Four former District school buildings that have been declared surplus property will be made available to charter schools for lease, the Office of Property Management said.
The agency announced plans to issue offers of solicitation for the following: Keene, at 33 Riggs Rd. NE; Langston and Slater, adjoining school buildings at 33 P St. NW and 45 P St. NW, which will be offered together; and Reno, at 4820 Howard St. NW.
blurb here
Personally i'd much rather see these buildings go to educational purposes than for more condos, so i'm glad they are being offered up to charter schools first.
Still.. thats more of my intuitive response rather than reasoned. Anyone have thoughts on this?
I think having charter schools there would lead to an over-concentration of schools in the area. Cooke ES is across the street, Armstrong is just down the street (which I believe is also being returned to educational purposes) as is Dunbar HS.
ReplyDeleteWithin four blocks of the unit block of P NW, you'll find: Cook Elementary, MM Washington High School, Friendship Public Charter school, Montgomery Elementary, and Dunbar High school. Plus Armstrong, whenever that's renovation is done (or even started, for that matter, by the charter school that bought it a year ago.)
ReplyDeleteI'm horrified by this decision. In order for Norh Capitol to revitalize, we need density. To achieve density, we need one or two high-end condos, for which those buildings would have been perfect.
Believe me, I would be taking a completely different position if we did not have enough schools (incl charter schools) in the area. But we live in a neighborhood that is plentiful in schools (and one in which the demographics are rapidly changing.)
I wish they had made those buildings condos and subsidized some of them for working artists, the way they did with the condos on G St above Flashpoint Gallery.
I urge residents to contact Lars Etzkorn at the Office of Planning to weigh in: lars.etzkorn@dc.gov
thank you both for that perspective and information.
ReplyDeleteyou make strong points.
Friendship Public Charter School does not have a school in Bloomingdale. Friendship's headquarters staff occupies office space in Bloonmingdale.
ReplyDelete