By Washington Business Journal
Dec 6, 2024
The Washington Area Community Investment Fund has scaled back the scope of its planned Anacostia Arts Center renovations, though its overarching goal of increasing programming for entrepreneurs at the 35,000-square-foot multiuse center remains unchanged.
“We are committed to redeveloping the Anacostia Arts Center as a hub for inclusive entrepreneurship,” said WAICF CEO Shannan Herbert. “Due to changing conditions, we have reassessed how we’re going to be redeveloping the space.”
Herbert shared the institution’s updated plans with me as a follow-up to a story from September about MahoganyBooks and its decision to close its store inside the arts center after nearly seven years. The business was one of the last to cast off from the center at 1231 Marion Barry Ave. SE, and the property’s pending renovation was a factor its owners cited for moving out. The store, one of three MahoganyBooks outposts, still hopes to find alternate space in the area.
WAICF, a District-based community development financial institution, has scrapped plans to add two floors and a rooftop terrace to the arts center, which would have added 16,640 square feet. WAICF initially hoped to relocate its own headquarters to the building, but that was back in 2019, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, as it neared a 2022 lease expiration for its home at 2012 Rhode Island Ave. NE.
“WACIF will no longer house its headquarters at the facility as the organization has transitioned to a majority remote model,” Herbert said. By consequence, it determined it didn’t need to expand the building in order to carry through with the rest of its plans.
There are now four retail spaces in the center, averaging about 500 square feet each. Only one tenant, Vintage & Charmed, remains. The center is actively marketing the rest of that space for short-term rental or pop-up tenants ahead of the renovation, and prospective users can find more info or apply for space on WACIF’s website.
Other things have changed as well since WACIF acquired the building for $4 million about three years ago. It’s continued to seek ways to enhance its programming, including its Hive coworking space, and the redesign will enhance those activities. Hive’s footprint will be extended to the building’s first floor, in addition to its existing space in the basement. The first floor will also act as modular convening spaces, available for community use, and it will also house the center’s black-box theater and gallery.
The fund itself has also come under new leadership, as Herbert was named its chief executive in March, replacing interim co-CEOs Kevin Fryatt and Kimberly Gayle, following the departure of Harold Pettigrew Jr. in 2023. As chief executive of the fund, which provides loans and business counseling to underserved communities in the D.C. area, she assumed responsibility for initiatives including the arts center redevelopment.
WACIF is in the process of selecting a project team to help it with the renovations, and that team’s expected to start in January, setting the stage for construction to kick off in the third quarter of 2025 with completion in early 2027.
It’s still refining the scope of that work, including the center’s retail space, to ensure what’s inside the center complements, rather than competes, with what’s already in the area. It’s also refining construction estimates. It has raised about $8.2 million for the renovation, with a goal of $12 million, including acquisition, redevelopment, programmatic and operational costs.
“The uses will still be what we have in place,” Herbert said. “There’s still going to be a coworking space. There’s still going to be a place for arts and culture. There will still be a retail space. That’s the part we’re looking at now.”