Recently, the Corcoran College of Art and Design announced that Eastbanc was the winning bidder on the old Fillmore School building on 1801 35th Street, NW, at Georgetown / Burleith border. Corcoran purchased the property in 1997, but expansions and growth of the student body has the school seeking more space elsewhere in the city. The announcement in April was for a purchase and sales agreement; the sale has yet to be finalized and the purchase price has not been released. DCMud has confirmed rumors of a condo and residential project for the future of the site, though details are not yet determined.
According to Joe Sternlieb, VP at Eastbanc, the site was one he and his firm "had long had our eyes on." Eastbanc, which has worked on 60 or 70 buildings in the Georgetown area over the past 20 years, won the bid for the site over as many as eight other firms, according to Sternlieb. Eastbanc was recently awarded an RFP to develop in the West End into a mixed-use project and new library and fire station.
The developers plan to convert the existing school building into condominiums and build new townhouses along 34th Street on the site of the 100-car parking lot. Sternlieb said the team is working with undisclosed architects on drawing several potential development plans that the team will share with the community, including the ANC and the Old Georgetown Board, "in the next few weeks." From there the team will likely go to the Board of Zoning Adjustment to amend the allowed use for the lot, though the project will reportedly not require a PUD zoning amendment as contemplated. Sternlieb said Eastbanc is "probably looking at starting something in the summer of 2011."
Eastbanc must have pondered the fate of the Wormley School more than momentarily. The former Georgetown school was converted into condos and began sales in 2007, with developer Encore intending to turn the building into 7 condos and add 6 townhouses, but sales languished, with some units still unsold, and the townhouses remain just a vision.
The Corcoran purchased the Fillmore from the District government in 1997 for $1.5m. The Fillmore was built in 1892 and remains one of the few tributes to the all-but-forgotten former President Millard S. Washington DC commercial property news
5 comments:
East bank does good work. Hope sellers had done a better job marketing the property. Very few people knew about the sales campaign.
How many more ridiculously expensive condos and townhomes do we need in Georgetown? Why not insist on having a little less luxury and a little more reality by having the building neo'd by a builder that lives amongst the people in this great city -- not ABOVE them.
Anon #2: I don't know how many "ridiculously expensive" condos we need, nor do you, or anyone else. But we don't know what the prices are yet, and people are moving into this city, raising the population, so the answer is likely "more". Why decry increasing the housing stock? I'm in real estate and can tell you there aren't many condos in Georgetown, or elsewhere, to sell.
A development may be good, but EastBanc is asking for zoning to be changed for the neighborhood to create 30+ new residences in an already crowded part of town. That is too many new residences ... they should build the condos, but fewer townhomes and create park like space as there was before the Corcoran ruined the neighborhood but putting in a parking lot over a public park. Better yet ... maybe DC can buy the property back and turn it into a park/school for the community.
Eastbanc has only developed condos and other commercial buildings. They don't know how to do a neighborhood build out in Georgetown that respects size, scale, and the need for open spaces and green spaces.
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