The D.C. government yesterday gave developers of a new home for the nation’s largest black-owned radio company the agreement they needed to begin work on the project in the Shaw neighborhood.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty signed a Land Disposition Agreement with Broadcast Center One Partners to return Radio One to the District.
The broadcasting company is headquartered in Lanham after moving out of the District in 1997 to reduce operating costs.
“It started out as a humble storefront station on H Street and it is coming back as one of the most important broadcasting companies in the business,” Mr. Fenty said.
Radio One and its sister company, TV One, said they would move their headquarters into the planned $144 million Broadcast Center One complex at Seventh and S streets in Northwest, on top of the Shaw-Howard Green Line Metrorail Station.
The project is designed for 93,000 square feet of office space, 23,000 square feet of retail, 185 parking spaces and 180 apartments.
The D.C. Council put together a financing package of tax breaks and grants intended to make the new headquarters for Radio One as economically practical as the one it is leaving in Lanham.
The District is contributing about $22 million in financing from sources such as the District”s Tax Increment Financing program, Great Streets and the Department of Housing and Community Development. The value of land the District is giving the developers accounts for $6 million of the financing package.
Mr. Fenty described Broadcast Center One as “a catalytic project” that would attract new jobs and investment to the Shaw neighborhood.
He said it would generate at least $19 million in new taxes during the next 20 years, provide about $22 million in contracting opportunities for local, small and disadvantaged businesses and create about 680 new jobs.
“This is something that has been open for too long,” said Kwame Brown, Democratic D.C. Council member-at-large, referring to years of proposals and discussions for getting Radio One back to the District. “This is revitalizing historic Shaw.”
Forty-five of the apartments would be set aside for low- and middle-income residents at reduced rents.
About 10 percent of the retail space would be made available at reduced rents for small businesses.
The Broadcast One Partners team is led by developers Four Points, LLC and Ellis Development, LLC. Construction is set to begin in April and be completed by late 2010.
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