The University announced Friday that the D.C. City Council voted to give GW the School Without Walls parking lot in exchange for $12 million to renovate the school.

At Friday’s Board of Trustees meeting the University announced that the council approved the measure last week. GW and the School Without Walls had been in negotiations for the site for 10 years.

While no formal architectural plans have been formulated, GW Executive Vice President and Treasurer Louis Katz said in November that the University plans to build a 500-room apartment-style dormitory on the site of the parking lot and tennis courts behind the school the University already owns.

University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said the vote by the City Council is telling of the University’s improving relationship with the D.C. community.

“This is just remarkable,” Trachtenberg told The Hatchet after Friday’s board meeting. “It demonstrates how far we’ve come to close the disputation between GW and the community.”

The University still has no formal plan when construction will start on the new dormitory, but Katz said in November he hopes to have the residence hall completed by 2009.

-Brandon Butler