Are the Arts Losing Out in D.C. Redevelopment?

Despite numerous city efforts to encourage arts uses in downtown D.C., including zoning requirements, in the area that was once the center of the city's visual arts scene, galleries can be hard to find.

Partly the victim of the successful redevelopment of downtown D.C. as a "living downtown", and partly the result of ill-defined zoning regulations, attempts to find homes for the visual arts also suffer from friction between the arts community and property managers, according to Jenkins.

"Some property managers view the arts requirement as 'a poison pill,' says Zenith Gallery owner Margery Goldberg, who programs art for the lobby at 1111 Pennsylvania Ave. NW."

"And some arts programmers feel their selections are encumbered by conservative office environments. 'The restrictions are so enormous, of what you can't do, that by the time you're done can't doing, you don't know what to do,' says Goldberg."