L'Enfant Plaza

thumb|L'Enfant Plaza in [[Washington, D.C. in 2011; the glass pyramid, installed in the late 1990s, was removed two years later, in 2013.]]

L'Enfant Plaza ( ) is a complex of four commercial buildings grouped around a large plaza in the Southwest section of Washington, D.C., United States. Immediately below the plaza and the buildings is La Promenade shopping mall.

The plaza is located south of Independence Avenue SW between 12th and 9th Streets SW (9th Street actually runs underneath the centers of the buildings on the easternmost side of the plaza). It was built perpendicular to L'Enfant Promenade, a north-south running street and pedestrian esplanade part of which is directly above 10th Street SW. The plaza is named for Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the architect and planner who first designed a street layout for the capital city, known as the L'Enfant Plan. It was dedicated in 1968 following completion of the north and south buildings.

History

Planning

thumb|The [[United States Capitol from the Southwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. in July 1939]]

L'Enfant Plaza was part of the Southwest Washington, D.C. urban renewal project, one of the earliest urban renewal projects in the U.S., and the first such in Washington, D.C. The rapid expansion of the population of Washington, D.C., during World War II led to the extensive construction of suburban office buildings and housing tracts. But with federal agencies (which were the area's largest employers) restricted to the city center, a movement began after the war to redevelop Washington's older, more dilapidated, single-family-dwelling neighborhoods to provide high-density, modern housing for workers.

In 1946, the United States Congress passed the District of Columbia Redevelopment Act, which established the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) and provided legal authority to clear land and funds to spur redevelopment in the capital. Congress also gave the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) the authority to designate which land would be redeveloped, and how.

A 1950 study by the NCPC found that the small Southwest quarter of the city suffered from high concentrations of old and poorly maintained buildings, overcrowding, and threats to public health, such as lack of running indoor water, sewage systems, electricity, central heating, and indoor toilets. Competing visions for the redevelopment ranged from renovation to wholesale leveling of neighborhoods, but the latter view prevailed as more likely to qualify for federal funding. Demolition faced almost all structures in Southwest Washington and was to have begun in 1950, but legal challenges led to piecemeal razing of the area until the mid-1950s. Most of the dwellings in Southwest D.C. were Victorian row houses. Poor and middle-class African American and immigrant Central and Eastern European families living in the area were forced out of their homes by use of eminent domain, receiving only a fraction of the value of their homes in compensation.

In 1954, Southwest D.C. had about 3,900 buildings housing 4,500 families. About 60 percent of the residents were African American, and the remainder Caucasian.

New plan

The RLA was the first to propose a major plaza along 10th Street NW. It commissioned architects Robert Justement and Chloethiel Woodard Smith to devise a master site plan for Southwest D.C. The Justement-Smith plan, released in 1952, called for wholesale clearance of the area. Notably, the Justement-Smith plan also proposed building an esplanade above 10th Street SW (to allow it to pass over the railroad tracks and the then-under construction Southwest-Southeast Freeway) which would connect with Maine Avenue SW. Parks would border the esplanade east and west, with a goal of providing an unobstructed view of the Smithsonian Institution headquarters and the National Mall. The NCPC report also approved of the plan to build an esplanade above 10th Street SW, although it noted that there were significant geographical obstacles to the plan.

Naming

thumb|[[William Zeckendorf in 1952; he proposed naming the buildings after Pierre Charles L'Enfant]]

"L'Enfant Plaza" was the name proposed by New York City developer William Zeckendorf in February 1954 as the title for a cultural center within a development that would almost completely encompass all of Southwest D.C. (an area designated as "Project C"). As originally laid out, a traffic circle would be built on Independence Avenue SW in front of the Smithsonian Castle. By October of that year, Zeckendorf had agreed to add government office buildings to the planned pedestrian mall. The developer said he had already spent $450,000 on studies, and planned to spend another $500,000 in developing a detailed plan. In February 1955, however, the NCPC proposed moving the planned "cultural mall" to 9th Street SW and retaining 10th Street as a major thoroughfare for traffic coming off the 14th Street Bridge. In a compromise, Zeckendorf agreed to revisit his plans to see if one or more of the proposed road plans could be accommodated under his proposed site redesign plan. in exchange for NCPC approval of the existing preliminary plans offered by Zeckendorf. Additionally, National Park Service officials agreed to allow a portion of Independence Avenue SW (between the Lincoln Memorial and the Tidal Basin) and Ohio Drive SW to be used for a portion of the proposed Inner Loop Freeway—both long-sought objectives of the NCPC. The NCPC subsequently approved nearly all of Zeckendorf's proposal for Project C, including the 10th Street mall.

