Ward 8 Business Preservation Project
MLK Jr. Avenue & Marion Barry Jr. Avenue Corridors
Corridor Documentation & Ownership Analysis — Phase 1 Findings
Prepared by ResilNC for Building Bridges Across the River (Building Bridges)
May 2026
Supported by Wells Fargo Foundation
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Executive Summary
Anacostia sits at the center of more than $7 billion in converging development, from the 11th Street Bridge Park to the proposed Commanders stadium at RFK, Therme DC at Poplar Point, the Barry Farm redevelopment, and the Soul of the City BID in Congress Heights. This is not a neighborhood on the verge of change. It is a neighborhood already changing, and the pace is accelerating. Building Bridges Across the River (the non-profit behind the 11th Street Bridge Park) has spent ten years building the housing, workforce, and small business infrastructure designed to ensure that this investment benefits the community that has long called this place home. This report is one tool in that larger effort.
This report presents the first-phase findings of ResilNC’s Ward 8 Commercial Corridor Documentation and Ownership Analysis, conducted on behalf of Building Bridges Across the River (Building Bridges) and funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation. The work focuses on two commercial corridors in Washington, D.C.’s Ward 8: Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE, the two primary commercial arteries serving the Anacostia community.
Using the DC Integrated Tax System (ITS) Public Extract for property ownership and transaction records, Google Street View for real-time tenant verification, and systematic corridor walks, ResilNC has assembled what is believed to be the most current and comprehensive business and property ownership inventory of these corridors to date. Combined, the two corridors encompass approximately 142 documented businesses across 116 unique parcels, representing over $221 million in assessed commercial property value.
The data reveals a corridor ecosystem that is vibrant, community-oriented, and under growing speculative pressure. Commercial property sales prices in Anacostia have reached $551 per square foot as of Q4 2024, against a DC average of $477, while retail rents remain low at $31 per square foot. That spread is a hallmark of early-stage speculation. The 11th Street Bridge Park, projected to draw one million visitors annually upon opening, will intensify this dynamic substantially. At the same time, federal workforce reductions have eroded the consumer base these corridors depend on, creating a pincer effect that makes the current moment particularly acute for Ward 8 businesses.
This report documents current business composition, property ownership patterns, and early indicators of speculative activity. It is grounded in data, in the testimony of business owners and community members who have built their livelihoods on these corridors, and in the experience of those who have already been displaced. It establishes the baseline from which vulnerability assessments, community ownership strategies, and intervention prioritization will flow in subsequent phases.
Context & Urgency
Anacostia is not a neighborhood on the verge of change. It is a neighborhood already changing. The forces at work are not subtle. Over $7 billion in development is converging on this side of the river, from the 11th Street Bridge Park to Poplar Point, Barry Farm, the RFK campus, and beyond. Outside investors have been quietly acquiring commercial properties along both corridors at an accelerating pace. The data in this report makes that visible for the first time in granular, address-level detail.
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Ward 8's commercial corridors have been built and sustained largely by Black-owned businesses and community-rooted operators, many of whom lack the capital reserves to purchase the properties they occupy, making them acutely vulnerable to rent increases and displacement following ownership transfers. What happens to communities like this one when major investment arrives without a deliberate ownership strategy in place is well documented. That history, and what it means for Anacostia, is examined in full later in this report.
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The 11th Street Bridge Park team, working through their resident driven Community Preservation Plan since 2015, has made explicit commitments to prevent this outcome with over $100MM in housing, small business and workforce training investments. This documentation effort is a critical early tool in that work, providing the factual foundation required to deploy capital, technical assistance, and policy interventions strategically and ahead of market inflection.
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"Especially since the Bridge Park is scheduled to break ground in the coming year... we're already seeing impacts of bad actors, outside investors, folks not from the community buying up assets... and not necessarily to do beneficial things for the community. And so that is a trend that will be interesting to see and to track and to try to combat." Bryan Franklin, LISC DC
“We operated out of that location for
nearly 20 years. When we finally saw what they’d turned it into, it was bittersweet. I’m grateful they’re acknowledging the history. But it’s pretty sad, to be honest.”
— Anita Foster
Anita Foster grew up here. Her father ran an auto body shop at 1305 Good Hope Road SE for nearly 20 years, the same block now known as Marion Barry Jr. Avenue. He knew every neighbor. He fixed cars at prices people could actually afford. He had a friend two doors down who did the diagnostic work; they looked out for each other. He wanted, more than anything, to own the building he worked in.
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He never got there. The capital wasn't accessible to him.
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When the 2008 financial crisis hit, the family sat down and made a calculation that no family should have to make: the lease on the shop, or the mortgage on the home. They chose the home. The shop closed. The block changed. Anita's father carried the weight of that loss for the rest of his life, and she believes it contributed to his death from congestive heart failure.
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Today, Anita is an impact investor. She works to make sure that people like her father, entrepreneurs with deep community roots and real skill, have access to the capital that was never made available to him.
The building at 1303 Good Hope Road is now the Marion Barry Avenue Market and Cafe. Anita is working on an exhibition there to tell the story of the businesses that built that block. She goes back often.
