The President Condominium, the only non-GW building along a chunk of I Street, has for 71 years watched the University spend hundreds of millions of dollars razing and erecting new buildings. But owners and residents there say tensions with University construction have reached a tipping point.
As the University prepares to seek approval from the city’s zoning board Nov. 15 for its next big project – a multi-million dollar office complex along I Street and Pennsylvania Avenue – residents at the condominium say it could collapse their company and push tenants out of Foggy Bottom. They plan to testify against the project at a city hearing next month.
The proposed design is about 18 percent bigger than original plans laid out in the 2007 Campus Plan – a gripe residents plan to bring to the city. The 11-story structure would total 250,000 square feet, and also include 6,000 feet of retail, a loading dock and a 179-car garage.
Construction would begin in 2014, ripping down an office building, two University townhouses, Froggy Bottom Pub, Thai Place, Panda Cafe and Mehran Restaurant along Pennsylvania Avenue.
The condos, on the corner of 22nd and I streets, are also less than a block away from the construction pit that will become the Science and Engineering Hall in 2015, and the recently completed Avenue complex.
Anthony Cook, who has rented out space in The President Condominium for a decade, said noise and traffic from a proposed alleyway outside residents’ windows would turn them away for good.
“My tenants will move out. There’s no doubt in my mind,” Cook said at a Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting Wednesday. “There will be too much noise, too much traffic. The air won’t be clean. It won’t be healthy.”
A lawyer for the condominium, Martin Sullivan, said residents will air their concerns at the zoning hearing and try to halt approval unless GW “proposes some suitable mitigation measure." He said they are waiting for a serious offer from the University to cut down on the alley's immediate impacts to the condos, including sound and traffic.
“Rarely does a project have such a concentrated impact on one property,” Sullivan said.
University spokeswoman Michelle Sherrard said the University has discussed the project with community members – including representatives from the condos – for a year, and would continue “with a goal of addressing concerns as best as possible” before next month’s zoning hearing.
Jeff Barber, a University architect working on the project site, said the new building would be 10 feet farther away from The President than the existing structure. But he said the alley would need to be widened to 24 feet to accommodate traffic flow and loading needs.
The University will not calculate project costs until after the zoning process, Sherrard said. GW will add 40,000 square feet of affordable housing on F Street to compensate for the complex's increased space.
Asher Corson, an alumnus and commissioner on the local group, called for the University to provide community amenities in exchange for the expanded property plan.
“It provides no direct amenity or benefit to the people who are going to be living near the site that will be impacted by it,” Corson said.
The group's chair, Florence Harmon, said the University and Foggy Bottom neighbors would have a "philosophical difference of opinion" regarding the project, and it would be in the hands of the D.C. Zoning Commission to work out a solution.
“I think you all are going to take the position that the retail and the affordable housing will be enough for amenities,” Harmon said to the University officials at the meeting. “I think we will take a different position.”
Harmon was set to present a proposed list of amenities, gathered with community input, at Wednesday's meeting. But when Corson said he had not yet seen the proposal, Harmon slammed her gavel down and ended the meeting early, before running through its full agenda.
Corson, who unwaveringly opposed the project during the University's initial presentation on its plan last November, said moving the alleyway further from the condos would be the best solution to tone down the noise.
He also suggested that GW add a park near the space and donate to community organizations to give back to the neighborhood in return for additional space.
Why do they complain? Without the University their housing is worth less and they won’t be able to gouge for rent anymore. GW invests in the area so they don’t have to! Consider it a favor.
The rent paid to owners in the President Condo is substantially less than what GW charges its students in the dormitories. In addition, I have lived there for years and I am not affiliated with GW (neither are my neighbors). Therefore, to assume only GW students rent here is based on inaccurate information.
The university is not doing residents and owners any favors by destroying a quality of life, regardless if the occupants are students, professors, or unaffiliated with GWU.
Will they be testing pollution/air levels in the area?
The project’s design needs reworking – save the townhouses and use a brick exterior to be sensitive to the Burns Clinic building, which is now a DC landmark. How about an archway and walk through to campus, like at 2000 Penn.?
thank god i’m moving out in may before this mess starts. also, for anyone that lives in the rear of the president and faces north onto penn, the building will cut off all direct sunlight and you’ll be staring directly into someones office.
I agree. Also, GW says they have been working with the community for over a year. However, they recently changed the plans. Now, the alley is directly next door to the Prez condo.
People like to complain and then you all will love the outcome after it’s done right?
Oh yeah, I can’t wait for that private office building to be complete. Future students will wonder how we did without it.
It should not be a surprise to the residents here. We knew when we moved in that this was on the horizon. It won’t be fun to live through, but we didnt have to choose to live here. If you don’t like it, you can move elsewhere. They have the right to undertake this construction whether we like it or not. The recent construction which produced the Avenue and Whole Foods, ets was painful to live through but the end result is fabulous.
The only issue is GW moved the alley. We don’t object to the construction of the building. Instead, we object to GW moving the goal posts after the negotiations were completed. They moved the alleyway from far away from the President Condo to right next door to it. When we moved in, we were under the impression the alleyway was going to be further away – now, GW is changing the game.
Great point above.
I’m sure none of the complainers appreciate the Whole Foods, hospital, and all the other great businesses that are here because of the University. The University has been in Foggy Bottom 100 years. GW is Foggy Bottom.
The University has been here for 100 years, the neighborhood has existed for more than 200. And save the crap about GW being God’s gift to D.C.; this is some of the most valuable land in the country and most all of it is off the tax rolls.
Good project in concept, bu the design details need work!
Really unacceptable that Ms. Harmon, the chairperson of the meeting, walked out in a huff. She is an elected official of the District of Columbia, and was elected by her fellow commissioners to chair the meeting. It was her job to keep order, not to walk out when it got disorderly or when she didn’t like what was being said. If she can’t take the heat, she should get out of the kitchen. Clearly amateur hour at the ANC.
This is horrible, why would the University do this knowing the consequences to the surrounding community? I hope the construction indefinitely stops until a reasonable solution, for all sides, can be achieved.
My point is not how long the neighborhood has been here. It’s how long you have been here “fact checker.” Move if you don’t like it. Go live in SE. You’ll find a much quieter area there. Not too much construction going on there right now. Then you can sleep in every morning.
It’s none of your damn business how long I’ve been here, it’s my neighborhood and I’ll be buried in place before I sell out to The George Washington University Development Corporation. Luckily for people like me, there’s a whole large community here outside of the faux gates and gaudy GW busts that line campus.
But you seem to be under the impression that the construction is the problem, when in reality construction is just a symptom of the much larger problem: The University’s endless quest to gobble up as much land as possible and then use that land for investment purposes. If it walks like a developer and talks like a developer…
71 years?!! Really? maybe since 1971? or at most since the 1960′s but no way for 71 years… do more research. gracias.
I completely agree with the post above(Foggy Bottom Fact Check): no law, no regulation, nor any contract should ever be used to justify this. It’s essentially the forced relocation of the surrounding community.
This same issue is happening in my own community: a land hungry development corporation is buying up more and more of the land and then kicking out all of the people who lived there. Now, they’re tearing down all of the buildings and constructing these gaudy overpriced condos for out-of-state tourists.
It pains me to see students from a college that claims to be so progressive, diverse, and open-minded to stand in defense of this horrendous construction project.