Monday, January 21, 2008

Bidders Revealed on Tenley/Janney


Bids on the Tenley/Janney solicitation have closed, and Mayor Fenty has announced the three bidders vying to take on what may be one of the most anti-development neighborhoods in DC. The RFP had been extended to January 4th to allow developers extra time to craft proposals to build a library, renovate the school, and work in private space to hopefully subsidize the program.

The three firms officially asking for the nod were: LCOR, See Forever Foundation in partnership with UniDev LLC, and Roadside Development. The latter has been working intermittently for several years on the project in an effort to appease both city and vox populi, but the sale or lease of public land for private development proved the third rail of city politics, leading to the request for bids. District officials plan to hold a public meeting in February to get responses from the public on all three site-plans.

The 3-acre site, at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Albemarle Street, used to be home to the old 15,000-s.f. Tenley library, demolished late last year, and the upgrade-needy Janney School. The biggest concern for local residents has been the mixed-use library/residence idea that has been deliberated for some time. Although many of the Tenley homeowners have argued against the residential portion of the project, each bidder included variations of the plan in their proposal; with housing units ranging from 120 to 170 across the board.

“The Tenley site is a great opportunity to achieve some of our most important public policy goals: Building better schools, creating affordable housing and encouraging development at transit stations and along major transportation corridors,” said Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Neil O. Albert. “We are excited about the responses to this solicitation as we are just beginning to take a closer look at the proposals.

"What we tried to do is take all the input that we got from the community, and incorporate their concerns, as well as the Office of the Deputy Mayor's requirements, to come up with something that delivers on what the RFP asks for and what the community would like to see" said Armand Spikell, Principal at Roadside Development. Roadside completed the Cityline Condominiums across the street and 2005.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is See Forever Foundation involved in one of the bids? They run charters schools?

Anonymous said...

On Friday Feb 1st the requirements for this RFP were drastically changed. At least two of the three proposals submitted will be considered non-responsive unless they are radically redesigned (to allow the independent redevelopment of the library) in the next two weeks.

Rumor has it that Roadside's proposal conforms to (anticipated?) the new requirements.

Anonymous said...

Feb 4 10:48 appears to be correct. News posted on the neighborhood listserve indicate that the ANC 3E special committee was able to entice some political heavyweights to lay siege on DCPL in the interest of keeping the library redevelopment on track. However this action will have the intended effect of derailing the acceleration of the Janney School rehabiliation as well as any decent transit oriented development at the Tenleytown Metro.

Congratulations to the NIMBYs of Northwest, you have done it again!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, right. John Hill, President of the Federal City Council and head of the Library Trustees does the bidding of an ANC committee. Get real.

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