No Retail or Residential: Georgetown Day School Files New Application for Consolidation

• August 9, 2017

by Nena Perry-Brown

New proposed Georgetown Day School

A year after withdrawing an application for a new mixed-use campus, Georgetown Day School (GDS) has filed new plans with the city to consolidate its campuses — but the new plans don’t include a residential and retail component.

GDS is seeking a special exception to consolidate its lower and middle schools, currently located at 4530 MacArthur Boulevard NW, with the existing high school at 4200 Davenport Street NW (map), which is primarily zoned for residential. The new plan would construct a new four-story building on the surface parking lot next to the high school, and would also create a partially-below grade parking garage with a rooftop playing field. Gensler is the project architect.

The school is also requesting to close the portion of Davenport Street that dead-ends at the property and create two new vehicular entrances, one of which will be off the public alley near Ellicott Street.

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

An early iteration of the development included other, larger aspects, like a retail plaza called Davenport Steps and 270-290 residential units spread across two buildings. However, a series of conversations with the Office of Planning, the amended zoning regulations and observations of how the DC Court of Appeals ruled on a planned-unit development in Northeast led GDS to reevaluate their approach to development on the site, ultimately returning to the table with a much more pared-down proposal.

When the plans were revealed to the local ANC last month, some attendees and commissioners expressed concerns about the impact of increased traffic flow into that area and lamented that the neighborhood will have to deal with that increase — and potential parking enforcement issues within the neighborhood — without the benefit of any new retail amenities.

This article originally published at http://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/georgetown_day_school_files_new_application_for_consolidation_sans_mixed-us/12893