City Puts Another Decaying Historic School Up For Grabs
That little building is sitting on a big sea of gravel, full of opportunity. (Lydia DePillis)
This November, the Alexander Crummell School on Gallaudet and Kendall Streets NE will mark its 100th birthday. But it's not really in a position to celebrate. The decaying brick hulk, placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, has been bereft of students since the late 60s. In a 2000 City Paper cover story, the school's decline mirrored that of the surrounding neighborhood, Ivy City. Now, there's no reason you would ever find the building unless you were either looking for it or looking for nothing, as I was this past Sunday, when I stumbled across the abandoned school on a bike ride and struggled to make out "CRUMMELL SCHOOL" underneath all the vegetation growing around it.
In the next few months, however, the building's fortunes could change: Yesterday, the District issued a request for offers for the building, with the requirement that it be made available for a charter school. It's unlikely that would be an attractive proposition for any for-profit developer, given that the school itself is only about 20,000 square feet, and will likely take many millions to renovate. It's also just the latest in a a pile of schools, many of them also historic, that the District closed and is trying to put back into productive use (slideshow coming tomorrow!).
But here's the Crummell School's selling point: The entire lot is huge, at nearly 2.5 acres, situated right off New York Avenue NE behind the soon-to-be-developed Hechts Warehouse. According to the request for offers, residents are looking for a community center and "economic development" on the site, which could take the form of new housing, retail, offices, or hell, a laser tag arena. If anything, that's what will bring this crumbling beauty back to life.
6:02 am
There are organizations that have been working on this for YEARS.
10:35 am
I was involved with this issue in the early 2000s, trying to set up an "Ivy City Village Community Dev. Corp." and coming up with a proposal to utilize this site, in part through the development of a historic preservation trades school.
My big learning from that project was that you are only as solid as your weakest leader. Our neighborhood leader (now deceased) was borderline wacked, and that eventually scuttled the project because he couldn't deal with us.
WRT an RFP making this site primary for a charter school, that's ridiculously stupid. It's located far away relatively speaking from population centers, the cost to rehabilitate is exorbitant, and virtually every student would have to be transported to the site by car or bus.
12:56 pm
Agreed on the silliness of requiring this or really any parcel to be a charter school. Few charter school groups are qualified to take on a massive renovation project.
12:55 pm
You may think it is silly to put an RFP for charter schools but the law requires the city to do it. It is about time the city follows the law.