Methodology
ResilNC employed a multi-pronged methodology combining direct field documentation with analysis of publicly available administrative records to construct a comprehensive inventory of both corridors.
DC Integrated Tax System (ITS) Public Extract:
Used to obtain property ownership records, assessed values, sale prices, sale dates, and property classifications
for each parcel. This public dataset provides the authoritative record of who owns the land beneath each business
Google Street View:
Used to visually confirm active
tenancy at each address along both corridors, providing the most current available view of which businesses are open and operating. This approach allowed verification independent of potentially outdated business license databases.
Field Verification:
Systematic corridor walks were conducted along both corridors to physically confirm what the data and imagery showed, putting eyes on the ground to document active businesses and current conditions in real time.
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Together, these three sources address the two foundational questions of any displacement analysis: who occupies the building, and who owns it.
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Several data limitations bear noting. The ITS database operates at the parcel level; businesses occupying shared or subdivided spaces within a single parcel are not individually distinguishable through this source alone. Recent ownership transfers may not yet be reflected in available records. Tenant-level data, including lease terms, years in operation, and financial position, falls outside the scope of public records and will be the subject of continued community engagement in subsequent phases.
A Corridor in Context:
Investment Is Coming.
The Question Is Who Benefits.
The commercial businesses along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE do not operate in isolation. They sit at the center of a convergence of major development initiatives, each significant on its own, but collectively representing a scale of investment that will fundamentally reshape market conditions in Anacostia over the next three to seven years. The central question for corridor stakeholders is not whether this investment will change the neighborhood. It will. The question is whether existing businesses will be positioned and protected in time to benefit from it, orit or displaced before it arrives.
Poplar Point and Therme DC
One of the last major undeveloped waterfront parcels on the East Coast, Poplar Point is a 110-acre site situated along the Anacostia River between the Frederick Douglass Bridge and the 11th Street Bridges. The site has remained under National Park Service jurisdiction for decades, but a 2006 act of Congress (Public Law 109-396) directed its transfer to the District of Columbia once specific planning conditions are met, including preservation of at least 70 acres for park purposes.
On March 20, 2025, Mayor Bowser and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development announced the selection of Therme Group as the anchor tenant for Poplar Point, with a proposal to develop 15 of the site's 110 acres into a large-scale health and wellness destination called Therme DC. The remaining acreage is planned as a 70-acre riverfront park and trail system, with 25 acres reserved for mixed-use development. The Therme DC project is projected to generate $1.5 billion in tax revenue over 25 years, create 5,000 local construction jobs during development, and produce 720 permanent jobs upon completion. Therme Group has committed to a workforce development plan prioritizing Ward 8 residents for both construction and permanent positions, discounted access for seniors, youth, and area residents, and a community wellbeing investment initiative supporting local businesses and arts programming on site.
The land transfer from NPS to the District remains pending, contingent on completion of an Environmental Assessment. The District has proposed the Therme anchor use as part of that process. More information and updates on the planning process are available at publicinput.com/poplarpoint.
Barry Farm Redevelopment
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Barry Farm, a historic neighborhood in southwest Anacostia established after the Civil War as a refuge for formerly enslaved people, is one of four New Communities Initiative sites in the District. The NCI is a DC government program managed by DMPED designed to replace severely distressed subsidized housing with vibrant mixed-income communities. The full Barry Farm redevelopment envisions 1.86 million square feet of potential buildout, including approximately 900 new residential units and 40,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving retail.
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Development is actively underway across multiple phases. The Asberry, a 108-unit affordable senior residence with 5,000 square feet of retail space at 1200 Sumner Road SE, delivered in Q3 2024, supported by $43 million in DC government investment. The Edmonson, a 139-unit affordable building at 1130 Sumner Road SE featuring 20,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, broke ground in late 2025 and is scheduled for completion in December 2026, supported by a $21 million NCI loan. In December 2025, the DC Housing Authority and Preservation of Affordable Housing (POAH) closed a $98.5 million financing package for Hillsdale Flats I, a 90-unit development with 42 units designated for returning Barry Farm residents, with construction beginning in 2026. Two additional buildings (Buildings 3 and 4) are planned with combined retail presence on Firth Sterling Avenue.
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POAH, the lead developer, is actively seeking local restaurants, retail shops, and neighborhood-serving businesses to occupy the Edmonson's commercial spaces. The proximity of Barry Farm to the Marion Barry Avenue corridor means that new residential density, daytime population, and commercial activity from the redevelopment will flow directly into the existing corridor.
Congress Heights and the Soul of the City BID
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Immediately south of the study corridor, Congress Heights has taken a significant step toward organized commercial revitalization. The DC Council recently approved the Soul of the City Business Improvement District, which will assess local businesses and some multifamily property owners to fund reinvestment in marketing, safety initiatives, beautification, and workforce development for the area. Supporters of the BID describe it as an opportunity to address both economic development and public safety simultaneously, with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Salim Adofo noting that the BID "helps plant multiple trees with one seed."
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The formation of the BID coincides with planned improvements to the Congress Heights Metro station, which are expected to improve accessibility and draw additional private investment to the area. Local business owners, while cautiously optimistic, have noted visible signs of change, including the filling of previously abandoned storefronts. The Soul of the City BID represents the beginning of an organized commercial corridor strategy directly adjacent to the study area, with the potential to influence land values and investor attention along both corridors.
