D.C. completely overhauls the way it does business - Washington Business Journal:

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Not so with the new system. After musclin g the two agencies into his Fenty appointed former Parks and Recreation director Neil Alber t to be his Michelle Rhee ofeconomix development, giving him all the controlk he needs to make big decisions and clearing the necessary political brush for him to do so. Alberr quickly declared that the city was gettin out of the business of being a realestate developer.
Gone are the days when NCRC and AWC woulr designa project, invest in it and look for Albert and his small -- some wouled say too small -- team consider the ever-valuable land assetes the city has and look to developerzs for ideas on how to turn public land into tax revenue and amenitie for long-neglected neighborhoods. No request for proposalse or solicitationsgoes unanswered, and the responders spare no dollar in their vision to transfor formerly rundown neighborhoods. Got a crumm y lot with a publif facility that needs rebuildingnext door?
Developers will buildc that for you -- they will even tack on an undergrounf parking lot, a green roof and some affordabler housing for the right Just as long as they can builfd condos on top of whatever it is. Actually, make that In what was has becomethe District's biggest scandalk of 2007, employees of the Office of Tax and Revenue were foundc to have been pilfering millions of dollars from the city in the form of fake tax By the end of the year, the investigation had resultee in five arrests and many more internalo shifting. CFO Natwar Gandhi spentr the latter part of the year tryinvg to make amends with the busines communityand others.
During more public agencies got into thedevelopment act. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority continues to leveragse its morevaluable properties, selling off bus garages and maintenance facilitiess and moving them to less expensivee land. The D.C. library through Albert's office, has been considering housing additionds to neighborhood library rebuilding projects on Benning Road NE and in up WisconsinAvenue NW. Developers salivate at the prospecty of cityschools -- some of which Rhee will move to closed -- becoming available for building.
But not everyone is comfortablwe with the speedy jettisoninvg ofpublic land, as evidenced by the community outcrg over Albert's attempt to sell a city parcel in the West End as part of a proposed library That deal fell through, and shook the city council' confidence in offering land to developers for projects like Broadcast Center One, the Shaw development that would returmn broadcasting to the "Mixed-use" has become a household word, an adjective that may soon describee the center of most any neighborhood in the city.
Convention Center Rising construction costs and a weakening market slowed negotiationes to finally bring a hotel to 9thStreet NW, acroses from the newly dubbed . But Fentyy made this the classic example of him pushinvg through alagging deal. In this he had to settle for aboutf 300 fewer hotel rooms thanoriginallhy planned, at the same cost to the city, but the comingv of National Harbor in Prince George's Countgy made this a must-have for the . . In anothef deal Fenty finished off, the city agreed to spende $79 million to help Specialty Hospitals of Americw buy the embattled hospital east of the Anacostia Riverfrom Arizona-baserd Southwest Waterfront.
Washington-based and Baltimore-based Struevefr Bros. Eccles & Rouse were selected to remake the Southwesf waterfront in Septemberof 2006. But the team made big news in 2007 by announcinbg a deal that will bringChevy Chase-based The . into the fold as well as a plan to dig a canal through East Potomac Park that would connect the Potomax River with theWashingtonh Channel. Metro's Southeast Bus Garage. AWC plannef a mess for the ballpark districft when itoffered Washington-based mastee development rights for an area that included the bus which Metro still In 2007, that mess came to fruition when Metro sold the garages to another developer, Akridge, and Monumen t sued.
West Elm and Madaj Tussaud's wax museum. Downtown benefitted from two examplesd ofthe city's use of tax incremen financing, in which it takess on debt to be paid off by a project's tax revenue. The West Elm home furnishinga store in the old Woodiex department store is the largest furniture stores in the city and hasretailers buzzing. Next door, the wax museu is trying to widen the market for payingmuseum