who announced that DC’s future is “very, very bright with Nina’s confirmation.” He said she has the “gift of making a complex issue or set of circumstances easy to understand” and called her a “visionary.”

What some see as Albert’s greatest asset may be her greatest limitation. She has spent most of her career in the local or federal government. She is an expert at speaking government-ese and giving the impression of forthcoming action, which certainly can inspire hope.

During her confirmation testimony, however, I kept hearing a kind of “wait and be ready” mentality — as in, she wants to ensure that we “set ourselves up [to] respond to the economy when it bounces back.”

Isn’t the deputy mayor for planning and economic development supposed to be the engine for creating that economic bounceback?

Leonsis’ announcement can be seen as a crisis. However, it should be harnessed as a huge opportunity to implement a new full-scale architectural plan that conveys the reality: Like other urban centers, post-pandemic DC requires a new, bold and comprehensive vision for our downtown and struggling commercial corridors.

The decision as articulated by Bowser and her team to focus this new task force on Gallery Place and Chinatown — essentially tweaking a two-block area — is wholly insufficient. It seems to set aside as separate the potential development of the FBI headquarters, which is just down the street from the arena, and the growth needs of adjacent neighborhoods.

Williams and others didn’t plot a block — they stood on a hill in Southeast and looked out at the entire city, wondering how they could transform it. Equally important, they were hard-charging, refusing to let folks get in the way of the progress they sought.

This might be the time for the current administration to disabuse itself of its trademark timidity. Further, Bowser may want to more proactively engage museums, hotels and other private businesses in her efforts. And she could also permit herself to be seen as leading the charge for change — not just receiving reports from developers whom residents don’t know and are not necessarily inclined to trust. 

Bowser was asked by reporters at the launch event to comment about Leonsis’ plan to keep the arena under his operation, even after he moves across the river — which may be his ploy to prevent DC from being a competitor to the Virginia complex. According to government testimony at a special council roundtable on downtown, which focused extensively on Monumental and the Capital One Arena, Leonsis could terminate his lease with the city as soon as 2027. He owes $35 million on the bonds for the facility. If Virginia decides to move forward with funding its sports complex, Leonsis could take the company public, which might help him pay off Monumental’s debt at the first opportunity.

The mayor warned, however, that she expects Leonsis to honor the current lease and have the teams continue to play at the arena. “Let’s be clear. We have a vibrant space here, and we can’t have it underused.”

We’ll have to wait to see what actions, if any, will come with that smack. 

---

jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.