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It’s been nearly five years in the making, but construction of Tenleytown’s new library is finally underway. The mayor kicked off the project with an official groundbreaking this morning.
As I wrote this spring, the city once planned to build a more ambitious mixed-use development with housing at the site. A public/private partnership could have funneled money to nearby Janney Elementary School.
But the developer’s plans never got the go-ahead, and the community got testy, with some people “filing public documents requests, threatening lawsuits and making unsubstantiated charges of corruption,” according to the Washington Business Journal.
At a press conference in March, Mayor Adrian Fenty gave the Tenleytown community his blessing: Yes, after four years of back-and-forths, they could build their library.