1955 cultural mall

The proposal for a "cultural mall" along 10th Street SW became complicated again in mid-1955. On July 1, President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law legislation creating a District of Columbia Auditorium Commission, whose charge was to formulate plans "for the design, location, financing, and construction in the District of Columbia of a civic auditorium, including an Inaugural Hall of Presidents and a music, fine arts, and mass communications center". Southwest Washington, and especially Zeckendorf's proposed "cultural mall," became one of the top sites studied by the Auditorium Commission for its planned multi-use performance center. The RLA began looking at the cost-effectiveness of turning the 10th Street site over to the Auditorium Commission for its (rather than private) use in September 1955. After another year of study, however, this plan had been scaled back to just three buildings (a combined auditorium-exhibit hall, combined opera-concert hall, and a theater). But D.C. Auditorium Commission officials now proposed two sites for the cultural center: L'Enfant Plaza and the Foggy Bottom neighborhood (an area of factories, breweries, gas works, and decrepit housing then also undergoing study for redevelopment). But the Federal City Council, a private group of corporations and business leaders, voted for L'Enfant Plaza. and the Auditorium Commission agreed to study a number of new sites as well. As the January 31, 1957, deadline for the Auditorium Commission's report neared, the Commission proposed three sites for a cultural center: Foggy Bottom (its nominal preference), L'Enfant Plaza, and a site a block east of L'Enfant Plaza (the current site of the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building and Constitution Center, a private office building). The proposal to Congress included a 10,000-seat convention hall, music hall-auditorium, theater, and tourist center. The RLA pressed for the L'Enfant Plaza site, although it agreed that perhaps the single proposed cultural center might be broken up into several structures. A fourth site in Southwest D.C. (bounded by 7th Street, 9th Street, Maine Avenue and G Street) was proposed in February 1957. The Auditorium Commission also said it would be acceptable to move the cultural center slightly west in Foggy Bottom, so that it sat on the banks of the Potomac River rather than a few blocks inland. The Senate followed suit in May, but the House refused to appropriate money to purchase the land. Eight months later, with the Auditorium Commission defunct, a number of civic leaders and members of Congress proposed that the cultural center be built on a site on the National Mall south of the National Gallery of Art (where the National Air and Space Museum is now). This proposal proved so unwelcome that Congress shifted again and chose the Foggy Bottom site for the cultural center. President Eisenhower signed legislation creating the National Cultural Center (later renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts) on September 2, 1958.

Plans move forward

With the cultural center set for Foggy Bottom, plans began moving ahead again on L'Enfant Plaza. In November 1958, the RLA and Zeckendorff began negotiating over the price of land and the composition of the buildings to be built at L'Enfant Plaza. In December 1959, Zeckendorf won approval to build a 1,000-room hotel and five privately owned office buildings on L'Enfant Plaza. The Redevelopment Land Agency also approved the condemnation and razing of 14 city blocks for construction of the plaza, hotel, and office buildings. Construction was scheduled to begin on January 1, 1961, but was delayed due to unresolved design issues with L'Enfant Promenade, the short time-frame to prepare detailed construction plans, and because Congress had not granted air rights above 9th Street SW to the developers. These pledges led the Redevelopment Land Agency to award the 14-block area to Zeckendorf in October 1961 for $7 million.

Zeckendorf had assigned I. M. Pei, at the time a staff architect in his firm of Webb & Knapp, to provide the overall design of the plaza, promenade, and park (including building siting). In 1955 Pei had started his own firm, which worked primarily on Zeckendorf's projects, and Pei's associate Araldo Cossutta became the lead architect for the North Building (955 L'Enfant Plaza SW) and the South Building (950 L'Enfant Plaza SW). and construction on the promenade and plaza was slated to begin in April 1963. But Zeckendorf's vast real estate empire began to suffer severe financial difficulties in 1964, and indeed the company went bankrupt in 1965. With Zeckendorf unable to make good on his construction pledges, the Redevelopment Land Agency forced him to withdraw and sell his interest in L'Enfant Plaza in November 1964.

