As Dance Loft Looks To Build A Permanent Home On 14th Street, Some Neighbors Balk
Dance Loft on 14 founder Diana Movius observed a pattern over the years as, one by one, she watched other dance rehearsal and performance spaces in D.C. shut down.
“Arts organizations that buy their buildings are the ones that are ensured permanent sustainability,” she said, pointing to Dance Place in Brookland as an example. “The trend in D.C. has been that arts organizations that rent their facilities typically eventually close.” In the past decade, D.C. Dance Collective in Tenleytown and Flashpoint in Penn Quarter were among the latter.
“The more of those spaces that disappear, the less of a grassroots arts culture D.C. will have.”
That’s why, a few years ago, she jumped at the chance to buy the building where her organization rented dance space. Movius, a dancer and choreographer, opened the current 8,000-square foot facility in 2015, and learned in 2018 that her landlord would be selling the building.
Movius sought out local developers for help and ended up teaming up with HELEOS. In April 2021, they purchased the building with funding assistance from private philanthropists and the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, which offers grants of up to $500,000 to help arts and humanities organizations purchase facilities.
Their vision for the property would transform the block of 14th Street NW where Dance Loft is located. If completed it would include around 100 apartments, two-thirds of which would be affordable, on top of retail and a much larger dance and performance space. But like many projects in the District, it faces some pushback from neighbors who don’t love the idea of new development so close to their homes.
Arts spaces, however, can also spur the economic development neighborhoods are seeking ouT.
HELEOS and Dance Loft tout their effort as an innovative solution to two problems with the same cause: the lack of arts spaces and affordable housing, both victims of D.C.’s rapidly rising rent.The plan would double Dance Loft on 14’s size to 19,000 square feet, including two theaters and four dance studios. One of those would face out onto the street, allowing passersby to observe dancers at work.
“It’s really vital to ensure that arts organizations can have permanent homes. And in doing that, it enlivens the community as a whole,” Movius said, adding that the city needs places where artists can practice or make art, in addition to the theaters and galleries where work is displayed. “The more of those spaces that disappear, the less of a grassroots arts culture D.C. will have.”
Many arts venues have been the victims of gentrification in recent years. Development around the Rhode Island Ave. Metro station pushed out drumming school and store Hands on Drums and studio space The Stew. The screen printing studio Open Studio DC, located in Ivy City, was forced to close after property taxes went up by 700 percent.
Arts spaces, however, can also spur the economic development neighborhoods are seeking out, Movius says, pointing to Dance Space in Brookland and Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street NE as examples of venues that helped revitalize their neighborhoods.
“Both of those were anchor arts institutions opened before the neighborhoods began to really explode in terms of property values and retail and nightlife,” she said.
D.C. has an interest in spurring more of that type of activity along Dance Loft’s stretch of 14th Street. Ten years ago, the D.C. Office of Planning developed a plan to bring more businesses and foot traffic to Central 14th, as planners call it.
“By not building affordable housing here, we’re putting immense pressure on other communities to make up for our desire to kind of keep our communities as they are when we moved in years ago.”
Opponents of the development, however, worry about the displacement of the existing businesses on the property — there are several stores, including Honduran restaurant Catrachitos and Jerusalem Furniture, that would be booted out for construction. Neighbors circulated a petition asking for favorable lease terms for those businesses to return or for subsidies to help them relocate.
Others say the proposal’s size and height would irrevocably damage the character of the neighborhood and set a precedent for more development. Dozens of people wrote letters to the D.C. Zoning Commission opposing the project on these and other grounds. Some of those opponents spoke up at the ANC4C meeting on April 13, when the development was up for discussion.
“None of you will have this in your backyard, 10 feet from your fence,” Greg Phillips said, addressing the commissioners. “We are not against affordable housing or the arts or any of that, but we do think it should be downsized.”
After the meeting, a group calling themselves “Friends of 14th Street” wrote in a letter to the blog Popville: “Who has not driven down a street of row homes and felt jarred by the site of one structure that towers above all of the homes around it?”
The size of the building, however, including the number of new apartments, is what makes the project financially viable, says Chris VanArsdale, HELEOS managing partner. “The addition of the multifamily housing actually makes it possible to to essentially subsidize the art space,” he said. “That’s the model and it is a way of creating a permanently affordable space for the performing arts.”
The inclusion of 66 affordable housing units allows the project to take advantage of tax credits and subsidies from the city, he said. Sixteen of the affordable apartments would have three bedrooms, which can be extremely difficult for low-income families to find.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has focused on the city’s lack of affordable housing during her tenure, setting a goal of adding 12,000 affordable housing units to the market by 2025. As of March 2022, the city is about a third of the way towards that goal, at 4,058.
Housing is considered affordable if someone who earns 80 percent of the city’s median income pays no more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Apartments in the proposed development are significantly cheaper than that threshold, with 22 set aside for families that earn 30 percent of the city’s median family income (MFI). For a family of three, that’s about $35,000 a year. Another 44 apartments would be priced for households earning up to 60 percent of MFI.
ANC 4C Commissioner Jonah Goodman emphasized the importance of affordable housing when expressing his support for the project at the recent ANC meeting.
“By not building affordable housing here, we’re putting immense pressure on other communities to make up for our desire to kind of keep our communities as they are when we moved in years ago,” he said.
Goodman said he’d received more than 220 messages from residents of the area about the proposal. “I think that’s unparalleled in almost any project I can think of.”
Based on the positions of the people who spoke up at the ANC meeting and wrote letters to the Zoning commission — there were more than 580 letters in support — far more community members are in favor of the development. Ultimately the commissioners voted 9-1 to support the project ahead of a D.C. Zoning Commission hearing May 5.
The opponents will likely raise the same issues at the zoning hearing. Movius said has been “surprised at the level of vitriol” in response to her proposal.
“The biggest challenge and the only challenge that we have at this point is the ‘not in my backyard’ attitude,”she said.
If Dance Loft and HELEOS get the green light from the Zoning Commission, construction could begin in 2024 under the most optimistic timeline, with the new space opening in 2025.
“This is about more than just, you know, is this development appropriate for this site? This is really about the future of the arts in Washington,” Movius said. “We probably would have to close if this project doesn’t go through, we’d probably have to sell the building. And at this point, there’s really nowhere for us to move.”