Where is downtown DC? It’s up for debate

This article is the third in a three-part series about the history of downtown DC. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

In the first two parts of this series, I discussed how downtown DC migrated to the north and west over the past two centuries, away from George Washington and Pierre L’Enfant’s original vision. In this final article, I will attempt to answer a related question: Where exactly is downtown DC today?

The question is somewhat open-ended because, unlike city limits, there is no single, official definition. Instead, there are a number of different definitions the District, federal government, and private organizations use for different purposes.

DC’s zoning map provides one definition of “downtown”

One obvious place to start in looking for a definition of downtown is the District’s zoning map, which identifies several zones as “Downtown” zones. This definition is complicated, though, by the fact that much of downtown DC is occupied by federal or District government buildings built on unzoned land (such as Federal Triangle) or on land whose zoning they don’t fully comply with.

The map below shows the areas zoned as “Downtown” in purple, government buildings with downtown uses (mostly office buildings, but also the Convention Center) in pink, military facilities in light blue, and university campuses (George Washington University and Georgetown Law School) in light green.

The area that is either zoned “Downtown” or has downtown-related uses, if one includes college campuses as downtown uses, forms a rough rectangle between N Street NW and the Southwest/Southeast Freeway, and between Rock Creek and New Hampshire Avenue NW on the west and 2nd Street NE on the east.

However, the area also includes North Capitol Street and Union Station all the way north to Florida Avenue NW and between M Street SE and the Southeast Freeway near the Navy Yard Metro station, and has a large space cut out by the Mall, Ellipse, and Tidal Basin.

Overall, this definition of “downtown” seems overly broad — it places Dave Thomas Circle at the edge of downtown and includes areas south of the Southwest-Southeast Freeway — and is relatively arbitrarily bounded. The north edge of the area zoned “Downtown” blends into areas with various mixed-use zones, while the area of “Downtown” zoning south of the freeway is adjacent to two special-purpose zoning types, “Southeast Federal Center” and “Capitol Gateway,” that include land uses similar to those allowed for the “Downtown” zones.

Traffic regulations define a similar “Central Business District”

Another definition of downtown DC can be found in Title 18 of the DC Municipal Regulations, which deals with traffic regulation.

There, the “Central Business District” is defined as the area bounded by 23rd Street NW, Massachusetts Avenue NW/NE, 2nd Street NE/SE, D Street SE/SW, 14th Street SW/NW, and Constitution Avenue NW. This central business district definition is important for cyclists and scooter users, as it is the area where bikes and scooters cannot be ridden on the sidewalk.

The National Capital Planning Commission’s “Central Employment Area” definition

Another potential definition of downtown DC comes from the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), a federal agency responsible for planning in the “National Capital Region,” which consists of the District of Columbia, Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties in Maryland, and Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William Counties and the independent cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas, and Manassas Park in Virginia.

The NCPC’s comprehensive plan, which includes components drawn up by NCPC and by the District government, includes the definition of a “Central Employment Area” where both Federal employment and commercial development are to be concentrated.

However, as seen in the map above, the Central Employment Area as currently defined is more extensive than most definitions of downtown. In addition to including the commercial and Federal office districts south of Massachusetts Avenue and north of the Southeast-Southwest Freeway, it extends to areas south of the freeways, and even south of the Anacostia to include parts of downtown Anacostia and the St. Elizabeths campus.

An older definition of the Central Employment Area, though, included a distinct component identified as the “Downtown Area Central Employment Area.” This area, shown below, more closely corresponds to areas that are often thought of as downtown DC.

Can we define “downtown” in terms of Business Improvement Districts?

Another way in which downtown DC can be defined is in terms of Business Improvement Districts (BIDs). BIDs are nonprofit organizations created by the District government and run by property owners in commercial areas that act as hyper-local governments, similar to homeowners’ associations.

As shown in the map below, BIDs are found across much of the original L’Enfant City, as well as beyond its borders in Adams Morgan, Georgetown, and downtown Anacostia, and they cover much of the District’s commercial core.

