Georgia Avenue School Demolished for Mixed-Use Project

Government officials chose the hottest day of the year to begin demolishing another public school, this one on Georgia Avenue. The 36-year-old Bruce Monroe Elementary School and recreation center, at 3012 Georgia Avenue, NW, was closed this June to make way for a mixed-use project including, most likely, an updated school, and yet another feather in the cap of Georgia Avenue.

According to ODMPED Communications Director Sean Madigan, the Mayor's office will issue an RFP "in the next few weeks" to select a developer to turn the 119,000-s.f. site into what "could include new housing and retail on the site as well as a new school." DC Public Schools’ Office of Public Facilities Management has been tasked with overseeing the school's development, while ODMPED and the DC Department of Small & Local Business Development share the responsibility of seeking a partner for the project’s mixed-use component.

The task of knocking down the existing school falls on General Contractor EEC of DC, which handled asbestos and PCB abatement, and The Berg Corporation, which will handle actual demolition. According to a source from Berg, 95% of the material (by weight) on the site will be recylced, a large portion of which is brick that will be ground and used for structural backfill. Demolition is expected to take about 10 weeks; the Mayor's office had initially predicted the school would be ready for the fall of 2011, but says that now seems unlikely.

Several shootings on the site in 2007 prompted Mayor Fenty to undertake additional neighborhood improvements and evaluate the state of the school. Most of Bruce Monroe’s former student body and staff have been removed into Park View Elementary at 3560 Warder Street, which will in turn close once Bruce Monroe is ready.

Washington DC real estate development