DCentric

Neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River are undergoing changes, albeit they aren’t taking place as rapidly as west of the river.

Higher-income folks slowly moving into east of the river communities, which are primarily low-income, are contributing to those changes. But massive development projects will likely have more of an immediate, and major, impact on the area.

Much of that development will take awhile; the transformation of St. Elizabeths Campus into the new U.S. Coast Guard headquarters likely won’t be complete until after 2016. But other projects, meant to piggy-back off of the St. Elizabeths project, may come to the neighborhood before then. The Washington Post reports that plans are being finalized for the $25 million redevelopment of 2235 Shannon Place SE from a police evidence warehouse into a mixed-use office building:

The office project is the first step in a long-term, transformational overhaul of downtown Anacostia being planned by a partnership between District-based Curtis Properties — which owns large chunks of land there — and Four Points, a D.C. developer that is making its name on projects in emerging neighborhoods.

Such projects will bring many daytime office workers east of the river, people who want options for lunch and who may want to relocate to nearby neighborhoods to be close to work. Some are already bracing for the changes. The District’s Department of Transportation has plans to expand D.C. Circulator to roll past St. Elizabeths Campus in the next few years.