Courtesy the Office of the MayorThis morning Mayor Adrian Fenty named Valerie Santos as his new Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. Santos replaces former DMPED Neil Albert, who was recently promoted to City Administrator after Dan Tangherlini exited for the Obama administration. Previously, Santos had served as chief operating officer under Albert. Some of the major development projects long in financing limbo that will now be under Santos’s guidance: the Southwest Waterfront redevelopment, Poplar Point, the CityCenterDC project at the Old Convention Center site, the O Street Market in Shaw, the Minnesota-Benning Metrorail Station site and the Washington Convention Center Hotel project, which, as was just reported in the Washington Business Journal, has still been unable to secure private sector financing and will now attempt to beg for as much as $750 million worth of public money.
Both the Biz Journal City Desk have more from this morning’s announcement, including that Santos, 36, is the first person to rise to the rank of deputy mayor from within the District government.
