At a June 27 hearing on the latest design for the redevelopment of the McMillan Park Reservoir Historic District put forward by the Gray Administration and Vision McMillan Partners (VMP), DC’s Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) detailed the plan’s serious design and aesthetic flaws.  “The buildings are completely disjointed” and “don’t hold together at all despite the rhetoric,” said the Board, sending VMP back for major revisions.

Opening with statements from the community and mirroring the June 6^th surplus meeting hosted by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, the vast majority of speakers urged the Board to reject the VMP plan.

In a significant new development, the Deputy General Counsel for the National Trust for Historic Preservation alerted the Board that the VMP plan would violate the law.  She cautioned that “perpetual covenants were attached to the McMillan Park Reservoir property as a condition of sale when the McMillan site was transferred to the District of Columbia government in 1987 from the federal General Services Administration” and that destruction of the vast majority of the underground cells would violate these covenants — particularly the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation and Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings, which the District Government is required to follow.

Calling on VMP to heed the comments of the community, the Board likened the photo of the proposed park that VMP highlights in its presentations to a “bait and switch,” saying it “looks good if you don’t see the rest of the plan;” described the housing and retail buildings shaped like X’s as “the worst of the four” building designs; called for the central section of the site to be redesigned altogether in a unified fashion; urged VMP to reduce the overall density; pressed for “activation” of the underground cells; reiterated the need for exemplary architecture in light of the extreme level of demolition proposed for the historic structures; and characterized the plan as a place where they, themselves, would not want to live.

The Board took the VMP plan to task at almost every turn, and VMP representatives struggled several times to respond to issues that the Board raised.  For example, when asked about the disappearance of a section of the historic Olmsted Walk from around the site perimeter, the VMP team lacked a coherent answer.  Another explanation drew laughter when, in response to the Board’s disappointment that a historic service court was no longer pedestrian only, a VMP representative reclassified it at the spur of the moment as a “special drive” for vehicles.

HPRB will resume comment on the future of McMillan Park on July 11, 2013 at 12:00 PM.

The full statement by the National Trust can be read here:

• National Trust for Historic Preservation Letter to HPRB re McMillan Park – 26 June 2013

We sent the following email to CM McDuffie this morning and look forward to his respose.

Council Member,

Poor VMP.

Despite its tremendous wealth and extremely strong ties to DC’s political and media establishments, it’s stuck with the unenviable job of touting a plan that nearly everyone — including VMP! — is ashamed of.  Time and time again, VMP rolls out the same deceptive photograph of the green space in its plan (the one aspect of its plan we sort of like!) while hiding the other 75% — namely the mausoleum-inspired office buildings and dense suburban town homes.  Of course, VMP makes no mention of the nearly total destruction of the underground cells and obliteration of any sense of the sand filtration plant’s history, and we understand why they leave those details out.

Click here to see the single VMP image and media campaign you’ve seen over and over again ad nauseum:  http://bit.ly/15bE7Ol

And here are the office building designs that VMP continues to hide: 

Looking at the Soviet-era architecture, is it any wonder VMP only shows the renderings of the park?  And do they really expect us to trust them regarding traffic, flooding, jobs, affordable housing, historic preservation and a host of other issues when they refuse to be honest about the buildings they themselves designed?

You can’t help but feel almost sorry for VMP’s herculean task of having to make their plan palatable to a savvy public.  Unfortunately for VMP, Washingtonians are much smarter than VMP thinks and can see the pig clearly through the lipstick VMP keeps smearing on it.

The Friends of McMillan Park (FOM) plan to demonstrate at Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie’s State of the Ward address on Tuesday to urge the Councilmember to drop his support for the District Government’s plan to build 12-story medical office buildings and suburban-style townhomes in the McMillan Park Reservoir Historic District, as it is known on the National Register of Historic Places.

The FOM will have on hand copies of a petition signed by over 3,500 DC residents, mostly from Ward 5, as well as letters from schoolchildren, asking the Mayor and Councilmembers to reject the plan by Vision McMillan Partners (VMP) and to consider creative alternatives that provide amenities for the neighborhoods while preserving majority green space and the historic integrity of the site.

“We want to remind Councilmember McDuffie that his constituents and people across the District understand that having a park and supporting historic preservation and economic development can go hand-in-hand,” said Juliet Orzal. “A park that is owned and controlled by the people is need by the communities around McMillan, particularly in light of how much of the remaining open space in the area is planned for development in the next few years.”

The FOM will also remind the attendees of the widespread opposition by the community to the plan of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) to declare McMillan “surplus” in order to turn it over to VMP — the developer selected through a non-competitive bidding process. At a June 6^th meeting called by DMPED to gauge the community’s views on whether to declare McMillan Park “surplus,” over 100 people showed up and 95% of them opposed the surplus designation.

Councilmember McDuffie’s State of the Ward Address is at 6:30 pm, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, at Luke C. Moore High School, 1001 Monroe St., NE.

Vision McMillan Partners (VMP) has been working overtime to put out glossy and deceptive images that attempt to portray its poor and destructive plan in a favorable light.  It has also employed organizations with which it has strong ties, such as the developer-supported and ironically-named Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG), to try to convince DC residents that high-density (not to mention ugly) development with no corresponding increase in transportation infrastructure in an area lacking a metro stop and served only by three streets is, well, “smarter growth.”

Not surprisingly, the roadshows of VMP and the CSG leave out the photo below, which shows VMP’s proposed residential/grocery/retail complex and comes directly from its Concept Submission to the Historic Preservation Review Board.  This hideous and hulking monstrosity, which resembles a cross between a mausoleum and a Soviet apartment block circa 1978, will take up nearly 1/3 of the site on the northern end of the park.  Both VMP and the CSG boast that the VMP plan is a fine example of quality architecture and historic preservation even though both groups do everything they can to sweep much of it under the rug.  “Look over here, folks, and ignore the man behind the curtain!”

Fortunately, Washingtonians are smarter than VMP and the CSG think and continue to demand better for a city treasure, valuable public space, and site on the National Register of Historic Places.

Third grade students try their hands at convincing Mayor Vincent Gray and Members of the DC Council that parks are important and that McMillan Park should be saved. Do you think the Mayor and Councilmembers will answer them?

“So please don’t destroy McMillan Park because it means so much to the people who live near that park and their kids wouldn’t have anywhere to play.”  – Aleah

Click here to read the children’s letters: McMillan Park Letters

Click here to see the children’s drawings: McMillan Park Illustrations

We’d like to extend a hearty thank you to the 60+ people who embraced our call to action and emailed the Mayor, DC Councilmembers, DMPED, and the Historic Preservation Review Board to let them know that our public lands should not be for sale and that mausoleum-inspired commercial buildings in historic parks are incompatible with historic preservation.

Please stay tuned for further developments!