Construction

Construction starts

The buyer of Zeckendorf's property and leases was the L'Enfant Plaza Corp. (also known as L'Enfant Properties, Inc.). The agency gave its approval on January 21, 1965, and the sale was finalized on August 30.

Construction of L'Enfant Plaza and promenade quickly moved forward. Site preparation began in November 1965. Air rights over 9th Street SW were granted for a rent of $500 per year for 99 years on November 23, 1965. The actual groundbreaking for L'Enfant Plaza occurred on December 9. The project still encountered delays, however. The federal government, which was building the James V. Forrestal Building at the northern end of L'Enfant promenade, was a year behind in its construction schedule by June 1967, causing the northern end of the promenade to remain incomplete. Meanwhile, over-optimistic construction schedules and labor shortages had delayed the construction of L'Enfant Plaza's North and South buildings (which were the first structures to be built by L'Enfant Plaza Corp.) by six months. and the office buildings, plaza, and promenade opened to the public and for business in June 1968. The plaza was formally dedicated on Saturday, November 16, 1968.

Construction on the hotel was to have started in the spring of 1970. However, delays meant that work on the , $23 million hotel and office building did not begin until June 1971. The hotel opened with a three-day gala which concluded with its dedication on May 31, 1973.

Architects

Vlastimil Koubek was the architect of the West Building (475 L'Enfant Plaza SW) and East Building (or L'Enfant Plaza Hotel; 480 L'Enfant Plaza SW). In June 1972, the United States Postal Service purchased the West Building for its national headquarters.

A third architect, Edwin F. Schnedl, designed the shopping mall and food court areas. Known as "La Promenade", the shopping mall connects all four buildings and the Metro station together underground.

Ending at Benjamin Banneker Park

thumb|The plaza and fountain in Benjamin Banneker Park in 2011

In 1970, the "Tenth Street Overlook" became the southern terminus of L'Enfant Promenade. Pei had initially proposed a large pedestrian bridge lined by retail businesses and restaurants extending from the Promenade across the Overlook and Interstate 395 down to Maine Avenue SW and the waterfront. This structure was never built for cost reasons.

The Overlook, which Daniel Urban Kiley designed, contains a low granite wall surrounding a commemorative fountain and minimally landscaped lawns leading down to F and 9th Streets SW.

On June 30, 1970, the District of Columbia City Council passed by unanimous vote a resolution petitioning the NPS to rename the Tenth Street Overlook as Banneker Park. The park was the first public space in Washington to be dedicated to an African American and is often included in Black History tours.

Structures

Washington Metro and Virginia Railway Express

thumb|[[L'Enfant Plaza station, one of the four major transfer points in the and one of the largest and busiest stations in the Washington Metro system which serves every line except the Red Line]]

The Washington Metro's L'Enfant Plaza station opened on July 1, 1977. The initial entrances were in the courtyard of 400 7th Street SW and at 7th Street SW at Maryland Avenue SW.

L'Enfant Plaza also has a 1,622-space parking garage underneath the plaza's northern section, the second largest in the city.

Street grid

L'Enfant Promenade descends on either side of Banneker Overlook to form Banneker Circle SW. G Street SW runs southeast from the circle to 9th Street SW, although when Washington Nationals baseball games are held at Nationals Park a traffic restriction is put into place restricting traffic to residents. A pedestrian walkway and bridge leads northwest from the park to I-395, which crosses the Washington Channel just west of the park and eventually leads to East Potomac Park.

Late 20th century

Movie theater

L'Enfant Plaza originally housed an 822-seat motion picture theater, which suffered financial trouble, until it closed permanently in the 1980s. The space is now used by the National Transportation Safety Board as a conference center.

Purchase by Eastern Realty

In 1981, Eastern Realty Investment Corp., the real estate investment arm of the Electric Supply Pension Scheme, a pension plan based in the United Kingdom, purchased L'Enfant Plaza itself, La Promenade, the North Building, the South Building, and the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel building.

Fire

A serious fire consumed the top four floors of the U.S. Postal Service headquarters on October 15, 1984. More than 200 firefighters needed two hours to put out the fire, one of the largest in D.C. history. It caused an estimated $100 million in damages and injured 25 firefighters. In 1985, the assessor's office in the District of Columbia Department of Finance and Revenue valued the hotel at $83.7 million. Eastern Realty challenged the valuation, and the D.C. property tax Board of Equalization and Review reduced the assessment to $65.1 million. Another round of tax battles ensued over the next three years. The city assessed the hotel at $93.2 million in 1988, $97.4 million in 1989, $102.2 million in 1990, and $103.9 million in 1991. The upgrades included adding sprinkler systems and smoke detectors through all the structures, upgrading the elevators, and improving the electrical system.

