The Armed Forces Retirement Home will soon begin a project on its Northwest DC Campus that is now ten years in the making. On Monday, March 19th, the AFRH issued a solicitation to developers. Paying its operating costs from a trust fund rather than federal appropriations, the AFRH has had difficulty making ends meet over the years, but thanks to some creative thinking and congressional approval, a portion of the 272-acre campus has been allocated for private development. This will create a new revenue stream from which the fund can be topped off.
Though various ups and downs have halted the forward progress of this project, the delays may have been a blessing. Petworth, the neighborhood that shares the AFRH’s northwest border, has undergone a…