Roundup from just outside the 'hood

City Center: The new gastropub Againn, that we previously shared details on, has opened across the street from City Center at 1099 New York Ave. [Eater, Thrillist]

image of Againn interior courtesy of Eater

Northwest One: The next phase of nearby Northwest One will be 300 residential units at North Capitol and Patterson. [DCMud]

Chinatown: Nick Cho, who helped Max Brown get Chinatown Coffee off the ground, has been indicted for past tax evasion at the former Murky Coffee on Capitol Hill. [WBJ, PQLiving ]

Mayor's Office: Cary Silverman outlines the rift between Fenty and our City Council. [The Other 35 Percent]

Pictures from the Walker Jones School ribbon cutting

A few pictures from Tuesday's ribbon cutting ceremony for the Walker Jones School.


Clockwise from top left: Mayor Adrian Fenty; DCPS Superintendent Michelle Rhee (crouched); interior shot of library; ANC6C commissioners Mark Dixon & Lena Brown

2nd Annual Mayor’s "State of the Chinatown Address"

The Chinatown Revitalization Council (CRC) is hosting the second annual Mayor’s "State of the Chinatown Address" tonight.

From Alex Chi, CRC Chair:

We are very pleased to inform you that the Chinatown Revitalization Council (CRC) is hosting the second annual Mayor’s "State of the Chinatown Address" and community dialogue with the aim to communicate the District government’s progress, challenges and action plans for stimulating cultural economic development and overall betterment in and around the DC Chinatown areas. This 2nd Annual Mayor’s "State of the Chinatown Address" will be held at Wah-Luk House (800 6th Street NW) on Monday, February 23, 2009 at 7:00-9:00PM. Refreshment will be provided during networking hours from 9:00 9:30PM.

The objectives of this meeting are as follows:

• Provide an update on cultural-economic development and key community concerns raised in the last Address (Feb. 25, 2008)
  
• Identify gaps and opportunities in City services and programs in the Chinatown area
  
• Determine collaboration/partnership opportunities among the City with civic organizations, residents and businesses
  
• Build consensus on the future directions of the Chinatown in the year of 2009 (Ox)

We take great pleasure in inviting you or a representative from your organization to participate in the Mayor’s annual address and join open dialogue with Mayor Fenty, DC Council Chairman Gray, At-Large Councilmember K. Brown, Ward 2 Councilmember Evans, Ward 6 Councilmember Wells and many top officials, civic and business leaders.

Screen capture of agenda (click to enlarge):

DNA meeting recap

Tuesday night's DNA Meeting focused heavily on the Gallery Place issues surrounding teen loitering. The meeting was attended by Mayor Adrian Fenty, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelsohn, Police chief Cathy Lanier, MPD Commander David Kamperin and Chief Fire Marshall Gary Palmer.

Mayor Fenty said the issues of teen induced chaos in Gallery Place was unacceptable and would be addressed with vigilance from MPD immediately. Our mayor suggested that community policing and using regulatory agencies to shutdown businesses that contribute to the nuisance will be the focus. Changing the curfew for teens, which are currently 11pm Mon-Thurs and 12am Fri-Sat, was not part of any plan at the moment. Commander Kamperin explained that a zero tolerance rule is in place. Officers are instructed to make the arrest if there is a open container, curfew or other serious violation. In the past such violations might have been served with a warning such as asking the individual to discard the open container. It was also said that while small pockets of loitering unaccompanied by other law breaking may not be something that can be addressed that MPD will act to disperse large scale loitering that fully blocks sidewalks.

Many Penn Quarter residents spoke out on the issue. While their thoughts comprise an important part of the picture, a representative sample of the comments can already be found at the discussion at PQLiving. I'm going to focus my post on what I learned about Club Bounce because that's information that hasn't been covered from both angles.

Club Bounce currently runs an event every weekend at Platinum Nightclub. The name Bounce comes from having to bounce around from venues like Club Five, Washington Plaza hotel, Carnegie Library, etc before reaching an ongoing relationship with Platinum (which had losts it's ABC license). Events at Bounce run from 6pm to 10:45pm and are run by the promotions company Teen Life Productions (TLP). Traci Allen is a downtown resident, mother of a 14 year old, and director of TLP. From their myspace:

Club Bounce and Teen Life Production's mission is to provide fun and activities through music and dancing in a diverse and safe environment for all teens!