Redevelopment

In 1998, the Urban Land Institute recommended redeveloping L'Enfant Promenade to create a more tourist-friendly environment as well as creating a link with the southwest waterfront. Although this concept garnered little attention at the time, it proved to be the genesis of a major plan that emerged around 2010 to radically change the nature and look of L'Enfant Plaza. A year later, Sarakreek Holdings replaced the Pei-designed fountain with a glass pyramid skylight over the center section of La Promenade.

21st century

In 2001, Sarakreek Holdings sought to sell its L'Enfant Plaza holdings. Under the terms of various agreements and contracts of sale, the cost of upkeep for L'Enfant Plaza's automobile access ramps, landscaping, maintenance, stairwells, three-level parking garage, and the roadway around the plaza itself (but not L'Enfant Promenade) are paid 18.22% by Heyman Properties and 81.78% by JBG.

Banneker Park demolition plans

Various proposals to redevelop or eliminate Banneker Park in the late 1990s and throughout the 2000s also threatened to radically change the nature of L'Enfant Promenade. By the early 1990s, the park had suffered from lack of maintenance, deterioration of some of its features, and the fountain had stopped running. In 1996, the nonprofit Washington Interdependence Council won permission from the NPS, which managed the park at the time, to raise $3 million in funds to build a life-size statue of Banneker for the park and to make other improvements (such as bas relief sculptures depicting Banneker's achievements on the limestone circle surrounding the overlook). By 1999, however, the proposed memorial had become a $17 million project that would contain a visitors' center near Independence Avenue at the north end of the Promenade, a clock atop a tall pedestal at the midpoint of the Promenade, a statue of Banneker in the park's circle at the south end of the Promenade and a skyway over I-395 that would connect the park to the waterfront. After considering the proposal, the National Capital Memorial Commission rejected the placement of the statue in the park and decided to consult with the District of Columbia government about placing a Banneker memorial at the midpoint of the Promenade.

The legislative authority relative to locating the Memorial on federal land in the District lapsed in 2005.

Skyway idea

The skyway idea, however, captured the interest of city planners and became part of a plan to build a baseball stadium at the southern end of L'Enfant Promenade. The Council of the District of Columbia approved a plan in March 2002 to redevelop the southwest waterfront which included construction of a tour bus parking garage beneath Banneker Park and stairs down from Banneker Park to Maine Avenue SW.

The skyway/stairs concept soon became caught up in other plans for Banneker Park. In 2004, the city proposed razing Banneker Park and building a new baseball stadium on the site. The proposal called for covering over a portion of I-395, and creating a skyway or stairs to link the stadium with the waterfront. The city's proposal also would have implemented the Urban Land Institute's 1998 proposal and created "Banneker Village Center," a project which would redevelop L'Enfant Promenade and line it with retail businesses, high-rise residences, and tourist attractions.

However, when the stadium threatened to complicate planning for the Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, city officials withdrew their support so that the waterfront development could proceed. Even though the Banneker site had drawn the most interest from Major League Baseball, the cost of using the Banneker Park site also cost the proposal support. The stadium, named Nationals Park, was later constructed in 2007 in Southeast, Washington, D.C.

Endangerment

In 2004, the D.C. Preservation League listed Benjamin Banneker Park as one of the most endangered places in the District because of proposals to redevelop the park's area. The League stated that the park, "Designed by renowned landscape architect Dan Kiley ... is culturally significant as the first public space in Washington named for an African American and is usually included in Black History tours". However, in January 2006, the Smithsonian chose a site on an empty block of Madison Drive NW between 14th and 15th Streets NW (west of the National Museum of American History).

In 2006, the District government and the Federal Highway Administration issued an environmental assessment for "improvements" to the promenade and park that described some of these redevelopment proposals.

Southwest Ecodistrict

Redevelopment of L'Enfant Plaza into a high-density, environmentally friendly, sustainable-living extension of the National Mall began in 2006. The NCPC, which develops long-term plans for the capital city, has termed this redevelopment the "Southwest Ecodistrict."