RFK Stadium and the New Commanders Mixed-Use District
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The proposed return of the Washington Commanders to the District of Columbia, anchored by a new NFL stadium on the RFK Campus, represents the longest-horizon catalyst in this analysis but potentially the largest in scale. An economic and fiscal impact study conducted by CSL estimates that stadium construction alone will generate approximately $976 million in net new direct spending to the District over a three-year build period, producing $1.1 billion in total economic output and employing an estimated 14,000 construction workers. On an annual basis beginning in 2030, stadium operations, in-facility spending, and out-of-stadium fan activity are projected to generate $800 million in direct spending and $63.7 million in annual tax revenue. Over a 33-year period, the combined construction and operational impacts are projected at $14.9 billion in direct spending and $2.4 billion in cumulative tax revenue to the District.
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These projections, however, carry meaningful caveats worth noting for corridor planning purposes. The DC Fiscal Policy Institute has raised concerns about the methodology underlying the CSL analysis, citing the firm's history of overstated economic projections in comparable stadium studies and the failure to account for significant levels of forgone tax revenue tied to public subsidies. Independent academic research on NFL stadium impacts has broadly found that stadiums are not significant drivers of local economic growth on their own, with benefits frequently accruing to team ownership rather than surrounding communities. A community benefits process led by a Ward 7 advisory board has also been underway, reflecting community interest in ensuring that any redevelopment of the RFK site produces direct, measurable benefit for residents of the neighborhoods closest to it.
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For the Anacostia corridor specifically, the RFK development is relevant less as an immediate demand driver and more as a signal of the broader repositioning of the Southeast DC waterfront. The scale of public and private attention being directed toward this corridor, from Poplar Point to Barry Farm to Congress Heights to RFK, underscores that the speculation already visible in corridor property data is not irrational from an investor's perspective. It is a rational response to a foreseeable future. The businesses and owners operating in this corridor today are building their enterprises inside that future, whether they know it or not.
"Collectively, we have been evangelizing Historic Anacostia. We are proud of the movement, the momentum this beautiful community is experiencing. Folks are underestimating the fun, learnings, discoveries, and absolute elevated experiences they can have here. I would invite folks who are looking to set roots to pack up and run to Historic Anacostia."
— Samantha Abrams
Samantha Abrams did not stumble into Anacostia; she moved with intentionality. When asked what drew her to the corridor, she was clear: the decision to open Sapodilla's, one of the first upscale restaurant in Historic Anacostia, was all divine. Maktub, Arabic for "it is written." Anacostia was a community she was already deeply familiar with, and the timing was right.
"We knew we could be a good partner to co-design Historic Anacostia we could all be very proud of five, ten, fifteen years from now."
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The first year was a test. Sapodilla's opened into one of the hottest summers on record, followed by a prolonged government shutdown that ran straight into the holiday season, then a major snowstorm that shut the city down for weeks. The lease presented its own challenges.
"It is an absolute slog some days, but we will keep pushing and working alongside our partners including our developer to make it make sense and cents for all involved."
Despite those pressures, Samantha described a corridor that has shifted visibly since Sapodilla's opened. The restaurant now draws visitors from across the world to the east side of the river, including members of Congress.
What We Found:
Corridor-by-Corridor Findings
MLK Jr. Avenue SE
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The MLK Jr. Avenue corridor is the commercial backbone of historic Anacostia. The 69 businesses documented along this corridor span a diverse range of sectors, community-serving retail, financial services, food, media, cultural institutions, and health services. Several businesses of significant community and cultural importance are active along this stretch, including the Go-Go Museum & Cafe, We Act Radio, Busboys and Poets, and Industrial Bank, one of the nation's oldest Black-owned financial institutions.
The most significant recent transaction on this corridor is the January 2025 acquisition of 1800 MLK Jr. Avenue SE by Hermes Investment LLC, a $18 million purchase that transferred one of the corridor's largest commercial buildings, home to Industrial Bank and several other tenants, to an LLC whose mailing address is in Potomac, Maryland. This is precisely the type of transaction that warrants close monitoring: a large multi-tenant commercial building acquired by an outside LLC, at a price well above assessed value, in the immediate run-up to the Bridge Park's opening.
Property ownership on the MLK corridor skews predominantly DC-based (25 of 37 distinct owners), which is encouraging. However, ownership by LLC entities whose ultimate beneficial owners are not always transparent in public records is common, and the character of those entities varies significantly. Several parcels are owned by community-rooted individuals and organizations; others have recently transferred to investment entities whose investment thesis is not publicly stated.
The MLK corridor also intersects with a critical emerging opportunity: several new commercial spaces are coming online in late 2026, including one space at the Anacostia Arts Center/WACIF and three spaces at The Edmondson (a Preservation of Affordable Housing development), which are being filled through the collaborative Wells Fargo-funded retail initiative with WACIF and DC Bar Pro Bono. If those spaces are filled with local entrepreneurs supported by the right capital stack, they anchor the corridor against higher-end displacement rather than accelerating it.
Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE
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The Marion Barry Jr. Avenue corridor has a distinct character from MLK — more industrial in places, with a tighter density of small neighborhood-serving retail, light manufacturing, and community service operations. The 73 businesses documented here include a meaningful cluster of service businesses, faith institutions, and independent retailers that reflect deep community roots.
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Out-of-region ownership is somewhat more pronounced on this corridor, with 3 of 36 documented property owners holding mailing addresses outside the DC metro area. One of the more notable recent transactions is the 2022 acquisition of 1418 Good Hope Road SE by Transamerican Bankshares Inc. for $6.35 million — a significant commercial parcel that warrants continued monitoring. The corridor also contains several parcels where the current owner cannot be confirmed through available public records, indicating either recent transfer not yet reflected in the ITS data, or ownership through structures that obscure the beneficial owner.
Regina had built Baby Einstein into something real. A daycare rooted in Anacostia, serving children from six weeks to twelve years old, staffed by people who knew the families and the neighborhood. The first center opened on Good Hope Road. Regina knew what had been built and what it meant to the community that depended on it.
On January 18, 2024, an explosion destroyed the building next door and took the space with it. Within days, a temporary location was secured. The staff stayed. The families stayed. The doors stayed open.
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What the crisis made clear was something already suspected: as long as the business was leasing, its future was in someone else's hands. The landlord chose not to rebuild. That was his right. But it meant that twenty years of community investment, of showing up every day for the families on that block, could be ended by a decision Regina had no part in making.
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DC's Great Streets grant and the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund made it possible to purchase a building a few doors down from the original location in October 2024. Baby Einstein is now owner-occupied.
The permit application, submitted in January 2025, remains pending more than a year later. A mortgage is being paid on a building that cannot yet open.
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Regina's story is not just one of resilience. It is a precise illustration of what the ownership pathway looks like in practice, what it requires financially, what the city's tools can make possible, and where the gaps remain.
"This is something that would crush a small business owner, having to pay the mortgage every month and wait over a year to get a permit. If I was not in a good financial position, I could understand how people would lose what they have started."
— Regina Snead
The Market Is Already Moving:
Speculation, Ownership, and the Pressure Building on Both
One of the most important functions of this documentation effort is to make speculative activity visible before it becomes irreversible. The data compiled from DC tax records tells a clear story: the market has already begun to move, and it is moving faster than most corridor businesses are positioned to respond.
The Speculation Signal
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Commercial property sales prices along the Anacostia corridors have already begun to outpace the broader DC market. According to the Wagner School Bridge Park Final Report, commercial sales prices in the area now reach $551 per square foot, against a DC average of $477, even as retail rents remain below market rate at $31 per square foot. This gap between acquisition price and current rent is a textbook speculation signal: investors are purchasing at elevated prices in anticipation of future rent increases, not in response to current market conditions. For business owners operating on thin margins, this dynamic translates directly into lease pressure. Landlords who have acquired properties at speculative prices have both the incentive and the financial obligation to push rents toward levels that many current tenants cannot sustain.
The following patterns, derived from the DC ITS data, are early indicators that warrant continued monitoring and, in some cases, proactive response:
Acquisition price above assessed value: Several recent transactions on both corridors were completed at prices significantly above the DC OTR assessed value, indicating buyers are pricing in future appreciation rather than current income, a characteristic indicator of speculative rather than operational acquisition.
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LLC ownership without operational presence: A meaningful share of parcels on both corridors are held by LLC entities whose mailing addresses are outside the property's immediate community. These entities vary widely in character, some are community-rooted, others are not, but the pattern warrants disaggregation and deeper investigation.
Recent transaction velocity: Eight properties on the MLK corridor and six on Marion Barry have transacted since 2022, a notable volume for corridors of this size. The concentration of activity in the 2022 to 2025 window aligns directly with the period following the Bridge Park groundbreaking announcement.
The Ownership Gap
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Beneficial ownership opacity across both corridors compounds this challenge. Numerous properties are held through LLC structures that obscure the identity of the ultimate owner, making it difficult for tenants to understand who they are negotiating with or what the long-term intentions for a property actually are. ResilNC is currently developing a supplementary analysis that maps developers and investors who are actively acquiring commercial real estate in the study area. This speculative actor mapping will be integrated into the Phase 2 vulnerability assessment and will allow the project team to identify, by property and by owner, where the displacement risk is most acute and where proactive intervention is most warranted.
The Anacostia BID has been tracking these patterns closely. According to Kristina Noell of the Anacostia BID, the corridor is active and evolving, but the underlying pressures are visible to anyone paying attention.
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"This data-driven approach helps the BID identify where vacancies may be emerging, how rents and market pressures are shifting, and which businesses and landlords may be vulnerable to displacement."
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The BID's focus, Noell noted, remains on ensuring that existing businesses are positioned to benefit from increased activity as the Bridge Park advances, rather than being displaced by it. Professional services, food, arts, and other community-serving businesses continue to anchor the corridor, while broader challenges around capacity, capital, and visibility persist for many operators.
