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It's been a year since D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty shut down the Franklin Shelter, and while homeless advocates are still fighting in court to get the historic Franklin School reopened as a shelter, the Fenty administration is moving ahead with its redevelopment plans. As Ruth Samuelson recently reported over at Housing Complex, the Franklin School RFP seeks "Highly-qualified development teams with experience in planning, financing, building, and operating small to medium scale mixed-use, commercial, hotel, residential, or retail use development projects and experience in working with community stakeholders are strongly encouraged to respond to this RFP." The Business Journal followed up today with a story of its own.
Samuelson thinks the property is "destined to become a boutique hotel," and that seems about right. Considering its location, size and stunning exterior, it's hard to imagine what else it could possibly be. The Fenty administration has already turned down proposals to turn the building back into a school (of the charter variety), so the city does appear to want something commercial in here. Are there any museums out there looking for a new home?
Don't necessarily hold your breath on an answer on this property any time soon, of course. As Jonathan O'Connell notes, "... Fenty is making it available during a time when frozen lending has made it difficult for developers to finance major rehabilitation or construction projects." Not to mention all the historic preservation hoops any potential developer would have to jump through for this building, which once housed D.C.'s first high school and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
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if we were a society that valued things other than money first and foremost, this building would have a bright future ahead of it.
instead, it's going to make someone wealthy even wealthier. good for them, i hold no ill will, i just wish that once in a while, the little guys could win...
What little guys are you talking about?
the little guys (and girls) who would be going to classes in a school in that building...
I agree with that. A school would be nice.
Good for Fenty for sticking to his guns like that. That area was doing well before they turned it into a shelter. The park there is unique for DC but people avoided walking through there even in the daytime.
Also, that is an awesome building. It deserves better.
Although I'm not sure this would have been a great place for a school again (pick up drop off pain, no real outdoor space, etc), I am so annoyed that DC even allowed charters to go through to process of requesting it when was clear from the beginning that they were not under any circumstances going to let a charter have it!
Charters get so shafted re: buildings in this city.
There is a school that was just renovated on the same block. Not sure if that means anything, tho.
Instead of a boutique hotel, how about just an office building? I imagine there would be a ton of law firms angling for the space.
The unfortunate part is that because it is historic, there probably won't be any street level retail--not that the developers are actually required to put in street level retain by the zoning comish.
lizzy: i know that pickup/drop-off is an issue when you have little ones, but what if it was a high school? i think that's what some envisioned here (or a satellite building for DC's new community college).
Charters get quite a few grade-A excess DCPS buildings. No reason they should automatically get them all, and especially those in neighborhoods with little remaining residential.
I think that a boutique hotel would be the best possible use for this building, and would at least preserve a bit of access to the lobby and public areas. A museum would also be cool. Definitely NOT a good place to put a homeless shelter.
The more I look at it, I find it hard to see a hotel there. That would mean an elevator and it doesn't look like you could get a lot of rooms in the space.
Then again, I said the same thing about the Monaco a few blocks away and they did a fine job with that building.
The convention center has yet to get it's own boutique Thai tranny brothel.
Just sayin.
I would love to see this turned into a public library. But since that's not going to happen, some kind of satellite campus for a local college would be great.
There's a hotel right across K Street. I'm not sure there is a great need for another one in the immediate area.