Mr. Chairman and Commission Members, the Downtown Business Improvement District is pleased to offer testimony in enthusiastic support of the National Park Service’s draft National Mall Plan.

The Downtown Business Improvement District is pleased to offer testimony in enthusiastic support of the National Park Service’s draft National Mall Plan.

The Downtown BID is a private, non-profit organization that provides hospitality, maintenance and beautification services, as well as capital improvements, resources and research to help diversify the economy and enhance the Downtown experience for all. This special district, where property owners have agreed to tax themselves to fund services, encompasses a 138-block area of approximately 825 properties from Massachusetts Avenue on the north to Constitution Avenue on the south, and from Louisiana Avenue on the east to 16th Street on the west.

The Downtown BID is a Section 106 consulting party to the National Mall Plan initiative. As such, the NPS has encouraged us to be involved in the plan every step of the way. We have participated to the best of our ability. We feel that the plan readies for action much of what the Downtown BID sees as being needed at the National Mall, i.e.:

1. The National Mall Plan promotes a world-class landscape that will tell in an improved manner the story of America to visitors from all over the world. The plan protects the historic landscape of the McMillan Plan. The NPS rightly cites the condition of turf and the viability of American elm trees to be critical problems and identifies corrective measures. The National Mall would become more user friendly, with more restrooms, better facilities for food and drink, better situated ranger locations and improved wayfinding signage.

2. At the same time, the National Mall Plan helps to create a high-quality, local greenspace that serves local residents and workers and ties together the center city--Downtown and Foggy Bottom on the north with Haines Point and Southwest DC on the south, the US Capitol on the east with the Lincoln Memorial on the west. Flood control improvements (some of which predate the National Mall Plan) would help ensure that parts of the National Mall would not be underwater so often, so roads and playing fields would be usable. A wide range of ecological improvements would complement Mayor Fenty’s efforts to “green” the city and private developers’ efforts to “green” Downtown along with the US General Services Administration and the Downtown BID. In particular, replacing the currently used potable water in the Reflecting Pool, Constitution Gardens Lake and Union Square Pool with Potomac River water is a great ecological improvement.

3. The National Mall Plan suggests multiple forms of public transportation to make the various locations on the National Mall accessible to the public—including low-income and physically handicapped persons—through frequent, affordable public transit. The Downtown BID urges the NPS to move ahead promptly with improvements to public transportation and would urge using increased National Mall parking revenues to help pay for such improvements. We also propose that the NPS redouble efforts to partner with the city to invest in infrastructure for improved tour bus parking.

4. The National Mall Plan supports special events being held more frequently on lesser-used Mall spaces. Improvements to the Union Square area—including a well-designed hardscape—will help limit the turf damage that discretionary special events and mandatory First Amendment demonstrations bring. We urge the NPS to invest in their “uptown parks”—e.g., Pershing Park, Freedom Plaza, John Marshall Park, Franklin Square, and McPherson Square—so these public spaces can host more special events and better serve our center city. We look forward to working with the NPS on a future planning initiative to make Pennsylvania Avenue—including its parks—truly one of America’s great streets.

The Downtown BID commends the NPS for considering the Downtown BID’s opinions and, more importantly, the opinions of other city stakeholders’ through the recommendations of the Center City Action Agenda, CapitalSpace and the Monumental Core Framework Plan in drawing up its draft National Mall Plan.

The Downtown BID is pleased that basic consumer research was an ingredient of the National Mall Plan; we would recommend improved and continual research on the number, origin and type of users of the National Mall.

Although the details of a number of National Mall Plan recommendations undoubtedly can be debated, the many proposed major projects and programs are solid. There is no doubt they will result in a much-improved National Mall. Now is the time to finalize this draft National Mall Plan and move ahead on the long road of implementing the plan.

Each significant project and program will require a plan in its own right; the Downtown BID participated over the past year in just such a plan for wayfinding signage. It is in these individual plans that important details should be addressed.

More importantly, each project and program will require significant funding. The Downtown BID commends the efforts of the Trust for the National Mall. We note that substantial and consistent funding will need to be provided by Congress over the next decade to implement the plan, lest it become another forsaken list of wishes.

Thank you for your attention.  I would be glad to answer any questions.