[Wash Times] After 11 years of wrangling, the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Georgia Avenue now belongs to the District -- and in coming years will become a town center featuring office buildings, shops, apartments and a grocery store.Once opulent, palm lined and manicured U.S. facilities and troop housing in Panama.
| The palms are still there... |
"The Walter Reed Campus is one of the most important development projects in the District," Miss Bowser said. "It will bring jobs, affordable housing, economic opportunity and pathways to the middle class for thousands of residents."
Walter Reed, which served as the Army’s flagship medical center since 1909, was slated for closure in 2005 by the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure Commission. In 2011 the facility was officially closed and replaced by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
After more than 100 public meetings in a planning process that started in 2009, the District struck a deal with the Defense Department to buy 66 of Walter Reed’s 113 acres (including all the land that fronts Georgia Avenue) for $22.5 million. The remaining land will go to the State Department and the Children’s National Medical Center.