Mayor Williams has made it known: He is not happy with Fannie Mae, the home mortgage loan giant that pulled out of an agreement to develop a new office complex at the Waterside Mall site in Southwest D.C. In fact, Williams and other city officials are trying to figure out if the District has any way get some money back. And one member of the D.C. Council says Fannie Mae could potentially pay $200 million in damages.

From Councilmember Jack Evans of Ward 2, as quoted in the Post:

Legally, the District could sue Fannie Mae for lost opportunity costs, which I estimate are in the ballpark of $200 million

Fannie Mae was to develop signature office space at M and Fourth streets SW (at the Waterfront-SEU metrorail station), and the move to Southwest D.C. was being viewed as a strategic positioning of a large piece of the city’s overall development puzzle for the area. That, along with a new Arena Stage and the proposed new baseball stadium a few blocks to the east, would infuse the Southwest Waterfront area with more activity and pedestrian life. Activity and pedestrian life in Southwest has been largely lacking since “urban removal” of the 1960s, when a good chuck of the city’s Southwest quadrant, once a bustling neighborhood, was bulldozed for offices, apartment buildings and other public space that was never properly utilized.

There are some gentrification battles in Southwest, most notably the fight over the Randall homeless shelter, which has been a rallying call for city activists regarding the move to give the building to the Corcoran for educational purposes.

>> DCist on Fannie Mae in Southwest

(Image of Waterside Mall proposal from The Kaempfer Company, one of the redevelopment partners)