The Reeves Center is getting a huge glow-up.
D.C.’s mayor announced plans on Friday for a major redevelopment designed to honor the District’s historic Black Broadway and add affordable housing.
The project at the northwest corner of 14th and U streets NW will include:
- A new comedy club backed by Dave Chappelle
- A restaurant developed by Carla Hall
- A new Alvin Ailey Dance Theater
- A new Washington Jazz Arts Institute
- 320 units of mixed-income housing
- A 116-key “residential hotel”
- An amphitheater named after former mayor Marion Barry and
- A park named after Frederick Douglass
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The NAACP will move its headquarters from Baltimore.
Hall, the chef and restaurateur, said she’s excited to be part of a dynamic group that’s trying to create an entirely new destination in D.C.
“Alvin Ailey, Dave Chappelle having a space — it’s like arts and community and growth and culture,” she said.
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Homegrown D.C. architect Michael Marshall — who worked on Audi Field and The Howard Theatre — said the project already means a lot to him.
“We always saw our bid for this project in the service of the city,” he said.
Marshall said he remembers what the area looked like in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He drove past with his mother.
“Seeing some of the buildings that were still smoldering, especially at 14th and U street, left an impression on me,” he said.
Hall also said 14th and U carries special meaning for her.
“I used to do my catering down there. I would take my catering baskets and go and sell them sandwiches down there and, I mean, it just means so much," she said.
So, what will Hall put on her restaurant's menu?
“It will be a casual restaurant. I'm not like a fancy, white tablecloth person. I know that it will have a reference to Southern food because that's who I am and that's how I tell my stories and that's the lens through which I teach," she said. "So I'm like, what does the community want from me in terms of food and service in this area, and the people who are going to come?"
The mayor’s office described 14th and U as in “the heart of Black Washington” from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, “with U Street once serving as the home to more than 300 Black-owned businesses, including hotels, banks, offices, and theaters. For decades, the art and entertainment scene flourished along the corridor, formerly known as Black Broadway.”
