Your Next Place

By Franklin Schneider

Would you like to live in Ledroit Park? Of course you would. Any neighborhood with its name on a metal archway over the main road in has to be good. That, or you live in EuroDisney.

This gleaming new condo unit offers an open plan first floor that's made for entertaining; the space is bisected by a huge kitchen, with a bright living room in the front of the house, and a generously sized dining area in the rear. The kitchen itself boasts a gas range (with hood) and silestone counters. There are also the requisite high ceilings, recessed lighting, hardwood (maple) floors. Out back, there's also a private deck, off which you just know that one stupid friend of yours will urinate during halftime of your Super Bowl party. What's wrong with him?

Upstairs are two master bedroom suites, both very fine. Also, this stretch of Sixth Street is one-way and in that sort of weird limbo between Florida Avenue and the Howard University campus, so it's really really quiet. I live just three blocks west on Sixth, but in front of my house it's a nonstop ambulance drag race-slash-siren exhibition. So I was pretty jealous. I offered to trade places straight up, but the agent turned me down. I thought this was rather shortsighted of him. Sure, it comes with a huge colony of black mold on the living room wall, but just do what I do – put a “Wolverine” poster over it. Problem solved!

1915 6th St. NW
2 Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths
$565,000

LeDroit Park School Gets Hammered

In a move envied by adolescents everywhere, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, joined by LeDroit Park community members, will begin knocking down a public elementary school today at 10:45am. The Gage-Eckington School at 2025 3rd St., NW, is being scuttled in favor of a 3-acre park, beginning with today's wrecking ceremony.

Just last month DC’s Office of Property Management (OPM) had maintained their devotion to move city agencies out of leased space and into abandoned public schools. But it seems that a lack of parking and reported $18m in renovation needed to rehab the space, not to mention its architectural heinousness, has led city officials to conclude the city is better off without it.

A new park, designed by Lee and Associates, will include a dog park, a children’s garden, a playground and incorporate the existing community garden at 3^rd and V Streets, NW. Construction of the park is slated to begin in October. Gage-Eckington closed its doors in mid 2008, in a move expected to save DC Public Schools some $659,000 in fixed costs per year.

Washington DC real estate development news

Empty DC School Demolished for Park

Two days after DC’s Office of Property Management (OPM) publicly announced their goal of moving city agencies out of leased space and into shuttered public schools, the city has decided to tear one down instead. According to documentation from District’s Office of Historic Preservation, OPM has received approval to demolish Gage-Eckington Elementary in LeDroit Park, following concerns about a lack of parking from a potential DC government tenant.

The 86,500 square foot building, which sits vacant at 2025 3^rd Street, NW, had initially been considered as a new headquarters for the DC Department of Environment, which was quick to express its trepidation about the dearth of parking in the area. The school was definitively passed over once city officials balked at the reported $18 million worth of renovations and repairs needed to retrofit the facility (as presented here by frequent DCmud talkbacker, IMGoph, on his own Bloomingdale-centric site). So, instead of parking, the DC government has decided to go with a park.

In lieu of an agency relocation, Gage-Eckington will be razed to make way for a new public park designed by Lee + Papa and Associates. A final development scheme for the recreational area was approved at a meeting of the LeDroit Park Civic Association (LPCA) on May 26^th and is set to include a dog park, a children’s garden, an environmental learning center and incorporate the already existing community garden at 3^rd and V Streets, NW that adjoins the site. According to the LPCA, “Inside demolition of [the school] is scheduled to start on or about June 1. Exterior demo is expected to begin by August 1. Construction of the park is slated to begin on or about October 15.”

The LPCA had actively lobbied for the project via their "Put the Park Back in LeDroit Park" community campaign, which began shortly before Gage-Eckington Elementary closed its doors at the end of 2007-8 school year. It was a move expected to save DC Public Schools some $659,000 in “fixed costs” per year, but at the time, DCPS Chancellor Michelle Rhee and Deputy Mayor for Education Victor Reinoso said specifically of Gage-Eckington:

We intend to use buildings for the benefit of our city…[and it] could be used to house an early childhood or adult education program, a student and family health center, or another city agency…The Mayor has no plans to sell the property or allow it to fall into disrepair or unmonitored use.

Not to be confused with LeDroit Park’s other Gage school, the N.P Gage School at 2035 2^nd Street, NW that was replaced by Gage-Eckington (only to sit unoccupied for 25 years), and which was transformed into the Parker Flats at Gage School by Urban Realty Advisors and Bonstra Haresign Architects in 2005.

Washington DC retail and real estate development journal

Howard Scraps Plans for LeDroit Park Development

Howard University 's Community Capital Projects division (CCP) has abandoned plans for their “New Homes at Historic LeDroit Park” project, according to University officials. Nonetheless, they don’t seem too keen on telling the neighbors.

Located at the corner of 5^th Street and Oakdale Place, NW, directly behind the Howard University Hospital, CCP had been advertising on the long vacant lot by boasting a laundry list of members on their development team, including Sorg and Associates as architects, Essex Construction Inc. as “construction consultants”, Howard President H. Patrick Swygert as “development sponsor” and Riggs Bank as a co-sponsor.

Curiously, Sorg and Associates told DCmud they have never heard of any such project, Swygert resigned his post as University President almost a year ago and Riggs Bank merged with PNC in 2005. What gives?

“The lots are being marketed for sale,” said Kerry-Ann Hamilton, Howard’s Media Relations Manager. “The University is not developing the parcels in question.” Curiously enough, however, they didn’t respond to inquiries regarding the cost of the mysterious parcel, which has yet to be advertised - in any capacity - as being for sale.

Thinking perhaps the project’s fortunes were tied to the University’s once ballyhooed LeDroit Park Initiative, DCmud questioned the head of the Initiative, Maybelle Taylor Bennett of the Howard University Community Association. She declined to comment on the status of the “New Homes” parcel or the Initiative as a whole – which is the product of a partnership between the University and (hard swallow) the Fannie Mae Foundation. Suffice it to say, the Initiative’s plans for “a new mixed-use Town Center on Georgia Avenue that will include community-serving retail and apartment housing” are probably not imminent.

UPDATE: Howard has since directed DCmud to the Menkiti Group, who is currently listing the 4,420 square lot at 2025 5th Street, NW for $430,000. According to their site, it is the "last remaining parcel from the HU/LeDroit Revitalization initiative."