(Washington, DC) Mayor Adrian M. Fenty today joined property owners and developers to kick off the newly formed Capitol Riverfront Business Improvement District.

“This is going to be an incredible waterfront neighborhood,” said Mayor Fenty. “And we’re building it together. The formation of the Capitol Riverfront BID is a terrific example of how the government and the private sector can work in partnership to get things done.”

During a ceremonial event atop a new M Street office building, Mayor Fenty presented an executive order establishing the BID to Chris Smith of the William C. Smith Cos., the BID’s chairman.

Spanning from Buzzard Point and South Capitol Street to the Eleventh Street Bridge and the Navy Yard the BID includes the land between I-395 and the Anacostia River. Anchored by the Washington National’s new ballpark, Forest City Washington’s The Yards and the new federal Department of Transportation headquarters, the neighborhood will include about 9,000 new units of housing and at least three world-class waterfront parks.

The District of Columbia Housing Authority with private sector partners Forest City, Mid-City Urban and EYA are working to redevelop the former Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg Dwellings into hundreds of affordable, workforce and market rate housing units and replacing—one-for-one— each public housing unit.

The neighborhood will also function as one of the region’s major office centers with more than 15 million square feet of office space in the development pipeline—which is equal to about half of the total office inventory in Arlington County.

The District has already been working closely with the BID's property owners to find creative solutions to a number of transportation and infrastructure challenges. The District is leveraging what was the Southeast Federal Center land—formerly controlled by the federal government—to create $90 million worth of infrastructure and public parks along the Anacostia Waterfront.