CaBi operations center possible casaulty in new stadium plan

CaBi Headquarters and warehouse on 2nd Street SW

Last month, the DC United soccer team and the District government announced a preliminary deal that would build a 20,000 seat stadium on Buzzard's Point in Southwest.

While the area where the stadium would go has been characterized as "vacant" - and much of the land south of S Street is - there are a few structures and businesses on the land. In addition to the salvage yard that people were surprised to find out owns part of the land, there is a warehouse south of S Street and a larger, modest warehouse on the NE corner of 2nd and S Streets SW (1714 2nd Street SW) which serves as the new operations center for Capital Bikeshare.

"My desk is on what will be the south goal line of the soccer field" said Capital Bikeshare director Eric Gilliland.

CaBi moved into it's new location last year, after starting in a less appealing facility on Half Street in 2010. "We now have air conditioning, heat, better office space and an easy location for staff." said Gilliland. The facility has plenty of space for storing equipment, is easily accesible by bike or transit and provides access to the core of the system in DC, Arlington and Alexandria. 

But it looks like they could be moving again. CaBi has a lease until 2017, but with DC United hoping to kick off the 2016 season in the new facility, it looks like they won't make it that long. In fact, the operations center is next to property that will almost surely need environmental remediation and CaBi doesn't want its employees working outside when that is work is being done, so they'd like to move before work begins.

No one has contacted them yet about moving or about negotiating an early end of the lease, but finding a new location will not be easy. Because warehouses are being developed and converted all over the city, "finding suitable warehouse space that meets our needs gets more and more difficult."

Because CaBi just went through a move, Gilliland thinks that if a suitable site can be found, there will be no disruption in service. But it is a considerable inconvenience to find a new location and move the equipment and facilities needed to support an ever-growing operation with more than 50 employees. If a replacement facility makes it significantly harder to do their job there could be impacts on customer service or pricing, but in the end that would be up to the transportation departments of the partner jurisdictions. 

If they do have to move, Gilliland hopes that "the District will help with the cost and logistics of relocation."

Maybe the new stadium can be built with CaBi office and warehouse space included - perhaps a view of the south goal line. "We'd love that" said Gilliland.

Comments

[Early Man]

A sports stadium with a permanent bike valet service built in would be visionary. A combo deal of season tickets and an annual CaBi membership? I'd be attending every DC United home game.

[DE]

I really want this stadium, but I do hope the city can help, or at least make things easy, on CaBi.

I also hope they'll put some decent bike racks at this stadium. Locking my bike to a fence at RFK has never made me feel like they thought biking to the stadium was the thing to do.

[Brendan]

Follow this story. The city doesn't even have space for its fleet of road maintenance vehicles (plows, etc.). Bike space is going to have to get in the back of the line.

[rsn]

How much warehouse space do they currently have and do they anticipate needing?

I wonder how feasible it would be to move the warehouse over to the Spingarn campus. With the incoming streetcar facility and training center, you could potentially turn that corner of town into a transportation innovation hub.

[JJ]

Given the distance of the proposed stadium from the nearest Metro stations, I suspect that you will see many DCU fans using bikes to get to and from the stadium. Either biking on their own to the game or taking Metro and then picking up a CaBi bike to cover the almost mile long route to the stadium. So I hope that Bikeshare can have lots of racks in the neighborhoods, or maybe operate a corral on gamedays.

[JJ]

Also, per Early Man, we already have a stadium in DC with a permanent bike valet service. It's called Nationals Park!