The Emerging Commercial Market: New Development and Rent Pressure
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Understanding displacement risk requires not only mapping who currently owns corridor properties, but understanding what the new commercial market looks like and whether existing community businesses can actually afford to participate in it. Three active commercial listings by
The Menkiti Group along these corridors offer a revealing, real-time window into that question.
The Menkiti Group is a DC-based, 100% minority-owned, LEED-certified real estate development company founded by Bo Menkiti in 2004. The firm operates as a "double bottom line" company measuring success through both financial returns and community impact, with a stated priority of providing accessible brokerage services to smaller businesses in urban neighborhoods. Their presence on these corridors represents genuine community investment, and their recently completed buildings, including Phase I of 1909 MLK Jr. Ave SE, recognized as DC's 2021 Best Redevelopment Project, have materially improved the physical quality of the corridor environment.
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At the same time, the asking rents on their available spaces illustrate precisely the market pressure dynamic that makes proactive preservation work so urgent.
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The gap is significant. The least expensive of the three Menkiti spaces, 1209 Marion Barry at $39/SF/yr, is already 26% above the current corridor average. The 1205 Marion Barry space at $48/SF/yr is 55% above that baseline. The Class A 1909 MLK space, whose rents are not publicly listed, is likely higher still given its building class and development profile.
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To put this in concrete terms: a business currently occupying 2,000 square feet at the corridor average of $31/SF pays approximately $62,000 per year in rent. The equivalent space in the 1209 Marion Barry building would run $78,000, a $16,000 annual increase. In the 1205 building, it would reach $96,000, a $34,000 jump. For a neighborhood barbershop, community health clinic, or independent restaurant operating on thin margins, that difference is not a negotiating point. It is a displacement trigger.
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This is not a critique of The Menkiti Group, whose mission and track record merit respect and whose new buildings have added genuine value to these corridors. It is an illustration of how market dynamics operate independent of any single actor's intentions. New, high-quality development raises the floor for what landlords, including legacy owners, can charge. Once a corridor establishes a new rent precedent, existing tenants face pressure at lease renewal regardless of who their landlord is. The mechanism of displacement is structural, not personal.
Liz Anderson runs the portfolio of small business grant programs at DC's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. The office administers the Main Street Program, the Emerging Retail Initiative, and the Commercial Property Acquisition Fund, the program that helped Regina buy her building on Good Hope Road.
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DMPED has invested over $50 million across 15 corridors citywide. The Commercial Property Acquisition Fund provides non-repayable grants of $250,000 to $500,000 to minority-owned businesses for down payments on commercial property. It is, by most accounts, one of the most progressive small business ownership programs in the country.
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Liz is clear-eyed about its limits.
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"Some of these programs that we have today may not necessarily be here tomorrow. We need to absolutely build up businesses and models that will be able to fill in the gaps. Ownership especially, commercial business ownership, does not stay stagnant depending on the politics of the landscape. We want to make sure this is still moving forward."
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The implication is not subtle. Public programs, however well designed, are subject to political change. The case for private, patient capital alongside public grant programs is not just a financial argument. It is a durability argument.
A Compounding Threat:
Development Pressure and Economic Headwinds
The commercial corridors along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE face a threat that operates on two fronts simultaneously. On one side, rising commercial property values and speculative acquisition activity are pushing the cost of doing business beyond the reach of the small, community-rooted businesses that have anchored these corridors for generations. On the other, the regional economic disruption caused by federal workforce reductions is eroding the consumer base those same businesses depend on to survive. Taken together, these forces constitute what this report frames as a pincer effect: development pressure squeezing from above while economic headwinds close in from below.
The Federal Workforce Disruption
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The speculation dynamic would be challenging enough on its own. It is made significantly more acute by a simultaneous shock to the regional economy. In March 2026, Brookings Metro published "After the Fork: Greater Washington Leads the Nation in Regional Job Loss," documenting that the DMV region lost approximately 54,000 jobs in 2025, driven almost entirely by federal workforce reductions. This represents the largest job decline of any major U.S. metro area and reflects a structural shift in the region's economic base, not a temporary fluctuation.
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The burden of this disruption has not fallen evenly. Black unemployment in the DMV region rose at approximately twice the rate of white unemployment over the same period. Retail was among the hardest-hit private sectors. Black women experienced disproportionate impacts across both federal and retail employment categories. These are not abstract statistics for the corridors this report examines. Ward 8 has one of the highest concentrations of federal workers of any ward in the District. The businesses along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE serve a customer base that is now, in meaningful numbers, out of work, managing reduced income, or facing significant household financial uncertainty.
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An earlier Brookings report, "Early Warning Signs for the DC Region's Economy Amid Federal Downsizing" (Liu, Loh, and Haskins, September 2025), flagged rising household financial distress across the DMV region as a leading indicator of broader economic stress. For corridors where most businesses operate on thin margins and depend on consistent foot traffic from local residents, declining household spending power is not a background condition. It is a direct threat to revenue.
The Compounding Effect
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The significance of the pincer framing is that neither pressure alone is necessarily fatal. Corridors have survived speculation cycles before, and they have weathered economic downturns. What makes the current moment particularly acute for Ward 8 businesses is the simultaneity: property costs are rising at precisely the moment that the consumer base is contracting. A business owner facing a rent increase has fewer options when their customer count is also declining. A landlord who might otherwise negotiate a lease extension has less flexibility when their own acquisition costs require a higher return.
