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This Deanwood mural was put up in 1991 by artist Rik Freeman. (Photo via DC Murals)

Employees at Little Jewels Child Development Center in Deanwood had just put the kids down for a nap on Wednesday afternoon when someone came to the door to deliver an urgent letter. The owner of Little Jewels, Ruth Thompson Cole, answered the door and opened the letter from 1100 Eastern LLC, the new owner of the building.

“Miss Ruth told us we had to immediately call the parents to come pick the kids up,” says Lattice Edmonds, an assistant to Thompson and head of the Pre-K program at Little Jewels. “The letter said we had to vacate the property immediately because it’s sitting in hazardous materials.”

Edmonds says that they woke the napping children and started calling parents. No one really understood what was going on or for how long they would have to leave, she says. The next morning, employees showed up at the daycare center to find the property padlocked, along with several businesses on the strip: Nook’s Barbershop, Sunny’s Carryout, and Uncle Lee’s Liquors. The new owner had apparently shut the entire strip down with just one day’s notice.

1100 Eastern LLC is a subsidiary of the Neighborhood Development Company, which just closed the sale on the properties this week. The real estate development company won an $11.4 million loan from the District this year to redevelop the properties at 1100 Eastern Avenue Northeast. It plans to build a 63-unit affordable housing project and 5,500 square feet of retail, with construction set to begin in 2019 and completion in 2020.

“In the letter [we received], it says someone else bought this property and there will be some affordable housing built on this strip. So is this [shutdown] because it’s contaminated, or because of this new property?” says Edmonds.

The Neighborhood Development Company has not responded to DCist’s requests for comment and clarification, but At-Large Councilmember Robert White told DCist he spoke to them on Friday afternoon.

According to White, NDC says it didn’t communicate with the tenants about the hazardous materials because language in the sales agreement didn’t permit them to do so. They had to wait until the sale was finalized to give anyone notice, but at that point, the situation was already an emergency—the company had found numerous toxic chemicals in the soil and groundwater, and they also found that gas vapors from the chemicals were escaping into the air around the businesses.

It’s unclear how long NDC has known about the hazardous situation at the property. The properties used to house a gas station and a dry cleaner, which could be why there’s contamination now, according to White.

“To me, it still seems difficult to understand how businesses have been in this location for 25 years and nobody at any point knew any of the issues,” White says.

A spokesperson for NDC told WUSA9 that the developer will reimburse business owners for up to six months of losses, but said that because of “serious health risk to owners, clients, children and neighbors, [closing down the businesses] was the right thing to do.”

After the padlocks were discovered, some residents aired grievances on social media, arguing that the sudden closure of these businesses was yet another sign of gentrification in D.C.

Anthony Lorenzo Green, the area’s ANC commissioner, said the padlocks have just confirmed neighbors’ fears that the development company is not committed to keeping legacy businesses—especially Nook’s Barbershop and Little Jewels—in the neighborhood.

“These are businesses that have been a part of Deanwood for a long time, helping it thrive. Folks like myself have been getting our hair cut at Nook’s for many years,” Green says. The developer has attended a community meeting to tell neighbors about their plans for the affordable housing development, but Green says they have been noncommittal about making sure current businesses would be able to take up some of the retail space.

The new owners ultimately removed padlocks Thursday afternoon so that business owners could go in and retrieve their things. Edmonds told DCist on Friday that she and a few other employees were inside Little Jewels again to pack things up, since they don’t know when the property might be padlocked again. The daycare is still out of operation, as is the carryout and Nook’s Barbershop—the site of conflicts between police and residents this summer over what residents say were unwarranted searches.

The D.C. Department of Energy and Environment has been called to the site to investigate the reported environmental contamination. Julia Robey Christian, a spokesperson for DOEE, says the Department is still trying to gather all the information about these properties, but she doesn’t think the Department had any prior knowledge of contamination.

Christian says it’s not unusual that DOEE was just recently notified about the potential contamination—when properties change hands and contamination is discovered, DOEE is usually brought in at the subsequent step to help with cleanup and remediation.

It’s still not clear whether these businesses will be able to reopen and if so, when. Little Jewels is looking for a temporary replacement facility to reopen, Edmonds says.

Whatever the results, Green says this incident has raised tensions in a neighborhood still reeling from police clashes in front of Nook’s over the summer. The seemingly random searches of men gathered on the corner gave people the feeling that they aren’t welcome in their own neighborhood, and the city is looking for ways to push them out, Green says.

“There’s a feeling in the neighborhood that the police were used as tools to push people off the block,” Green says. “So this situation is an extension of that conversation that folks were already having.”

This post has been updated to reflect that the developer attended one community meeting, not community meetings, according to Anthony Lorenzo Green, and that the developer is slated to receive an $11.4 million loan from the city, not a grant.

Filed Under: deanwood, Nooks Barbershop,