JBG began the redevelopment of L'Enfant Plaza in 2006 when it secured a $242 million mortgage loan for its renovation projects. That same year, the NCPC and District officials held joint hearings to identify needs and solicit ideas for L'Enfant Plaza and Promenade. Maintenance of the area had become a major issue, as bricks in the esplanade were broken and much of the landscaping was in poor condition. In November 2009, JBG began renovating the eastern portion of La Promenade, and planned to renovate the western section in 2010 and 2011. The Monumental Core Framework Plan proposed adding a new visitor center and memorial at Banneker Park, an intermodal transportation hub beneath Banneker Park, demolition of the Forrestal Building and its annex, and construction of apartment and office buildings along L'Enfant Promenade with retail and dining space at the street level to accommodate tourists and residents alike.

2011

thumb|La Promenade shopping mall undergoing renovation in February 2011

In August 2011, Heyman Properties put the South Building up for sale. Three months later, JBG began the second phase of its La Promenade renovation. The $27 million, 20-month project covered of space.

JBG also announced in late 2011 that it planned a radical redevelopment of L'Enfant Plaza. Second, a 234-room Homewood Suites by Hilton would be constructed on the outdoor eating plaza at the corner of 9th Street SW and D Street SW. The session noted that the plans for the Ecodistrict were consistent with President Barack Obama's 2009 Executive Order 13514 entitled "Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance". The accepted Plan recommended the redesign of Benjamin Banneker Park and adjacent areas to accommodate one or more new memorials, museums and/or landscaping.

The proposed construction at L'Enfant Plaza by JBG did not begin in mid-2012 as scheduled. In August, the company said it was offering investors an equity stake in its existing buildings. JBG also said that the U-shaped office building would now be , and the hotel would have 370 rooms. The Plaza's glass pyramid was demolished in May 2013 when construction began. Among other things, the addendum stated: "A modern, terraced landscape at Banneker Park is envisioned to enhance the park and to provide a gateway to the National Mall."

2017–present

In April 2017, the NCPC approved plans for a staircase and ramp that would connect Benjamin Banneker Park with Washington's Southwest Waterfront and that would add lighting and trees to the area. The NCPC and the NPS intended the project to be an interim improvement that could be in place for ten years while the area awaited redevelopment. Funding for the $4 million project included money that Hoffman-Madison Waterfront provided, as well as a $2 million grant from the District of Columbia's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.

In 2017, the South Building was foreclosed on after failing to repay a $95 million mortgage from 2007. It was sold in 2018 to Normandy Real Estate Partners in a foreclosure auction for $39.5 million. Citizens Bank provided a $68 million loan on the property in December 2018. The International Spy Museum relocated to the Promenade area of L'Enfant Plaza and opened its new building in 2019. Part of L'Enfant Plaza was placed for sale at a foreclosure auction in September 2024 after JBG Smith, which owned two buildings and other areas in the complex, wrote off its entire investment. Blackstone Inc. acquired these properties that October for $83.7 million, significantly below these buildings' appraised value.

Architectural assessment

thumb|L'Enfant Promenade and the Forrestal Building, which visually cuts the promenade and plaza off from the [[National Mall, pictured in 2011]]

L'Enfant Plaza was considered a masterpiece when it opened in 1968. The Washington Post architectural critic Wolf Von Eckardt called it "a triumph of good architecture over bad planning."

<blockquote>The Pei solution was elegant on paper but, as we know, it did not work very well in practice. The plaza today is lusterless and very nearly lifeless, and the 10th Street connector, renamed the L'Enfant Promenade, seems just another pretentious, failed dream. ... Much of the fault clearly rests with the plan itself. Life is sucked out of the plaza by an extensive, wrongheaded underground retail mall. The wide, ceremonial roadway is simply too much for too little, like a symphonic fanfare introducing a high school band recital. And there's little reward for taking the road—it leads only to a dreary auto turnaround overlooking the (equally dreary) redeveloped Southwest waterfront.</blockquote>

He also noted that Pei himself fiercely fought construction of the Forrestal Building, knowing that it would severely compromise the Promenade's view of the National Mall. The complex's popularity with citizens hadn't improved, either. Another Washington Post reporter noted in 2005 that L'Enfant Plaza "shuts down" at night and on weekends, creating an effect described as a "Valley of the Tombs". In 2010, an article in the Washington City Paper said L'Enfant Plaza "could easily contend for the honor of being modern urban design's grandest mistake."