New Battle for Old Soldiers’ Home
The Armed Forces Retirement Home, also called the Old Soldiers’ Home, sparked a battle with area residents in late 2005 when it released plans for commercial and residential development of its bucolic estate in north-central Washington. Now, a community nonprofit is in the fray, fighting to create a park on a portion of the home’s land, closed to the public for over 50 years.
Officially established late last summer, Washington Central Parks wants to use the western edge of the Armed Forces Retirement Home to link Fort Totten Park to the north with McMillan Park and Reservoir to south, forming a unified network of trails and parks. The group’s vision is larger than just having a place to jog or ride a bike.
“There’s been a heavy push on the commercial development of the city over the past 10 years, and that’s fantastic, but it needs to be balanced with other needs that make a city a good place to live,” Reyn Anderson, co-founder of Washington Central Parks said. “Bring families in, get them to stick around, and that will strengthen the tax base.”
Washington Central Parks recently used a $3,500 grant from ANC 4C to hire architectural designer Lex Ulibarri to sketch ideas for the park. “At this point it seems like a good place to be talking about how (the land) could be used and coming up with good solutions for everybody,” Anderson added.
A good solution for the Armed Forces Retirement Home, however, would require a sufficient sum of money, something Washington Central Parks cannot currently offer.
“They haven’t come up with a way to pay for it,” said Chris Black, a consultant for the home.
Map image from washingtoncentralparks.org
The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which sits on 272 acres west of Catholic University and houses approximately 1,200 veterans, has been plagued by financial troubles and is leasing portions of its estate to fund improvements such as a new roof, an Alzheimer’s ward, and facilities to care for Iraq war veterans with severe disabilities.
Black said that leasing portions of the campus is the only way the Armed Forces Retirement Home will be able to meet the needs of its veteran residents. The home planned originally to lease the land being eyed by Washington Central Parks to commercial developers, though Black said it would be willing to lease the land for use as a public park if the price were right.
Luckily for Washington Central Parks, the Armed Forces Retirement Home has decided to develop less controversial sections of the campus first, buying the group time to hunt for much-needed funding. On March 26 the home chose from competing development proposals for the southeastern portion of the campus, selecting one that would create a 20-acre green space open to the public. The land designated for the park, however, does not border the residential neighborhoods to the west and would not connect McMillan and Fort Totten parks.
Washington Central Parks’s Anderson said the organization will be searching for funding in the coming months.