Commercial property owners may be asked to pay for part of streetcar costs
By Jonathan O'Connell
Monday, May 17, 2010
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...051405073.html
Commercial property owners along 37 miles of planned routes for a D.C. streetcar system may be asked to foot the bill for a quarter or more of the $1.5 billion system proposed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.
Hours before Fenty held a downtown news conference to unveil one of the city's three shiny streetcars, more than a dozen owners of commercial properties adjacent to the lines gathered at the Renaissance Washington hotel to hear a pitch from the city's Transportation Department and the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District.
A BID-commissioned study by the Brookings Institution, Robert Charles Lesser & Co. (RCLCO) and Reconnecting America, a transit advocacy group, suggests that streetcars would increase the value of the revenue-producing commercial properties along H Street and Benning Road Northeast by $1.1 billion over 20 years...