Reply to Restore Funding for Duke Ellington Modernization

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Reply to "Restore Funding for Duke Ellington Modernization"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am a Duke Ellington supporter and think that our city needs/deserves a great arts high school. The old building was completely unsuitable for its mission. The dancers trained in the hallways, the auditorium was awful, there was inadequate studio space, etc. It was run down and decrepit. The students accomplished a lot despite that setting, but they and the city deserved much better.

That said, this project is crazy. At the start, it was an $82 million renovation. See http://www.ellingtonschool.org/news/agreement-clears-way-for-ellington-school-project/, where it was already referred to as a "massive project."

We are now at an incredible $178 million for this project (see http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/GT%2010-14-15.pdf), more than the new cultural building at Yale (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/arts/design/stephen-a-schwarzmangives-150-million-for-yale-cultural-hub.html) and more than the expected cost of the brand new AU Law School building (http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2014/08/20/why-did-american-universitys-law-school-plunge-in-the-rankings/), although I'm sure the costs for the latter ballooned.

Even if it's finished on time, the students will have been out of the building for THREE YEARS. Check out the video on the Duke Ellington site (http://www.ellingtonschool.org/news/ellington-modernization-design/) to see how out of synch this building is with other school renovations in the city. Again, I'm NOT saying Ellington didn't deserve renovation. It most certainly did, and it does have special needs for studio and performance space that will make it more expensive than most normal school renovations. But the costs for this project are absolutely insane, and someone should be held to account.

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Does anyone know if the Duke Ellington School is the client and contracting party on the renovation contract, or is it the DC general services office?  If it's the former, it would be upsetting but not surprising, given how much the DE board has overspent on other things.  So why then is DC giving the school a blank check to spend like a drunken sailor?[/quote]

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