The Downtown DC BID would, at first glance, seem like a logical definition of downtown DC. However, its boundaries — from 16th Street NW to the US Capitol Complex and between Constitution Avenue NW and Massachusetts Avenue NW, with a northern extension to cover the Convention Center — exclude the Farragut Square area and, with it, some of the densest concentrations of commercial office space in the region. They also exclude the Metro stations (Farragut West and Farragut North) where the most morning rush hour trips terminated before the pandemic.

At a minimum, a definition of downtown in terms of BIDs would also need to include the Golden Triangle BID, which covers the area between Massachusetts Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and 16th St NW.

Beyond the Downtown and Golden Triangle BIDs, the NoMa BID, the Mount Vernon Triangle Community Improvement District, the Southwest BID, and the Capitol Hill BID also include areas that might be considered part of downtown, although the Capitol Hill BID extends far from downtown along Pennsylvania Avenue SE all the way to the Anacostia and includes some adjacent neighborhoods such as Barracks Row.

In fact, the most downtown-like area it includes, the US Capitol Complex, is federal property managed by the Architect of the Capitol, where neither the BID nor the District government has authority.

The Census Bureau’s attempts to define “downtown”

Another source of a definition of downtown is the Census Bureau’s United States Economic Census, a measure of business and the economy performed every five years. For most of the 20th century, the Economic Census included definitions of central business districts for major cities, including DC. Unfortunately, these definitions, determined in collaboration with local business communities, were discontinued after 1982, meaning that they are now 40 years out of date.

The 1982 Economic Census central business district for DC, shown in the map above, still makes reasonable sense today. It is made up of block groups from the 1980 Decennial Census, and is the area bounded by 19th Street NW, 5th Street NW, Massachusetts Avenue NW, and Constitution Avenue NW. It contains the densest office areas of the District, as well as the Metro Center, Gallery Place, Farragut Square, Archives, and Federal Triangle Metro stations.

Because of the constraint of using entire block groups, however, it includes the parkland of the Ellipse, and the secured area around the White House.

Identifying several downtowns based on land use

Another method for defining downtown would be to look at land use, and identify contiguous areas that are dominated by office buildings, hotels, and related commercial uses.

The map below shows these areas — commercial areas both north and south of the Mall (marked 3 and 4), the George Washington University campus (marked 1), and the US Capitol Complex (marked 2) — in central DC. There are some apartment buildings within these areas, but the vast majority of land use is commercial, government, or academic.

Since this area is quite large — about two miles north-south and 2.5 miles east-west — one might also choose to define downtown DC as some subset of it. For example, the areas around the Farragut Square, McPherson Square, and Metro Center Metro stations, marked B, E, and F on the map below, are the densest concentration of office space in the region, with roughly 70 million square feet of federal and private office space in an area of roughly two-thirds of a square mile.

This is just less than half the 160 million square feet of office space in the 2.25 square miles of the broader area of office districts north and south of the Mall (but excluding the George Washington University campus and the Capitol Complex).

For comparison, Tysons — which represents the largest collection of suburban office space in the DC region, and one of the largest “edge cities” in the country — is roughly three square miles and home to only 24 million square feet of office space.

While all of the areas outlined on these maps have dense commercial or government land use, the specific uses vary.

The US Capitol Complex (2), Foggy Bottom (C), the White House (D), Judiciary Square (K), and the area south of the Mall (N, O, and P) consist primarily of federal office buildings, while the Farragut Square area (B) is nearly entirely private office buildings. Hotels are mostly found in the area around the Convention Center (H and I) and the “old downtown” area east of the White House (F). While land use in the downtown core is mostly commercial, there are a number of condos and apartment buildings in the Chinatown and Penn Quarter areas (I and J), as well along most of the northern border of the downtown core.

As these maps illustrate, defining DC’s downtown is not a simple matter. The debate continues.