Neighbors, Council Pan Fenty Plan for Apartments at Historic School

By Bill Myers | October 8, 2009

Mayor Adrian Fenty’s plan to convert a historic D.C. school for freed slaves into a luxury apartment building has run into fierce opposition from neighbors in Foggy Bottom and D.C. Council members.

In late September, Fenty awarded a contract to Equity Residential so that the Chicago-based firm could convert the Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School into an apartment building. Many neighbors in Foggy Bottom — many of them already angry that Fenty closed Stevens — have erupted.

“We have high expectations and we want to see a signature project there,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Rebecca Coder said.
“Rental units don’t cut it.”

Coder and her friends have elicited promises to kill the Equity contract from three D.C. councilmen on the five-member economic development committee.

“It doesn’t work here,” Councilman Jack Evans, D-Ward 2, said of the development.
Evans’ is a crucial defection because he has long been one of Fenty’s most loyal allies.

The city is sitting on tens of millions of dollars worth of property in the form of abandoned or shuttered schools like Stevens. City law requires that charter schools get first choice of old public schools buildings, but critics say that Fenty and his team have routinely short-circuited those requirements to hand over schools to private developers.

Fenty spokesman Sean Madigan didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Stevens School, near the intersection of 21st and K streets NW, was founded in 1873 for freed slaves. It has a long list of celebrated alumni and has been designated a historic site by the National Park Service.

Much of the resistance to Equity’s contract has been organized by Asher Corson, another Foggy Bottom neighborhood commissioner and a press aide to Councilwoman Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3. He sent a letter to Equity executive Greg White Monday night urging him to bow out gracefully.

“The deal is dead,” Corson told The Examiner. “At this point, there’s nothing left to talk about. Hopefully, this will give the city and Equity an out.”

White said his company won’t walk away from the deal.

“We haven’t considered it,” he said. “We continue to look forward to meeting with the community.”

Corson said that most neighbors favored a hotel development pitched by native Washingtonian Don Peebles, who has built a $4 billion empire of luxury hotels — mostly in New York and Miami. Equity, which markets its apartments to young singles, canvassed no support because many neighbors saw the project as a “luxury dorm,” Corson said.