**** From: "McNamara, Chris" <cmcnamara@wbbinc.com>
-- Wisconsin's greatest asset is its potential for intelligent,
transportation-centric, neighborhood-friendly development, especially in
the Tenleytown area with Friendship Heights close to maxing out.

-- Improvements in Tenleytown are required in mid- to upscale retail and
dining, vertical mid-to upscale housing, and educational/cultural
vitality. The infrastructure for all of this is present or within
reach.  Hechinger's is about to be developed; there's plenty of
commercially zoned property and existing buildings; and we've got a
library location and several schools (schools by the way that while
starting to fall down are among the best public and private schools in
the city).  The challenge will be to develop these three components
(dining/retail, housing, cultural) in a coordinated and integrated way.
Madison Development is moving out on the Hechinger site
with some retail and housing.  Your corridor group can help by trying to
accelerate a coordinated development approach to the rest of the
Tenleytown part of Wisconsin.

-- The principal impediment is likely to be the resistance of residents
immediately contingent to the Tenley-Wisconsin area.  My experience is
that relatively small groups will very energetically oppose change,
unless that change is so restrictively defined as to lose its
improvement value.  The advantage of the approach you are spearheading
is that you have embraced and encouraged the full participation of the
community in this planning effort. Nevertheless, you should expect the
"Not in My Backyard" contingents to emerge even from among those who
appear progressive at these early stages.

-- My recommendation for priority actions would be:
- to engage those private and DC govt agencies responsible for schools
and the library to participate in the study effort.  Now is the time to
start thinking about plans for a new or renovated Janney, for example,
that will complement, integrate with and help shape plans for the other
development that will be taking place;

- to engage, and to engage again and again, residents in close proximity
to Tenleytown through informational mailings, articles in NW Current, TV
and radio spots, educating them about the really excellent process being
undertaken on their behalf.
 
- to encourage one or two upscale retailers/restauranteurs to make the
first forays into Tenleytown, even while the Hechinger site is being
developed.  Encouragement and incentives may have to be imaginatively
conceived because I believe developers will be gun-shy  of moving into
an area that appears so rundown and that has a recent history of
resistance.
 
 
 
 
 
 

**** From:  Tom Hier <hier@biddhier.com>
Here are my responses.
1.  What is the best of Wisconsin Avenue in its present state--key
qualities and assets?
-- The scale of the street is one of it's best qualities.  It still
feels a little bit like a hometown.

2.  What are your ideas for improvement, and what do you see as
impediments to these
 improvements?
-- Despite the fact that it feels like "hometown", the street is tired
and the buildings somewhat shabby. Although the retail is an eclectic
mix of odd shops, there's not a whole lot that I would patronize on a
regular basis.

The restaurants are pretty uninteresting and there are not enough of
them.  On the other hand, I'd hate to see lots of white tablecloth fancy
restaurants go in.  Just moderately priced, interesting,
individually-owned (not chain) restaurants would be nice.  And more
interesting other food options -- specialty shops like dessert places,
interesting coffee / hang out places (more than just Starbucks), more
bakeries.  The very tiny strip on Connecticut between Nebraska and
Fessenden has more interesting things (i.e., Marvelous Market and
Politics & Prose) than most of upper Wisconsin.

Please try to avoid the kind of architectural construction that results
in restaurants / retail "carved out" of first floor megastructures
(e.g., like the Cheese Factory in Chevy Chase Pavilion, or the deli (is
it TooJays or something like that) on Wisconsin near Brandywine).
Create interesting architecture that gives a sense of individual
presence to retail commerce.  (I'm glad for the additional commerce at
Chevy Chase Pavilion, but by and large, it's pretty sterile.)

If you want good ideas about how to do interesting streetscapes, visit
Vancouver, BC (4th Street or many other streets there) or downtown
Portland, OR, or pretty much any other major city in the Pacific
Northwest.

And more bookstores and other leisure time hangout spots.

3.  What are the priorities--where should we start?
-- Start with cleaning up the look of the street.  And don't build any
more buildings that turn their back on the street (like the Safeway on
Davenport Street and Fresh Fields near Brandywine).  Grocery stores can
provide some of the liveliest and most interesting street frontage (see
the Fresh Fields downtown on P Street, which perhaps single-handedly has
made that neighborhood an exciting and interesting place to be) and yet
the "wise" developers and owners who build these things want to hide
them.  (You can still have parking lots behind the buildings and enter
the buildings from two sides.)
 
 
 
 

**** From: <Robin_Wolfson@discovery.com>
Several days ago I learned that Donohue Construction is in the early
planning phase to build a high-rise project across from us on  Wisconsin
Ave (where Martin's Volvo currently stands). It will be  comprised of up
to 400 rental units and could stand nearly as tall as Tenley Hill
(considering the variance).