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Messay Derebe, Executive Director of WACIF, put it plainly:
"Historically, the negative things that happen in this city happen to the whole city, but over and over again, they have the worst impact on this community, and that is compounding. Small solutions or band-aids are not going to make a meaningful difference."
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The opening of the 11th Street Bridge Park, projected for the second half of 2028, will likely accelerate the speculation dynamic already underway. Without deliberate intervention, the businesses that have sustained these corridors through decades of disinvestment risk being displaced at the exact moment the investment they helped make possible finally arrives.
What History Tells Us:
The Cost of Inaction
The research documented in this report is not the first of its kind. Across American cities, the pattern of what happens to communities of color when major infrastructure investments arrive without a deliberate ownership strategy in place is well established and consistent enough to function as a forecast. The corridors along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE are not unique in their vulnerability. They are simply the next in a line of communities facing a decision point that, once passed, is extraordinarily difficult to reverse.
The Predictable Arc
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When a catalytic public investment is announced in or near a historically disinvested neighborhood, a predictable sequence tends to follow. Speculative acquisition begins well before the investment is complete, often within months of a groundbreaking or major funding announcement. Property values rise in anticipation of future demand, not in response to current conditions. Long-term tenants, most of whom are operating on month-to-month leases or short-term renewals, find that their leverage in lease negotiations has evaporated. Rents increase. Some businesses absorb the increase and survive, often by reducing staff, cutting hours, or compromising on quality. Others relocate to less central locations, losing the foot traffic and visibility that sustained them. Many simply close.
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What follows is a commercial corridor that looks, on the surface, like revitalization. New storefronts open. Vacancy declines. Foot traffic increases. But the businesses that anchor the new corridor are rarely the ones that built it. The owners who endured years of disinvestment, who kept their doors open when the neighborhood was considered a risk, who reinvested their modest returns back into the community, are largely gone. The wealth created by the appreciation in land value flows to whoever holds title, and in corridors like these, that is increasingly not the people who live and work there.
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The High Line in New York City is the most frequently cited example of this dynamic, and it is referenced throughout the research that informs this report. But the pattern is visible much closer to home. Across the District, corridors that were once anchored by Black-owned businesses serving Black communities have been transformed by development cycles that arrived without ownership infrastructure in place. H Street NE, portions of U Street NW, and stretches of Georgia Avenue tell versions of the same story. The names and specific circumstances differ. The outcome is consistent.
Anita Foster watched this pattern take her family's business. Her father ran his auto body shop on Good Hope Road for nearly 20 years. He knew the arc was coming. He wanted to own the building. The capital was never made accessible to him. When the pressure came, there was nothing to hold onto. That is not an individual failure. It is a systemic one, and it is precisely what this report is designed to help prevent from repeating.
What Is Different This Time, and What Is Not
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The 11th Street Bridge Park project has been intentional about equitable development in ways that many comparable projects have not. The Community Preservation Plan, the small business preservation programming through Building Bridges Across the River, and the research that gave rise to this report all reflect a genuine effort to get ahead of the displacement dynamic rather than respond to it after the fact. That matters.
What does not change is the underlying market logic. Development pressure does not pause because an Community Preservation Plan exists. Speculative acquisition is already underway along these corridors, as the property data in this report documents. The window between now and the Bridge Park opening in the second half of 2028 is not a grace period. It is the intervention window, and it is finite.
ResilNC's approach to this work begins from the premise that documentation is not an end in itself. The corridor database, the ownership analysis, the displacement risk indicators compiled in this report are inputs to a capital strategy, not a substitute for one. The research identifies which businesses are most vulnerable, which properties represent acquisition opportunities for community ownership models, and where the gap between current rents and speculative asking prices is widest. That information is actionable, but only if it is connected to capital that can move at the speed the market is already moving.
Partners in Equity was built on the same premise. The fund's model, investing patient equity alongside business owners and community-rooted developers to close the acquisition gap that conventional financing leaves open, is a direct response to the pattern described above. The March 2026 close of a $450,000 investment alongside Bethune Development at 1840 Minnesota Ave, a 16-unit workforce housing rehab anchored by a local Black developer and designed to serve local teachers, is one proof point. The corridors documented in this report represent the next set of opportunities, if the capital and the will to deploy it are present before the window closes.
The Question This Report Is Designed to Answer
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The businesses along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE have survived disinvestment. The more difficult question, and the one this report is designed to help answer, is whether they can survive investment. The difference between a corridor that retains its community character through a development cycle and one that loses it almost entirely comes down to who holds title when the value arrives. That is a question of capital access, policy design, and timing. All three are still within reach. The data in this report is intended to make the case that they must be.
William Bethune is a local Black developer, born and raised in this community, who chose to invest in Anacostia before the wave of outside capital arrived and made it an obvious bet.
Bethune recently closed on 1840 Minnesota Avenue SE, a 16-unit building being rehabbed into workforce housing with a focus on local teachers. The development company's headquarters will be in the building, rooting the work directly in the community it serves.
