In late March, developers submitted proposals for 11 school sites up for reconstruction. Some of these schools were recently vacated, others…not so much.
Grimke Elementary School falls into the later category. It’s on Vermont Ave., within spitting distance from U Street and the U Street Cardozo Metro station entrance. Currently, it serves as home to the fire and corrections departments’ headquarters. But both offices were slated to move to the Patricia Roberts Harris Educational Center on Livingston Road in Southeast.
For sure, I thought Grimke would elicit a tremendous number of proposals, due to its fabulous location. Yet, the school received a meager three, far fewer than the nine submitted for Stevens Elementary School downtown and ten for Hine Junior High School near Eastern Market.
Maybe the developers had a greater foresight than I. Now according to this morning’s Washington Times, the D.C. Council has canceled plans to move the departments to their new spot at P.R. Harris.
Unfortunately, the city hasn’t revealed much detailed information about the actual proposals. We’ve just seen the names of the interested developers (the names give away plenty of clues though). These are the groups that submitted plans.
Grimke
- Dantes Partners/Charter Schools Development Corporation/Capital City Public Charter School
- Grimke Partners LLC: (Torti Gallas/ African American Civil War Memorial Museum/ Community Three Development LLC (this developer pops up in a recent story of mine about Naylor Court and Blagden Alley.)
- Meridian Public Charter School/ African American Civil War Memorial Museum