Security:
We do not allow teens to come and go. It is not a lock in, but they cannot leave and then re-enter. We do not allow any loitering in the parking area and all teens must be picked up by midnight to comply with curfew laws of the District of Columbia.

Club Bounce employs professional and experienced security officers to ensure the safety of all teens attending Club Bounce events.

Ages: Teens in Grades 9th through 12th!

All teens are searched and bags will be checked.

Club Rules:
-NO altercations of any kind – verbal or physical
-NO ins and outs
-NO hand signs
-NO loitering outside

Dress Code:
-NO excessively revealing clothing
-NO profanity or offensive logos
-NO gang related apparel

Any breaking of the rules will result in denied entry to the venue or being asked to leave the premises. Club Bounce is an alcohol and drug-free zone and the proper authorities will be notified in the event of possession or being caught under the influence.

We encourage you to contact us at TeenLifePro@aol.com should you have any questions!

-Teen Life Productions

Several teens spoke at the DNA meeting on behalf of Club Bounce. One high school senior, bound for a full ride to Hampton next year, spoke passionately about the club providing an alternative for kids to the unsupervised drinking and partying until the wee hours. Another spoke of how she is involved in designing the props for the Jet Set Saturdays parties which have themes like Hollywood, South Beach, Athens, Milan, and Jamaica. For the responsible teens that don't engage in the shenanigans being seen at Gallery Place the club is a positive thing. Unfortunately you can't slice the pie up that way - the bad is coming with the good.

Mayor Fenty did unequivocally state that MPD and the fire marshall have told him this club is contributing a negative influence to the community. Hundreds of kids loitering on the streets after Bounce creates problems that have manifested themselves into very ugly incidents. If Bounce wants to survive they'll need to do more to ensure the kids behave not only inside their club but also outside in the community between close and curfew. Can that be accomplished at these volumes (1000 kids)? Maybe. Maybe not.

UPDATE (10/15/2008 10AM): It's worth noting that a similar teen club at AVENUE has recently opened and is also contributing to the issues.

DNA Meeting tonight

From DNA president Mile Groves:

Dear Neighbors,

Please mark your calendars for tomorrow night, Tuesday October 14th for our monthly Downtown Neighborhood Association meeting. We start at 6:30PM with food provided by our new Downtown Urban Safeway followed by discussion and questions with several leaders. These include Mayor Fenty, Councilmember Evans, Councilmember Wells, and an officer representing MPD First District PSA 101W. We are meeting at Calvary Baptist Church with its entrance on 8th Street NW between G and H Streets, NW in the Chapel. The meeting ends at 8:00PM.

Mayor Fenty's First Visit
This month is our second anniversary as a neighborhood association serving our emerging neighborhood. This will be Mayor Fenty's first visit with us. We expect to hear about his vision for our neighborhood and to lead an open to discussion on topics like homeless and housing, public safety, neighborhood amenities, and other questions that he has time to address. This is an especially important meeting given the leaders we will have, so please make a special effort to attend.

Teen Crowding
As most are aware, our neighborhood has become one of the "places to be" for teens. There are far more teens coming into our neighborhood than we can safely accommodate. This is a complicated community issue and not everyone agrees on the magnitude of the problem - even among those living on F Street or 7th Street.

The Mayor's office has taken the lead on this issue, along with MPD, DCRA, and DCFD. DNA was represented at a stakeholders meeting last week that was called under the leadership of First District Commander Kamperin. This meeting included DNA, Downtown BID, Regal Theater, Akridge, and Western Development. We expect these meetings to continue, and to include, other developers with interests in the Chinatown section of 7th Street and F Street were we have several entertainment venues. We've seen increased presence of MPD and Metro officers, security officers, and the publication of rules for Regal Theater Patrons. And, DNA published several suggestions that were the outcome of a community meeting we had earlier this month that have been provided to our Mayor and our Ward 2 and Ward 6 councilmembers.

There will be an update on this tomorrow night.

RSVP
If you have not RSVP'd yet, please do so we can have the Chapel properly set-up to accommodate our group.

See you tomorrow night.

Miles E. Groves
Downtown Neighborhood Association
Email: miles@dcdna.org
Web: www.dcdna.org