In early July of 2008, when Mayor Fenty told the DCPL to stop work on its standalone reconstruction of the Tenley-Friendship branch library, the DCPL was on track to re-open the facility in March 2010. The design was near-final and had been approved by both the National Capital Planning Commission ("NCPC") and the Commission of Fine Arts ("CFA"). All that remained to be done was to bid out construction services and to have the Council approve the final contract once its summer recess ended. DCPL was ready to break ground this fall.
By contrast, LCOR has indicated that it will take at least 18-24 months (the latter figure described by their rep as "still optimistic but more realistic") from Council approval of the project before they will be ready to break ground. The absolute earliest that the Council could approve the project would be mid-September. Add 18 months and LCOR would be breaking ground in March 2010 -- just as DCPL, left to its own devices, would be opening the new facility. That's the minimum possible initial delay.
And, of course, a nine story mixed-use building involving major excavation and a much larger footprint takes substantially longer to build than a two story library would. Local projects of a comparable scale have taken about 2.5 years from ground-breaking to occupancy, which would place the branch's re-opening somewhere in the Fall of 2012. Even if you assume LCOR can build it in 2 years instead of 2.5, we're still talking about at least a 2 year delay compared to DCPL's schedule.
2. DCPL's design for the library is much better than LCOR's.
Here's an interior image of DCPL's proposed design:
It shows a wide open space with lots of natural light.
You won't get that in LCOR's mixed-use building.
LCOR is proposing a 20,000 SF library on a single floor -- that means that the western end of the library will be underground (i.e. beneath what is now Janney's soccer field).
And if the library sits underneath eight floors of apartments, then it will have to include lots of columns to support the walls used to divide various living spaces above.
The Freelon Group's design for the branch took advantage of the fact that the library was free-standing in a number of ways. It has extraordinarily high ceilings, a second story, a rooftop garden, and clerestory windows for additional light. Most of these features will be eliminated in LCOR's design -- it looks like all we'll be left with is a sort of atrium at the front of the library.
Finally, while DCPL's design team originally aimed for LEED Silver, now that the plans are finished, the architects think they have probably attained Gold status with this project. (LEED is a nationally-recognized system for ranking the "green-ness" of various types of buildings.) By contrast, "certified" is all the Mayor is promising us for the mixed-building library/residential building. That's LEED's minimum standard and it can easily be attained based primarily on attributes inherent in the site.
3. The scale of DCPL's building is better suited to the site.
Both Doug Wonderlic and the Commission of Fine Arts have pointed out how the Freelon design enables the library to function as a civic icon on a prominent corner and as an anchor for an educational/institutional complex. It defines the block as a place set apart and devoted to learning rather than commerce. Moreover, its scale highlights rather than dwarfs the architecturally diverse yet distinctive buildings surrounding it. This block is full of interesting historic buildings -- Janney, St. Ann's, Bon Secours. Its visual focal point should not be a generic apartment tower. There are also a half dozen single family homes here which will be adversely affected by adding a couple hundred new neighbors to their block.
4. A stand-alone project enables us to retain control of this parcel of public land.
We're able to rebuild our old library now precisely because we were able to tear the old one down. And we were able to tear the old one down because it didn't have millions of dollars of private property sitting on top of it. The Friendship Heights bus terminal, located under the office tower at Wisconsin and Western, is a good cautionary tale about what happens to obsolete public facilities in mixed-use buildings. The new (less polluting) buses won't fit under the canopy, yet the canopy can't be raised. Ultimately (when the old buses finally get retired), we're going to have to find more land in an already very built-up and expensive market to host this essential public facility.
We need to retain complete control of the public land we already own in Tenleytown. And this particular parcel is especially crucial because it abuts the school. If, in the future, the land isn't needed for a library, it will still available to the meet the school's needs.
5. DCPL is much more competent than DMPED.
When he announced the deal with LCOR on July 10th, Mayor Fenty effectively removed control of the project from DCPL and handed it over to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED).
Ginnie Cooper, head of DCPL, has built 50-60 new libraries over the course of her career and has more experience building mixed-use libraries than anyone in the country. Yet she thinks a stand-alone design makes better sense at this site.
By contrast, Deputy Mayor Neil Albert had a horrible track record on construction projects during his tenure at the Department of Parks and Recreation ("DPR"). According to the Inspector General's recent report, substandard facilities delivered years late and grossly over-budget have been the norm at DPR. DMPED is off to a similar start on this project.
When you compare what the two agencies have accomplished over the course of the past year, the contrast is striking.
DMPED took three months to slap together an almost worthless Request for Proposals which yielded three submissions that were universally rejected by the community. It then took another seven months to decide to accept the least acceptable proposal -- and to do so without obtaining any changes in the design -- despite asking twice for its re-design. It has now chosen a developer (without Council approval) with whom it will negotiate exclusively before agreeing on even the most basic terms of the deal. So, basically, what DMPED has in store for us is a no-bid contract that bundles a land sale with two lucrative construction contracts. Not a promising approach.
Meanwhile, DCPL embarked upon a nationwide search for first-class architects (choosing two from the fifty who applied), completed a design, hired a construction manager at risk, priced the materials and altered its selections to ensure that the project would come in at budget, and received design approval from the two agencies (NCPC and CFA) who have input over the project. They're doing everything right.
This should not be a difficult decision. Frankly the only argument for a mixed-use library building is the claim that smart growth requires mixed-use at Metrorail stations. And even that is a misrepresentation of smart growth planning theory. SG theorists advocate mixed-use ZONING -- they don't require mixed-use BUILDINGS -- near transit hubs. We already have such zoning (and the mix of uses it's designed to encourage) at this station. There are a couple hundred apartments, a handful of single-family homes, dozens of stores, office space, and a variety of institutional uses clustered around this station.
There's nothing "smart" about sacrificing the quality of our library and our school. Metro-accessible neighborhoods need and benefit from first-rate public facilities. And excellent schools and libraries located near Metrorail stations, in turn, benefit residents throughout the city because of their accessibility. They are not used exclusively by people who live in the immediate vicinity.
