Georgetown Day School Will Revise Plans For Expansion

• June 30, 2016

by Nena Perry-Brown

A rendering of the originally-planned residential buildings. Click to enlarge.

Georgetown Day School will go in a new direction with its planned expansion.

As UrbanTurf reported last fall, Georgetown Day School plans to consolidate their lower, middle and upper schools into a new building in Tenleytown, which will join two residential-and-retail buildings on a newly-constructed campus at 4200 Davenport Street NW (map).

However, in light of revisions made as a result of ongoing talks with the Office of Planning and the upcoming changes to DC zoning regulations, the school will revise and refile its planned unit development (PUD) application with the Zoning Commission later this year.

As originally filed, the three new buildings would surround a plaza called Davenport Steps. The residential buildings, standing six and seven stories tall, would include 270-290 units and a mid-sized grocery store. The new GDS school building would have a theater, gallery, and athletic facilities in addition to having a rooftop field. Two levels of below-grade parking would also service the campus. A nearby Safeway and Martens Volvo/Volkswagen dealership would be demolished and incorporated into the new site.

In March, the plans for the new residential plans were altered. Specifically, the heights for each new building were lowered, which resulted in a lower number of residential units for each.

While the original timeline aimed for a groundbreaking in two years, there is no word yet as to what extent the refiled application will delay construction.

UPDATE: A representative from Georgetown Day School cited the recent DC Court of Appeals decision blocking a PUD at 901 Monroe Street NE (map) as reason to revisit the plans and ensure the project is viable. “While the PUD in the Durant case is not identical to GDS’s proposed PUD, there are enough similarities that it is incumbent on the GDS Board to pause and weigh the risks and benefits of moving ahead with our initial vision for the Martens site,” writes Rahel Rosner.

More images from the originally-filed PUD application are below.

Click to enlarge.

The planned grocery store. Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/application_for_georgetown_day_school_pud_project_to_be_revised_and_refiled/11417