Their letter to DMPED is available at http://www.janneyschool.org/PTASITPPP/Library%20development/sitresponseto3proposals-march2008.html. This means that a consensus has emerged within the community -- neither the ANC nor the School wants to see any of these projects built. Hopefully, this will be enough to convince Mayor Fenty to pull the plug on this RFP. At the February meeting of the Tenleytown Neighbors Association (TNA), Fenty pledged that he would listen to the community once it spoke with a united voice.
Where consensus breaks down (perhaps even within the SIT, judging from the wording of the letter) is whether the next step should be a decision that the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization (headed by Allen Lew of stadium fame) will be responsible for the Janney project (ideally on an earlier timetable than previously announced) or whether the whole RFP process should be re-started and done right this time with well-defined limits on acceptable private development on the site and/or the re-inclusion of the library project and land.
Not surprisingly, I'm strongly in favor of the OPEFM option.
Truth is, we've already explored the PPP-with-the-library-in-the-mix option. One of the three current proposals (LCOR's) is based on that scenario, and it was rejected by both the SIT and the ANC. The notion that including the library's land solves the problem is a mirage. To the extent that Roadside's original ("unsolicited") offer looked more acceptable than the post-RFP proposals, that's primarily because its site plan was predicated on a gross underestimation of Janney's *interior* facilities needs (it contemplated a 10,000 - 13,000 SF addition rather than the required 39,000 SF). In short, it left more playground space because it failed to build the necessary classrooms.
And at this point the costs of doing the RFP are much greater than they would have been (or maybe then they appeared to be) last summer when DMPED originally decided to explore the PPP option. The library is substantially further along (and delaying its construction will be costly). Also, as this round of submissions demonstrated, a mixed-use project is likely to take 4-5 years to complete -- once a proposal is accepted. That means that a new PPP is unlikely to speed up Janney's modernization. And the mixed-use project will be much more disruptive to both the Janney and St. Ann's campuses than consecutive library and school modernization projects would be.
So what would be the benefit of trying this again? The school gains nothing compared to an OPEFM modernization (no more land to work with, no faster timetable) and the library loses (its re-opening would be delayed, its design compromised, and its construction costs increased). By now, we've thoroughly explored the PPP options at this site. Remember, this is the second time around. In 2003 Janney looked at a residental PPP and DCPL investigated the possibility of a mixed-use library project -- both ideas were ultimately rejected. It's time to move on. The concept is clearly more attractive than the reality.
I wish that DMPED had done a better RFP in the first place because then its myriad screw-ups wouldn't leave some people convinced that there's some brilliant-yet-undiscovered PPP that could still happen at this site. In fact, I think that a better process would have shown from the beginning that, despite its Metro-accessibility, the size and layout of this site and our public facilities requirements leave no room for economically viable private residential development.
I've given up predicting what DC government will do. But, at a minimum, if a new RFP is to be issued, I hope that it will be based on a "plan first" model in which fairly comprehensive site-planning for the school precedes any solicitation of offers and in which the solicitation itself defines and limits the acceptable scale and location of private development on the site. Conducting another "fishing expedition" would be a waste of everyone's time.
Again, even if this isn't your neighborhood, I urge you to follow what's happening at Tenleytown. The privatization of public land over the strong objections of the local citizenry is a real and growing problem under the Fenty Administration.
