jonetta rose barras: Will Mayor Muriel Bowser blow the Intelsat opportunity?
In 2021, when a citywide group of citizens saw the proverbial golden opportunity for a mixed-use retail and affordable housing development at the former Marriott Wardman Park Hotel near the National Zoo, they gathered their resources and mounted a campaign in hope of persuading Mayor Muriel Bowser and other elected officials to trash their small-bore ideas and act boldly. After all, within the context of DC’s multibillion-dollar operating budget, the Wardman’s sale price of $140 million was chump change that had the potential of producing long-term economic results while helping meet the District’s low-cost housing goals.
The timidity of the mayor and the DC Council was on full display. It couldn’t have been about money, because even as the project slipped through their hands, the public learned the Bowser administration had misspent as much as $80 million from its affordable housing fund. “If you add up all the millions that they have misdirected, mismanaged or just plain lost, they have wasted most of the cost of buying the Wardman,” Reginald Black, a leader of the Wardman Hotel Strategy Team, noted back then.
Last week, Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin revealed in a commentary for The DC Line that chances have come back around for a similarly transformative project, if officials don’t permit myopia and fear to rule the day. The 660,000-square-foot Whittle School & Studios — which sits on 13 acres of property at Connecticut Avenue and Van Ness Street NW near a Metro station and the University of the District of Columbia — is up for sale.
The current owners bought the former Intelsat headquarters in 2012 for $85 million and subsequently spent $187 million on extensive renovations after media and education entrepreneur Chris Whittle leased the site, according to Washington Business Journal reports. Whittle School, which launched in 2019, was to be a private education institution with a global focus. Then came the pandemic, undoubtedly crushing the investment stream and Whittle’s dreams.
Frumin is advocating the city seize the moment. By Friday more than 400 residents had signed a petition supporting his proposal and urging action. I dare say that most of these folks would consider purchasing the Intelsat site a more valuable investment than building a football stadium for a mediocre team.
“My vision for the site is early childhood, high school, college, and senior wellness. So, a lifelong learning campus from pre-K, from early childhood to seniors, all in the same building, with separate entrances and things like that,” Frumin told me earlier this week during an extensive interview via Zoom.
Will DC officials wimp out once again?
Unlike me, Frumin isn’t interested in grinding axes, although he admitted that he would have liked the city to purchase the Wardman. “I don’t want to refight any old wars,” he said, adding that he had made public his proposal to buy the site only a week ago and that he thought the mayor was doing the right thing by not voicing immediate support.
Really? But she has voiced support for a home for the Commanders even without Congress having yet acted on legislation to turn over the RFK Stadium and surrounding land to the District via an extended lease.
“I’ve spent six months looking at it and thinking about it. The fact that they might not see what I see in one week shouldn’t surprise me. People need to be brought along and people need to think it through on their own,” said Frumin, giving the mayor what I consider an unearned pass.
DC is limping along, post-pandemic. It will run out of federal recovery money within the next year. Commercial property tax revenues continue to decline. Rising crime has prompted some businesses to shutter; it likely will cut into the city’s income from tourism.
How to make money and revitalize the District should be instigating meetings in the mayoral suite at the John A. Wilson Building. So, why weren’t the mayor and her minions the ones to float the idea of purchasing the Intelsat campus?
If anyone thinks Frumin’s vision is all about Ward 3, they should think again. Creating an economic hub of the size he is suggesting, with multiple parts, could have a positive effect on the entire city, including residents east of the Anacostia River.
Consider that many residents of wards 7 and 8 attend UDC, and an improved or expanded public university could certainly benefit their future. Frumin mentioned the city’s desire to create a paramedic program as further indication that the sale and shift can be a win-win for everyone.
OK, call me Frumin’s “amen corner.”
He has said that money to purchase the property could come in part from the sale of the MacArthur High School, which had a partial and successful opening this year. Located in the Palisades neighborhood, it’s somewhat of a transportation nightmare, however.
Hoping to consolidate its educational programs, the Lab School has expressed interest in purchasing the property where the MacArthur School is located, according to Frumin.
“If that could happen … and you took the $75 million that you have planned to invest at MacArthur for the next phase of the renovation … . Now, you have a significant amount of money that you could use to purchase the Whittle School and then move [MacArthur] there,” said Frumin.
Someone reading this is thinking this is about rich white folks trying to relocate a public school that enrolls a diverse population. Please.
Acknowledging what he called a “great” job done by DC Public Schools and the school’s new principal while dispelling the notion that he is advocating for a larger school than is already envisioned, Frumin argued: “Putting this school on Connecticut Avenue on the Red Line makes it accessible to more people than having it be on MacArthur Boulevard.”
“For many of the kids who go to Hardy, many of the kids who live in neighborhoods that feed MacArthur, the Connecticut Avenue site is more convenient for them than the MacArthur site. I would say that if anything, the Connecticut Avenue site makes the amenity more available to more people.”
