Yesterday, thrilling news rippled through the Capitol Hill community. Finally after weeks of meetings, blog tirades, and self-righteous listserv debate, Tommy Wells announced yesterday that a developer selection would be made next week for the Hine Junior High site by Eastern Market. Well that turned out not to be true.

According to a note from Wells’ Chief of Staff Charles Allen, the city will likely be narrowing down the list of developers and issuing a request for Best and Final Offers next week. Here’s the entire statement:

Hine Middle School Redevelopment: Next Steps & Clarification
Written by Charles Allen
Wednesday, 08 July 2009

There seems to have been some confusion created this morning at a meeting of CHAMPS at Hill’s Kitchen. Before the meeting, Councilmember Wells spoke briefly with Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Valerie Santos over the phone. During their conversation, there was a miscommunication about the timing of the next steps. Councilmember Wells was told that the selection of the redevelopment team would take place early next week and he shared that information at the CHAMPS meeting.

That turns out to be incorrect. The Deputy Mayor’s office will take the next step in the evaluation phase (not the selection phase) early next week, likely issuing a request for Best and Final Offers (BAFO) to more than one of the bidders. The BAFO process is expected to take a few weeks, after which the Deputy Mayor’s office will review and evaluate the revised proposals, before announcing a final selection.

Image by Bill on Capitol Hill, Flickr Creative Commons