Partners in Equity closed a $450,000 investment alongside Bethune Development in March 2026, the kind of community-centered, patient capital that prioritizes long-term presence over short-term return.
If Interventions Are Not Made
The Businesses Go First
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The window for intervention is narrowing, and the displacement of corridor businesses does not announce itself when it closes. It arrives quietly, at lease renewal, when a landlord who acquired a property at speculative prices presents a new rate that reflects what the market will bear after the Bridge Park opens, not what it bears today. For a business operating on thin margins, the difference between $31 per square foot and $48 per square foot is not a negotiation. It is a closure.
The businesses most at risk are not the weakest ones. They are the ones that have been here the longest, that have the deepest community roots, and that are the least likely to have the capital reserves or the credit profile to absorb a sudden cost increase or execute a rapid relocation. The barbershop that has been on MLK for fifteen years. The community health clinic. The faith institution operating out of a ground-floor commercial space. These are not marginal businesses. They are the connective tissue of the corridor, and they are the first to go when the market resets.
The Corridor Changes Character
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What follows business displacement is not vacancy. Vacancy is temporary. What follows is replacement, and replacement happens fast once the rent floor has been reset. New tenants arrive who can afford the new rates. The corridor fills back up. On paper, the numbers look good. Foot traffic increases. Assessed values rise. Tax revenue grows.
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But the corridor that exists after that reset is not the same corridor. The Go-Go Museum is not replaced by another Go-Go Museum. Industrial Bank is not replaced by another Black-owned financial institution that has served the community for generations. What replaces them are businesses oriented toward the new market, toward the residents who can afford to live in the new development. The community that built these corridors, that kept them alive through decades of disinvestment, becomes a visitor in its own neighborhood.
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This is not speculation. It is the documented outcome of every comparable development cycle in this city and in cities across the country. The corridors that have already gone through this, H Street NE, U Street NW, and neighborhoods across DC that were once anchored by Black-owned businesses, tell the same story.
Strategic Recommendations
The data in this report is not an end point. It is a starting point for action. The corridor inventory, the ownership analysis, the displacement risk indicators documented here are only useful insofar as they are connected to capital, policy, and coordinated will move before the market fully resets. The following recommendations are organized around the actors who have the most leverage to change outcomes: the District of Columbia, the private and philanthropic capital community, the developers building in and around these corridors, and the community institutions that anchor them.
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Building Bridges:
A Decade of Ground Work
These recommendations do not begin from zero. For ten years, Building Bridges Across the River has been building the infrastructure, the partnerships, and the community trust that make proactive intervention possible. What makes the Bridge Park project distinct from comparable infrastructure investments is not just the intention to prevent displacement, it is the decade of organized, community-driven work that preceded the park's opening.
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That work began in 2015 with the development of the Community Preservation Plan, a strategy built not in a conference room but through sustained engagement with residents, entrepreneurs, and community leaders east of the river. The plan identified three initial priority areas: housing, workforce development, and small business. It has since expanded to include arts and culture and health and wellness, each addition driven by what the community identified as missing, not by what the organization decided to offer.
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The approach has been consistent throughout. Rather than building new programs from scratch, Building Bridges first maps what already exists, identifies who is already doing good work, and finds ways to resource and partner with those organizations. The East of the River Home Buyers Club is one example. The idea came from Reverend Jim Dickerson of MANNA, a local affordable housing developer who raised it at a community meeting. Building Bridges ran with the idea, raised the funding, and has been resourcing MANNA staff to run the program every fourth Saturday for the past ten years. The result is 202 renters who have become homeowners, supported by $300,000 in down payment and closing cost assistance.
The Douglass Community Land Trust was the number one idea to emerge from community input in the housing category. Building Bridges raised $3.5 million to stand it up. It now holds 260 affordable housing units, and Building Bridges is actively exploring whether the Douglass CLT can expand into ground-level commercial property acquisition, a move that would directly address the ownership gap this report documents.
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On the small business side, the work operates across three distinct programs. The Small Business Preservation Program, developed in partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton, provides up to ten corridor businesses per year with a full year of embedded technical assistance and cash grants between $5,000 - $10,000. Now in its fourth cohort, the program has supported 100 businesses east of the river, delivered $2.2 million in direct financial support, and in one year alone helped seven businesses and three nonprofits secure over $1 million in grants through a dedicated grant writing team. The Bridge Spot program supports entrepreneurs who are not yet in brick and mortar, with two mobile kiosks that circulate through the community from May through December, providing 14 entrepreneurs per year with no-cost vending space, $2,000 grants, and wraparound support from Accenture. A third initiative, developed in partnership with WACIF and supported by a $1 million TD Bank grant, connects businesses to capital access and technical assistance through an integrated retail development model.
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The workforce pipeline is equally substantial. Through Skyland Workforce Center, Building Bridges has trained 994 construction workers and placed 520 of them in construction jobs, alongside 618 residents placed in non-construction jobs. That pipeline is designed to ensure that when the Bridge Park breaks ground and the broader development wave arrives, the people building it and working in it are from the community it is meant to serve.
