The Buckingham Herald Tribblog

As many of you know, I’m a northern New Yorker by birth (born just outside the Adirondack Park), and so I grew up with, love and look forward to SNOW! I like walking in it. I like driving in it. I like snuggling up with a warm drink and watching it. The only thing I do not like is scraping it off my car, but that is usually because I am late and have forgotten to add the extra minutes to my plans.

The best part today, however, is that I am not teaching at Montgomery College (Yea to me and my sabbatical), where the bunch of pansies in control of these things, often cancel school at the first flake, throwing my teaching schedule completely off. Ahhhhh…

Thirty-two degrees right this very minute according to the thermometer that hangs on my window. I’ll say it again, Ahhhhhhh…..

Assuming Arlington County government does not shut down, tonight sees a Design Review Committee Meeting in which officials from Georgetown Strategic Capital will discuss their ideas about the redevelopment of the N. Glebe Road and N. Pershing Drive intersection.

Recall that this is not the redevelopment of the streetscape; it is not the new sidewalks, gutters and curbs. It is the total redesign and renovation of the buildings that currently house the Glebe Market, CVS, El Paso Café, and Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits (that is, the west side of Glebe Road).

I have been talking to officials involved with this, and have been asking about the basic idea to move the Buckingham Station Post Office across Glebe Road into one of the new buildings. So far no one has said, “No,” outright….Until this very second.

As I was typing this (what timing), Deborah Yackley, (pronounced “Yake-ly”) a spokeswoman for the United States Postal Service, called and said the renovation of the post office is already underway, behind the current PO Boxes.

“The renovations for Buckingham are already in progress,” she said. “Contracts have been awarded.”

“Basically what it is is like a sprucing up,” she said, with new paint and other amenities that have been reported here in the recent past. At the time of the last posting, as far as the Buckingham Station postmaster knew, the project was not that near. [The most recent posting I could find was this one, from June. I thought I had done one since then, but the search engine is not turning it up, and a quick look through my list of posts is not doing it, either. I guess time just flies.]

Ms. Yackley said that she did not think that moving was an option at this point. She sounded generally sorry, too. Many people thought the idea of changing the building back to a theatre was a good idea.

She confirmed what I had learned yesterday, that the USPS has a 20-year lease on the space, with the ability to extend the lease five years at a time for another 20 years. The first phase, and part of what kept me hopeful, was due to end in 2010, or about the time the new buildings would be completed.

“You get a good lease like that in this area, you hold on to it,” she said. The renovation should be completed by March 2008.

I still have one or two phone calls to make on this idea, so I do not consider it totally dead. But the plan to turn the historic theatre back into a theatre is probably feeling very ill.

I have a couple stories in the hopper I just cannot get to today (darn that early school release!), so look through the rest of the week for more stories.

THE WEEK’S HEADLINES:
As always, you can scroll down to see all the recent stories, or simply click the links below (if the link doesn't work, scroll down to find the story, and email to tell me what's busted: heraldtrib@gmail.com--Steve Thurston).

Today's Headlines:

Headline's from Earlier in the Week:

Labels: art, redevelopment

// posted by Steve Thurston @ 1:23 PM