Additionally, there is the potential benefit to UDC — more space for new programs. “Dorms [are] a real possibility. You just would need to think carefully about how do all these different spaces interrelate and how do you make sure that there’s security so that you’re not mixing things inappropriately. … I promise you there are very exciting ways in which UDC could use parts of it.
“So, who’s winning here so far? I don’t know if it’s rich white people or rich white people only,” he said, responding to my question along those lines.
“If this was a thing that really helped UDC, that’s good in and of itself. There are other things that you could do with the site” that would also have broad benefits, added Frumin.
In terms of the many potential uses that could share the site, what excites me most is the possibility of affordable workforce housing. Apartments for teachers, UDC faculty, firefighters and police officers. Frumin’s vision encompasses uses that are mostly in the sunlight, although he told me there are at least two possible locations where housing could be constructed. A thriving commercial corridor needs a population that will come out in the evenings to dine at restaurants or attend cultural events, so new housing could provide a tremendous boost to the Connecticut Avenue corridor.
I asked Frumin why he had not introduced legislation that would instigate such an attractive proposal. The council controls where money gets spent.
“I don’t think we do this over the objection of the mayor,” explained Frumin.
“My ask to the mayor and her team is just to take a hard look at this, take a couple of months, explore whether or not they think it can make sense, explore how much they’d have to pay, explore how much Lab would be willing to pay, explore how much it would cost to do the conversion, and take a sober approach to it.
“But take a hard look at it because it’s such a potentially exciting opportunity for lots of reasons,” added Frumin.
One part of me knows he’s right. I want to say amen.
But haven’t we been here before? Or am I the only person channeling Yogi Berra right now?
jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.
It’s very good to see the Wardman Hotel mentioned again and the opportunity it represented for the city to support genuinely affordable housing. Thank you, Ms. Barras, for publishing this piece.
Housing is the last of the uses for the Whittle Center that CM Frumin actually mentions (even though he says it’s his first interest for the site). “In terms of the many potential uses that could share the site, what excites me most is the possibility of affordable workforce housing. Apartments for teachers, UDC faculty, firefighters and police officers.”
I hope he can get other councilmembers and the mayor to support it. When the vacant Wardman Hotel came up for sale, CM McDuffie, to his credit, was the only then-councilmember who supported the city acquiring it. I can say that the Wardman Hotel Strategy Team, of which I too am a member along with Reginald Black, engaged an architect to prepare concept drawings to convert the hotel to a mixed-income, multi-family residence. (We hoped that this mixed-income housing conversion might adapt the Social Housing model in a kind of pilot effort: https://www.socialhousingcenter.org/) At that point, the Wardman would have provided close to 500 residential units, which would have been a quarter of the targeted number of units — 1900 — that Mayor Bowser announced as her goal for Ward 3.
I am also concerned about what CM Frumin means by “affordable housing.” Most of the “affordable housing” the city gets behind is targeted to those making 60-80% Median Family Income, in a few cases 50% MFI. (80% MFI for a family of four, for example, is about $130,000/year. ) So the question is: Affordable to whom? Not many city workers just starting out have that kind of income. Nor do the many service workers — bank clerks, grocery store clerks, postal workers, etc. — who work to meet our needs in Ward 3 make that kind of money. I hope CM Frumin will support mixed-income housing down to 30% MFI at the Whittle site. I believe his current position is that those making less than 50% or 60% MFI should live somewhere else than in newly constructed buildings, for example, in rent-controlled housing that already exists in our area.
Crowding residents making less than 50% MFI into rent-controlled housing puts a huge pressure on this housing because the city subsidizes applicants at the rate of 187% market rate, incentivizing landlords to rent to them. That means that those who don’t have subsidies — including workers just starting out in various sectors (police, emergency workers, firefighters, teachers, etc.), basic services workers, and those on fixed incomes, including many seniors and those who have disabilities — are unable to find a place in rent-controlled buildings. And since the city, as mentioned above, doesn’t include units for those at the lower income levels in new housing — they often have nowhere to go except out of the city.
My hope is that CM Frumin will consider very carefully what income levels he means by “affordable housing” or “workforce housing” when he says he supports that for the Whittle site. And I hope he will expand the range of housing he has in mind.
This is an unrealistic pipe dream, much like purchasing the Wardman site was and that is the issue with many of the items that the Ward 3 Councilman is proposing. The proposed 2024 tax assessment for that property is $92,746,540 according to OTR. There is no way that this transaction would cost the District less than $100 Million based on those numbers. This doesn’t include the cost to remodel the building. It also doesn’t deal with the fact that purchasing this building would take even more property off of the tax rolls and lower our property tax revenues. This actually hurts the communities we talk the most about. This would permanently remove more property from the tax rolls and would have no way(s) to replace the income.
This is an original idea in a marquee building…I worked in the facility when we were setting up the Community College at UDC and didn’t have campus yet. It’s truly monumental and sounds like it’s even nicer than it was 15 years ago. CM Frumin is doing a great job so far from what it looks like from this ward 1 resident.
I am pleased to read that Ms. Barras and Mr. Frumin share the vision for this possibility. I believe that it deserves serious consideration.