The Examiner ran a story on Monday about Bloomingdale’s recent round of talks with the city regarding opening a new store in downtown D.C. Along with the recently approved development at the Old Convention Center site, sources in the Fenty administration told Michael Neibauer that the talks have included the controversial Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library at 9th and G Streets NW as a “possible option” for the store.
The library, as you’ll recall, has been targeted for closure for the last couple of years, as its in need of major renovations and felt to be an eyesore by some. Former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams had proposed building a new library in the Old Convention Center development just a few blocks away, but the D.C. Council tabled that proposal and the building, which was designed by famed modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, has since been declared a historic landmark.
Over at grammar.police, longtime MLK Jr. Memorial Library preservation advocate Kriston Capps argues that this idea seems unlikely.
Given that the proposed new library was intended to be a token aspect of an essentially commercial development at the Old Convention Center site, I find it far more credible that talks between Bloomingale’s and the Fenty administration have focused on and will continue to focus on the prospect of the Old Convention Center site itself. Why would Bloomingdale’s want to court negative press associated with replacing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library—whose eviction from the Mies building has not (to date) drawn sufficient support from the community, despite aggressive promotion by Mayor Williams and significant developer interest? Why would Bloomingdale’s want to take on the cost of renovation for the Mies facility when it could build a new store in a commercial center a few blocks away? Why also would Mayor Fenty choose to stake out a plan to draw a new Bloomingdale’s into the city rather than to build a new library for the city (or whatever he perceives to be the solution to whatever he perceives to be the problem with the old library)? And if the whole problem is that the Mies building is so offensively ugly and unmanageable, what’s Bloomingdale’s see in it?
Capps is probably right, not only because Bloomingdale’s would be pretty stupid to try to turn the Mies building into a department store, but also because Bloomingdale’s has been “interested” in a new D.C. store for the better part of a decade and has never followed through. It’s a bad idea, but it’s a bad idea that’s pretty unlikely to come to pass.
