An ambitious plan pitched by Mayor Muriel Bowser for a 500,000-square-foot spa and waterpark complex on the banks of the Anacostia River is unlikely to move forward in the D.C. Council, after Ward 4 council member Janeese Lewis George — who is poised to succeed her as the District’s mayor — said she opposes the project.
“I have concerns regarding the proposed development project at Poplar Point, which is one of the East Coast’s last great urban waterfront redevelopment opportunities,” Lewis George said in a text message to The Washington Sun. “This is prime waterfront real estate that should be used to leverage the building of more affordable homes and the creation of good jobs. The current proposal does neither. We must make this a better deal for District residents.”
The clash between Bowser and Lewis George has to do both with the particular details of the project and with their competing interests: Bowser is looking to cement her legacy with development deals, some that have been years in the making, while Lewis George is looking for opportunities to enact her own priorities once she takes office Jan. 2.
One place that offers chances for both is Poplar Point, the 110-acre plot of riverfront land between the Frederick Douglass and 11th Street bridges and located across the Anacostia River from Nationals Park. Long owned by the federal government, in 2006 Congress ordered that Poplar Point be turned over to D.C. for local use.
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The slow-going process picked up steam in recent years, and in 2025 Bowser announced the selection of Therme, an Austrian operator of health and wellness centers — large-scale spas, in effect — to build its first U.S. location on 15 acres at the site. (There’s another site in development in Dallas.) She pitched the project — which was expected to cost $500 million to build — as a new destination for an underserved side of the river.
“Not only will it create jobs and opportunity, it will serve as a catalyst for economic growth along the Anacostia waterfront,” she said at the time. “This is a unique opportunity for D.C. and an economic driver for Ward 8 — creating jobs, attracting visitors and delivering new opportunities for our residents.”
Therme officials spent the last few years working to build local support for their project, hiring a former chief of staff for Ward 8 council member Trayon White to serve as its community lead, hosting a pop-up sauna village in Ward 8, and flying community leaders and local influencers to Romania to see the company’s flagship spa.
Bowser submitted two bills to the council last month dealing with Poplar Point. One would finalize the transfer of the site from federal to local control, which includes a series of land swaps to facilitate the move of the U.S. Park Police headquarters from Poplar Point to Joint Base Anacostia Bolling. The second bill spelled out the terms of the Therme deal, turning over a 15-acre portion to the company for $1 in annual rent for 20 years and a commitment that the spa would be built within six years.
Those bills accompanied five other proposed development deals, including the redevelopment of the Frank D. Reeves Center on U Street into housing and a new headquarters for the NAACP; the construction of a new library and recreation center with housing on top in Chevy Chase; and affordable housing, retail, and health care services at the former Fletcher-Johnson school in Ward 7.
“The local real estate market remains volatile, and investors are extremely cautious in their investment decisions,” Bowser wrote to lawmakers in mid-September. “Approval of these bills provides them with the certainty they need for these projects to advance. Given the last financial impacts of the DOGE cuts on our local economy — including the loss of tens of thousands of jobs — we must not lose momentum on diversifying our economy and creating jobs for our residents.”
Still, Lewis George’s skepticism with Poplar Point seemed evident last week, when Tommy Wells, a former council member and mayoral hopeful who is now chairing her campaign, posted his thoughts on the projects on X. “This is a mistake and unneeded,” he wrote. “Valuable riverfront land should be used for housing. Council should oppose it.”
Bowser’s dump of legislation on the council in the final months of its two-year legislative calendar — when lawmakers rush to pass their own bills — also struck some of them as the outgoing mayor being naively hopeful, if not somewhat deaf to the political reality that Lewis George is likely to be D.C.’s next mayor. (She faces nominal opposition in the November general election.)
“The presumptive winner of the November election is a council member right now and I expect she’s going to do the same thing Muriel did when she was first elected: ‘I don’t want things going through, it should wait until I become mayor,’” said D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, referring to Bowser’s first election to the city’s top office in 2014 as she served on the council.
“It’s almost like not taking the legislative process seriously to wait this long,” Mendelson added, “that the council doesn’t need to hear from the public, the council just needs to approve this, which is disrespecting why we’re here.”
Beyond being the likely next mayor, Lewis George also plays a critical role in Bowser’s development deals: She chairs the council committee that handles many proposed uses of public land for private development. In a text message exchange with The Sun, Lewis George confirmed that she wouldn’t hold a hearing on the Poplar Point bills, effectively killing them for the time being.
“Wait until next year in some capacity,” she wrote.
Bowser’s office declined to comment. In an emailed statement, Therme USA Executive Chairman John Alschuler pledged to continue working to make the project a reality.
“Therme D.C. represents a generational opportunity to bring significant private investment to Ward 8, while helping to unlock Poplar Point as a vibrant waterfront neighborhood with housing and other mixed uses,” he wrote. “We have worked closely with the community to build broad support and shape a project that delivers meaningful benefits for the people who live here, including permanent jobs, opportunities for local businesses, expanded access to health and well-being, and a 70-acre world-class public park. We look forward to continuing to share that vision and our commitment to the District.”
It’s not all bad news for Bowser’s other deals, though.
Ward 3 council member Matt Frumin will hold hearings this month on the Fletcher-Johnson proposal and a move to redevelop the Georgetown Boathouse, and next month will hold a separate hearing on the Chevy Chase library project. Lewis George says she will hold her own hearing, indicating that the long-awaited project could be approved by the council this year.
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