The Urban Institute has been evaluating this work since 2016, providing independent, third-party documentation of what is working and what needs to change. That evaluation has consistently found that the most effective strategies are the ones that unify partners around common goals, search for mutually reinforcing approaches across focus areas, and seek to outpace the pace of economic change rather than respond to it after the fact.
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Building Bridges has spent ten years building toward the moment this report describes. The infrastructure is there. The partnerships are there. The community trust is there. What the next phase requires is capital and coordination at a scale that matches the market pressure already underway.
A Final Word
The businesses along MLK Jr. Avenue SE and Marion Barry Jr. Avenue SE did not wait for Anacostia to become a good investment. They showed up when the neighborhood was considered a risk. They hired local. They served their neighbors. They kept their doors open through decades of disinvestment, through economic downturns, through a global pandemic, through an explosion on Good Hope Road that could have ended everything and didn’t, because one woman with deep roots and deep resolve refused to let it.
These corridors are not a blank slate waiting to be developed. They are a living community, built by people who had every reason to leave and chose to stay. That choice deserves to be met with the same commitment it took to make it.
The opportunity in front of Anacostia is real. The Bridge Park, the Barry Farm redevelopment, Poplar Point, the Soul of the City BID, the RFK campus, this convergence of investment is not a threat in itself. It is a test. The question it poses is the same question every development cycle poses to every community that has survived disinvestment long enough to see investment arrive: will the people who built this place be here when it flourishes?
The answer is not determined by the market. It is determined by the decisions made in the window before the market fully resets. Those decisions involve capital, policy, and will, and all three are still within reach.
This report is designed to make the case that they must be used.
Prepared by ResilNC
Talib Graves-Manns | Talib@pie-nc.org
On behalf of Building Bridges Across the River (Building Bridges)
Supported by Wells Fargo Foundation
May 2026 | Washington, D.C.
Sources
Urban Institute
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Bogle, Mary, Somala Diby, and Eric Burnstein. Equitable Development Planning and Urban Park Space: Early Insights from DC’s 11th Street Bridge Park Project. Urban Institute, July 2016.
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/equitable-development-planning-and-urban-park-space-early-insights-dcs-11th-street-bridge-park-project -
Bogle, Mary, Somala Diby, and Mychal Cohen. Equitable Development and Urban Park Space: Results and Insights from the First Two Years of Implementation of the Equitable Development Plan of DC’s 11th Street Bridge Park Project. Urban Institute, 2019.
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/equitable-development-and-urban-park-space-results-and-insights-first-two-years-implementation-equitable-development-plan-dcs-11th-street-bridge-park-project -
Bogle, Mary, Mychal Cohen, and Sonia Torres Rodríguez. Equitable Development and Urban Park Space: Year 4 Progress Report on Implementation of the Equitable Development Plan of the 11th Street Bridge Park. Urban Institute, April 2021.https://www.urban.org/research/publication/equitable-development-and-urban-park-space-year-4-progress-report-implementation-equitable-development-plan-11th-street-bridge-park
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Harvey, Donovan, Mary Bogle, and Kaela Girod. Equitable Workforce Development in Disinvested Places: Lessons from the Five-City Equitable Development Workforce Pilot. Urban Institute,
October 2024.
https://www.urban.org/research/publication/equitable-workforce-development-disinvested-places
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Brookings Institution
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Liu, Loh, and Haskins. Early Warning Signs for the DC Region’s Economy Amid Federal Downsizing. Brookings Metro, September 2025.
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Brookings Metro. After the Fork: Greater Washington Leads the Nation in Regional Job Loss. March 2026.
NYU Wagner School
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Wagner School Bridge Park Final Report. Commercial sales and rent analysis, Q4 2024. CoStar data referenced therein.
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DC Fiscal Policy Institute
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Economic and Fiscal Impact Study, RFK Stadium and New Commanders Mixed-Use District.
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Building Bridges Across the River
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Building Bridges Across the River. Community Preservation Plan. 2015, updated 2018.
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Building Bridges Across the River. Community Impact Infographic. Q4 2025.
DC Government
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DC Integrated Tax System (ITS) Public Extract. Property ownership, assessed values, transaction history. Data pulled February 2026.
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DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. Commercial Property Acquisition Fund and Great Streets Program documentation. https://dmped.dc.gov
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DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. Poplar Point and Therme DC announcement. March 20, 2025.
The following individuals generously contributed their time, knowledge, and personal experiences to this report. Their voices are what make the data meaningful.
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Anita Foster, Avivar Capital
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Regina Snead, Baby Einstein Daycare
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Samantha Abrams, Sapodilla’s
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Liz Anderson, DC Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development
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Messay Derebe, Executive Director, WACIF
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Kristina Noell, Anacostia BID
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Bryan Franklin, Deputy Director LISC
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Scott Kratz, President & CEO, Building Bridges Across the River
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Anna McCorvey, Senior Equitable Development Manager, 11th Street Bridge Park (a project of Building Bridges Across the River)
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Special thank you to the visionary and action oriented team of Scott Kratz and Anna McCorvey for orchestrating this project. We need more Scott and Anna’s in every community.
A Final Word
Ward 8 Business Preservation Project