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D.C. Ends Development Agreement
Haft-Led Group Loses Pact For Columbia Heights Land
By Maryann Haggerty
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 23 1996; Page E01
The Washington Post

After more than 15 years marked by much litigation and very little construction, the District government has canceled an agreement that gave a partnership led by onetime real estate magnate Herbert Haft exclusive rights to develop five parcels of city-owned land in Columbia Heights.

The land, along 14th Street NW near Park Road, includes the vacant historic Tivoli Theatre and the site where the Columbia Heights Metro station is under construction. At one time, the Haft partnership planned to demolish part of the Tivoli and build a Safeway grocery store, offices, shops and a parking lot. That plan brought stiff legal resistance from preservationists. What will happen to the sites now that the city has reasserted control remains unknown.

Along with much of the once-vibrant 14th Street corridor, the sites were devastated by the riots that followed the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Afterward, the land was acquired by the District's Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA), which oversees urban renewal projects in the city.

In 1981 the RLA signed an exclusive development rights agreement with Park Central Associates Corp., a partnership of Haft with two other local businessmen, Arthur McZier and J. Gerald Lustine.

Haft built one of the region's largest real estate fortunes, only to watch it slip out of his control in the past two years in a messy family legal battle of epic proportions. He's been divorced from his wife, estranged from his children and forced out of management of Dart Group Corp., the company that controls Crown Books Corp. and Trak Auto Corp. He's now in the last stages of a bankruptcy court reorganization that is likely to give control of the family's shopping center empire to his son Ronald.

Since Park Central gained control of the five parcels of land, the only redevelopment has been the 1984 rehabilitation and enlargement of one building at 14th and Park to provide 150 apartments for the elderly.

It's far from the only parcel of RLA-controlled land that has languished over the years. For example, the site near the Gallery Place Metro stop downtown where the MCI Center sports arena is under construction hung in limbo through much of the 1980s and early 1990s as the RLA's chosen developers were unable to find financing to put up a mixed-use complex.

There are differing opinions on why nothing ever happened to redevelop the Columbia Heights land.

Phil Feola, a lawyer with Wilkes, Artis, Hedrick & Lane who has represented the partnership for the past decade, blamed the delay on a mix of long-running litigation by historic preservationists and delays by the city government.

Since 1983, when the Tivoli was declared a historic landmark, the issue has bounced between the courts and a city office called the "mayor's agent" that is involved with preservation issues. In early 1995, an appeals court sent the case back to the mayor's agent, Feola said, and there has since been no ruling from that office.

"In fairness to my clients, we have no control over what happens in the city bureaucracy and why it takes so long to get through," Feola said. "It isn't that the partnership stopped participating. We were in the process to get permission to develop the site."

Eric Graye, president of Save the Tivoli Inc., said: "Certainly, our opposition to the project was a reason property development on the Tivoli site did not go forward. However, our opposition on that particular site did nothing to infringe on the redevelopment of the other sites Haft had control over, and nothing has happened there, either."

Community activist Dorothy Brizill said many in the neighborhood believe Park Central was delaying until the Metro stop was completed, which could raise the value of any development.

Although Feola tried to get an extension of the development rights agreement at an RLA board meeting earlier this month, some board members said they simply tired of the delay.

"The way the board looked at it is that 15 years . . . is just too long for any control when nothing has been done with it," said Mary Sherburne, a commercial real estate broker and a member of the RLA board. "It's just sitting there. The feeling of the board is we had to do something."

But it's unclear what that something will be.

Richard Westbrook, another RLA board member who recently retired from the Arlington County planning department, said it's time to reevaluate the urban renewal plan that has been guiding development of the parcels since before Park Central got involved. "During that time we've kept with the same plan. The problem with plans is if you really don't carry though and follow them, you need to really rethink the whole thing."

Among those with an eye on at least part of the land is Maria Tukeva, principal of adjoining Bell Multicultural High School. She wants to build a cafeteria and gym for her students, who currently have neither. She made no progress pitching that plan to Park Central. She said, however, that she met last week with David Watts, who heads the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, and plans to submit a proposal next month to the RLA.

Robert Moore, a former city official who now heads the Development Corporation of Columbia Heights, said he believes residents, preservationists, developers and others need to take at least a few months to develop a plan for how they would like to see the land used.

Moore, who is on the board of directors at Bell, said he thinks Tukeva should get the rights to the part of the land that she wants, and that the use of the rest should be thought through. "Let's bring the community together, have all of us sit down and say what's the best possible opportunity," he said.

Brizill said she was wary of any preconceived plan for the land, including Tukeva's. "I think the city should have an open solicitation of proposals, choosing the best one that gives it a financial return for the project as well as developing a major commercial center," she said. "The bottom line is I am saying Bell's proposal should not necessarily get any additional weight or credence. . . . I think it should be evaluated along with anything else that possibly happens."

City officials aren't saying what they plan to do. "We're in the process of making a determination what the best use and purpose for that site will be," said Debra Daniels, a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing and Community Development. "It's premature for us to say right now what we're doing with it; it's prime RLA property."

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