As with the past several years, in 2005, the state of the Downtown economy was very good. Again, it was a year of major accomplishments in job creation, in development projects completed and new ones started, and in achieving a “living” Downtown.
Today, Downtown is almost completely built out, with only seven surface parking lots available for development. When the Verizon Center opened in December 1997, there were more than 70 surface parking lots in the Downtown BID. The number of planned projects in Downtown will decline over the next few years as commercial development, job creation and housing construction move to new center city locations, such as the Mount Vernon Triangle, NoMA and near Southwest and Southeast (near the site of the new baseball park) or to other large sites, such as St. Elizabeth’s, Walter Reed, Poplar Point, Reservation 13, the Armed Forces Retirement Home and McMillan Reservoir. The success of developers, investors, businesses and residents in Downtown has created an exciting environment for new projects in these other DC neighborhoods.