The District of Columbia will provide a $35 million tax-increment bond issue for a $260 million mixed-use redevelopment project for the O Street Market in the city’s Shaw neighborhood.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty on Friday announced that the district will provide the financing for Roadside Development, which is heading the project.
“We’ve agreed to provide a financing package that will not only make this project feasible, but one that will bring real community benefits for Shaw residents and the city at large,” Fenty said in a release.
Under the TIF agreement, the district will issue the bonds to cover a portion of the initial construction costs, and the bonds will be repaid using a portion of the new tax revenue generated by the project.
The TIF package is pending approval from the District Council. Sean Madigan, spokesman for the Office of Economic Development, said it is on the council’s agenda Wednesday.
The development plan calls for reopening Eighth Street NW and incorporating the historic market into the larger project, which has been named CityMarket at O.
Located two blocks from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the two-block site is currently made up of a 28-year-old grocery store, a surface parking lot, and the brick shell of the historic market.
Roadside plans to build 630 units of housing, including 80 affordable senior units, a 200-room hotel, a 560-space parking garage, and 87,000 square feet of retail.
The project is expected to create 400 construction jobs and almost 400 permanent jobs. As a part of the TIF agreement, more than half of those jobs must first be offered to district residents. The agreement also calls for green design and meaningful opportunities for small retailers, local contractors, and investors, the release said.
The Community Preservation and Development Corp., a nonprofit housing developer, and Blue Skye Housing will build the senior housing portion of the project.
Roadside is expected to break ground next fall, Madigan said.
