DCist  by Christina Sturdivant

More than five years after the flags came down at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Mayor Muriel Bowser signed an agreement today that returns 66 acres of the 110-acre campus to the District.

“Today begins a new chapter for Ward 4 marked with much-needed community amenities and housing,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who attended the signing ceremony. “As the federal base closing process began in 2005, we saw Walter Reed as a prize Ward 4 and D.C. had to have. Our main competitors for these 66 acres were federal agencies, but in the end the U.S. Army and GSA agreed with us that the transfer to D.C. was the best fit.”

The city is paying the Army about $22 million for the property. In 2013, officials selected developersHines and Urban Atlantic to transform the site. Those companies, along with Triden Development Group, will lease the property and pay D.C. $25 million, according to the Washington Business Journal.

While there had been much anticipation of a Wegmans on the grounds, the city didn’t choose the proposal submitted by Roadside Development, which included the mid-Atlantic grocery chain.

The site is slated for over three million square feet of mixed-used space, including more than 2,000 residential units (400 of which will be affordable housing units), 250,000 square feet of retail, a Hyatt hotel, 20 acres of green space, several nonprofit projects, a charter school, and an innovation center by George Washington University, according to WBJ. Last month, Bowser announced that the city would expedite construction for the District of Columbia International School so that it can open in time for the 2017 school year.

Last year, the city also broke ground on a $12 million fire station that is replacing an infamous former hotel on the campus, which once housed wounded soldiers. The building was turned over to the city in 2014, according to WBJ. The station is slated to open in December.

http://dcist.com/2016/10/_walter_reed_signed.php