By Audrey Hoffer
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, September 1, 2007; F01
It started with a dinner conversation.
Joe Madison, a local radio host, confided to Anthony A. Williams, then the D.C. mayor, that he and his wife were thinking of moving to the District from Derwood.
Buoyed by encouraging words from Williams, the Madisons bought a four-level-plus-garage townhouse in the gated Walter E. Washington Estates in the Washington Highlands section of Southeast.
Five years later, they're sitting pretty on a property that has "appreciated rapidly," he said.
Washington Highlands is "an untapped treasure," said Monica Brewster, 31, a real estate agent who lives in the neighborhood. Encompassing about 300 acres at the southern tip of Southeast, its streets are a checkerboard of colorful low-rise apartment complexes and littered empty lots, modest red-brick houses with tidy flower beds and squat public housing, elegant townhouses and boarded vacant houses.
People amble by, children play in the streets, parking is plentiful. Construction crews mix up noise and rubble at multiple renovation sites.
Brewster directs clients -- young professionals, renters, residents from the District and out-of-town investors who cannot afford to buy where they live in New York City and Los Angeles -- to this neighborhood.
They search for a bargain under $200,000 and think they're priced out of the market, she said. "They marvel that they can get something here at this price."
Renovated two-bedroom, one-bath condominiums are available, Brewster said. There are also a fair number of rowhouses and semi-detached houses, but they are likely to need significant work at that price.
Security guards, teachers, federal employees, mortgage bankers and lawyers live side by side. Madison describes the area as "a good mix of professionals and working class."
This used to be the last part in the city people paid attention to, said Greg Kendall, 45, a lifelong Southeast resident who works as a financial adviser and is president of the Walter E. Washington Estates homeowners association.
He has watched the neighborhood come full circle over the decades.
In the 1960s, his aunt and uncle lived in a sprawling luxury apartment complex where Walter E. Washington Estates sits now. "There were hardwood floors, eat-in kitchens and multiple bathrooms," he said.
Then came a rise in crime and shootings in the 1970s and '80s, and "no one would even drive over here," he said.
The apartments deteriorated and ultimately were demolished. Walter E. Washington Estates was built on the site in the mid-1990s.
The revival that began in the '90s continues today, Kendall said. "Developers keep coming in, and house prices keep going up."
Once people arrive, they look for fellowship. Since Brewster arrived, in February, one neighbor organized a block party. Another started a running group. "There are a lot of progressive people just waiting to join partnerships with each other," she said.
Like any community in transition, Washington Highlands still has problems, including street crime, auto thefts and pockets of drug activity, Kendall said.
There's little tension between new arrivals and longtime residents, but, he added, "some folks from the older neighborhoods trespass our property for the sake of a shortcut. They don't realize it's private."
Hilton Kenner Jr., in his sixties now, "was a kid from the country, off a farm in Virginia," when he moved here in 1968. It was a fine place to live then but gradually went downhill, he said as he loaded a suitcase into the trunk of his car.
Now "it's a good neighborhood again . . . since the condos have come in. My wife and I just put this up," he said, pointing proudly to the low-slung chain-link fence around his small yard on Barnaby Street. "We're trying to make the neighborhood nicer."
New townhouses, called Belleview Homes, will be built soon on an empty lot on Ninth Street between Bellevue Street and Wheeler Road, according to Brewster, and on Atlantic Street, an empty apartment building is being turned into the Bessie Mae condominium. The neighborhood is popping with other similar conversions.
"Washington Highlands is certainly a priority area" for the creation and preservation of affordable housing, said Sean Madigan, communications director for the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, in an e-mail.
Walter E. Washington Estates is one example of a successful development with government-subsidized units mixed with and indistinguishable from market-rate units. "You can't tell who you live next to," Madison said.
Wheeler Creek is another. Among 314 units, 48 are reserved for low-income residents and 100 are senior-citizen rentals subsidized by public funds, according to the Wheeler Creek Estates Community Development Corp. Web site.
Development is proceeding rapidly across Southeast, said Ayris Scales, who works in the office of the deputy mayor for planning and economic development. Many projects are on the drawing table, some are skeletal structures oozing with wet cement, and others bear 'For Sale' signs.
The Shops at Park Village, under development by William C. Smith & Co. at Alabama Avenue and Stanton Road SE, will be catalytic for the area, she said. It boasts a 66,000-square-foot Giant Food, a 5,000-square-foot IHOP restaurant and 75 homes.
National Harbor, 2 1/2 miles away, is the closest major development to Washington Highlands and is driving some of the vibrancy of the market. "Even though it's in Maryland, it's right around the corner," said Brewster, the real estate agent. The complex will include 1 million square feet of shops, dining and entertainment space, plus lavish residences.
Civic infrastructure is growing, too. The Washington Highlands forums at Topix.net and Outside.in share neighborhood news such as author readings at the Francis A. Gregory Public Library and the shutdown and reopening of the Frederick Douglass Bridge. The Brandywine Street Association acquired a vacant building for a neighborhood community center with the assistance of a grant from Local Initiatives Support Corp., which helps tenant associations buy their property when it goes up for sale.
Walking across the yard of the corner house he shares with his sister, twirling a walking stick, 66-year-old Ted McMillan appeared content. Small white statues sat beside red flowers. Ripe pears dangled within reach. A small weeping willow swayed in the breeze. "I love it when I see people with their own creativity," he said. "My sister owns this house for 20 years, and she did a wonderful job."
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