-----------
>From KS -- I referred him to Robert Collins and the Study.

**** From: "Anne Novak" <Anne_Novak@ita.doc.gov>
Thanks for the info.  Here are my responses:
1.  What is the best of Wisconsin Avenue in its present state--key
qualities and assets?
-- The best of Wisconsin Ave from Brandywine to Jennifer Streets is the
relative quiet compared to the areas north and south of there.  While in
demand enterprises would be good, I'd hate to see the peace disturbed.

Keep the trees along the Avenue.
 

2.  What are your ideas for improvement, and what do you see as
impediments to these improvements?
-- Replace or repair the sidewalks but keep them wide. These days,
particularly in Bethesda, the sidewalks along new buildings are being
reduced so that you can barely walk two-by-two, and pedestrian traffic
comfortably going in both directions is impossible. In many areas along
Wisconsin Ave, the sidewalks are cracked  and crumbling and unsightly.

Make the proprietors keep the area in front of their stores free of
debris.  It would be good for their business.

Bring in a hardware store like Strosniders in Bethesda.  Forget Home
Depot- it would bring in too much traffic.

I don't know the impediments for improvements.
 
3.  What are the priorities--where should we start?
--  At the beginning.  The "consultants" should know.
 
 
 
 

**** From:  Joseph Cotruvo <vze254xa@verizon.net>
I believe that the principal impediment to improving the condition of
Wisconsin/Tenleytown/Friendship corridor is traffic flow and low cost
available parking. Traffic and parking probably were major negatives to
the Home Depot option in the old Sears store. Bethesda is a good model.
The restaurants and businesses prosper there because they are accessible
and the parking garages are close and reasonably priced.
 
 
 
 

**** From: Kathy Smith <Ksmith1804@starpower.net>
1.  What is the best of Wisconsin Avenue in its present state--key
qualities and assets?
-- A.) Convenient stores/restaurants/theaters  and public services  that
residents can walk to. Most useful stores are the ones that cater to
working middle class families, e.g. Hechts, Lord & Taylors,  Borders
Books, Linens & Things, Sur La Table, Rodmans, Radio Shack, Graffiti,
Filene's Basement, several bakeries, grocery stores, and a number of
small restaurants such as Guapos, to name just some.

-- B.) Having the Tenley  Library here is extremely useful.

-- C.) Being on the Metrorail line and some good bus routes is extremely
good.  Also useful is having one or two decent gas stations in the area.

2.  What are your ideas for improvement, and what do you see as
impediments to these   improvements?
-- A.) We need some rounding out of types of stores :
      a.) A hardware store is desperately needed
      b.) Other family-oriented stores such as a small WalMart (if such
a thing exists) would be very good. In addition to hardware, we could
use a little more variety in sports equipment, electronic entertainment
equipment such as TV's, etc,  computer software, to name some.

-- B.) One impediment is a feeling that stores have to be "upscale".
This has gotten us into some  overpriced boutiques and expensive
restaurants that have failed and have not served the community all that
well.

-- C.) An additional impediment is a vocal minority that gears up to
fight every new building on Wisconsin Avenue whether it be commercial or
residential. Given the Metrorail and collection of shops, restaurants,
and theaters, it makes sense to have denser residential as well as
commercial along Wisconsin Avenue.

3.  What are the priorities--where should we start?
-- A.) It should be understood  and acknowledged that there will be and
should be development along Wisconsin Avenue. Small buildings of two or
three stories need to give way to taller structures while still
retaining the little shops, restaurants, etc. that now reside in those
smaller buildings. Many small shops need to be protected so that they
are not priced out of existence when the buildings they in are rebuilt
into larger structures.

-- B.) Even though people should be encouraged to use Metro and bus, we
need to be realistic about automobiles.  Every new building should have
substantial parking in the basement. There should also be some
additional parking garages along the Avenue so that people will not be
forced to park on the residential streets off of the Avenue.

-- C.) Ride-on and small feeder buses that go through the neighborhood,
taking people to the Metro, would help to ease parking and street
congestion. There will always be people driving along Wisconsin from
Maryland or other parts of the city, but travelling would be easier for
our neighborhood residents, and they would not contribute to congestion,
if regular feeder buses were readily available.
 

The commercial strip along Wisconsin Avenue has improved dramatically
since I moved here some 30 years. It is a much more convenient
neighborhood now than it was then. The biggest positive addition has
been the Metro.

The major thing missing is a decent hardware store.
 
 

-- END --