Mayor Muriel Bowser has pledged to add 15,000 new residents to downtown D.C. over the next five years.
Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged Monday to add 15,000 new residents to downtown D.C. over the next five years, raising the population of what she termed the city’s “economic engine” to help counteract the significant decline in daily office workers spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bowser made the promise during a speech at the Washington Convention Center after having been sworn-in for a third term as mayor. During the ceremony, Brian Schwalb was sworn-in as the city’s new attorney general, as were six councilmembers — including freshmen Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) and Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5).
In her speech, Bowser said the new residents would build on the 25,000 people who already live downtown, and would serve as part of a longer-term goal to eventually grow the area traditionally known for office buildings to more than 100,000 residents. That number is highly symbolic in D.C.; at his own swearing-in two decades ago, then-mayor Anthony Williams pledged to attract 100,000 new residents to the city as a means to bring D.C. back from its financial crisis of the mid-1990s. He ultimately succeeded, and is credited with helping lay the foundation for the significant growth and development D.C. saw over the last decade.
“We must and we will win back our downtown because it is the economic engine that allows us to invest in our schools, our safety net, and our public works — the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg,” said Bowser, addressing the economic importance of downtown D.C., where office vacancy rates in 2022 stood at 15%, almost five points higher than before the pandemic. “We’ve modernized our schools because of our growing downtown. We’ve built the largest housing production trust fund in the nation because of our growing downtown. We’ve created new and better social programs because of our growing downtown. All of that is at risk if we can’t change the space, fill the space, and bring the people back downtown.”
Like many cities across the country where many workers have opted not to return to offices, D.C. officials have been slowly pushing to add more residents to downtown in recent years, offering new tax breaks to encourage developers to convert office buildings to residential use. Still, those sorts of conversions can be costly and difficult to pull off. And in her speech, Bowser recognized that bringing workers back would still be necessary to downtown’s long-term survival, and she asked the federal government to take the lead in making that happen.
“We need decisive action by the White House to either get most federal workers back to the office most of the time or to realign their vast property holdings for use by local government, by non-profits, by businesses or by any user willing to revitalize it,” she said.
Bowser’s call for rethinking and repopulating downtown D.C. was echoed by Frumin, an attorney and education activist who takes the Ward 3 seat held for more than a decade by Mary Cheh. “Economic growth is not what it once was. Our central core and tax base are vulnerable in ways we have not seen in decades. We must ensure our downtown and economic base return to an upward trajectory and our tax base is resilient,” he said.
Frumin and other officials who took office on Monday also focused on another ever-persistent theme in D.C. — the disparities between rich and poor, which only grew as the city developed and saw increasing population.
“Not everyone in our city has enjoyed the prosperity experienced in the city leading up to the pandemic. In fact, there are those who were left out before the pandemic, despite weathering the toughest of times, only to bear an even greater burden the last couple of years,” said Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (I-At Large), who formerly represented Ward 5.
Councilmember Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), who was sworn in for a third term, recounted that one of her proudest achievements in office was helping implement a tax increase on wealthy households to help fund new housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness, while Councilmember Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), also starting his third term, highlighted a bill he passed into law that increases the earned-income tax credit for low-income families.
“Far too often, our abundant resources — and the opportunities that they create — are not shared equally. As a result, some but not all share fairly in D.C.’s prosperity,” said Schwalb, who became the city’s second elected attorney general. “How do we close widening gaps in income, homeownership, business ownership and access to health care? How do we make sure that hard-working people who built our city — and who every day make it run — can afford to live here?”
As part of a broader plan to help middle-class residents, Bowser said she would not touch residential property tax rates and would create 35,000 new jobs over the next five years in “high-growth industries.” She also promised to work towards free and universal before- and after-school programs for kids. And in addressing the increase in youth homicides in 2022, Bowser called for more consequences for violent behavior, saying that “accountability is not a punishment, it is a lifeline.”
Schwalb, whose office handles juvenile crime in the city (all other serious crimes are prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney for D.C.), similarly addressed the issue, though he focused on ensuring that all youth had access “to stable housing, to healthy food, to mental health counseling, [and] to structured and safe places during and out of school.”
“We do have to hold people who break the law accountable,” he said. “And we will. But accountability is a two-way street. As government officials and community leaders, we also need to hold ourselves accountable. We are all accountable for investing wisely in the future of our kids. After all, our future is in their hands. My office will never give up on any child.”