Nice try. The project is too dense and too massive and too intense in its proposed usage. It is a unified whole and must stand or fall on that basis. GDS doesn't get to decide that---the city, with input from the community-- does. From start to finish it is a greedy development scheme with all sorts of undisclosed interests swirling around the development team and the school's Board. They MUST keep their school on the Safeway site and their tiny little existing campus. They don't want their school fronting along Wisconsin Avenue. They have bit off way, way more than they can chew on behalf of all their development friends and family.

[quote=Anonymous]There are single family homes on River, Chesapeake, 43rd and Ellicott--surrounding the project site. The site needs to be---and has been presented by the school--as a unified whole and that is how it should be judged. AND.... your magical 200 feet within the ugly "high rise" has absolutely no legal significance whatsoever. Spending too much time looking at Google aerial views...."much"?[/quote]

Except that the GDS plan was to move density away from those houses towards Wisconsin Avenue - the property owner could build a lot more densely on the lot under current zoning than GDS was planning.

There are single family homes on River, Chesapeake, 43rd and Ellicott--surrounding the project site. The site needs to be---and has been presented by the school--as a unified whole and that is how it should be judged. AND.... your magical 200 feet within the ugly "high rise" has absolutely no legal significance whatsoever. Spending too much time looking at Google aerial views...."much"?

Back side is 42nd Street. The closest houses are on Chesapeake, a block away. On the side are the retail and other frontages on Wisconsin venue. on the front, is Wisconsin Avenue itself and on the north side is 42nd Street and the intersection with Ellicot.

Look at an aerial image, there isn't a single family home within 200 feet of the proposed high-rises on Wisconsin Avenue.

Errr.....The site is surrounded by single family homes on 3 sides. Perhaps you might educate yourself before spouting off...."much."

GDS is not doing the community a special service by building on the Martens site. If they sell the land, somebody else will build there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the life of me I don't get why anyone in the neighborhood would be against GDS's plans. Tenleytown, and that entire immediate area, is a complete cesspit of crappy retail, run down buildings, with several nasty restaurants and only a handful of nice stores and restaurants. It has one of (if not the) the highest crime rates in the nice parts of NWDC.

GDS's plans will make it so much nicer and upscale and with that crime usually disappears or at least greatly diminishes. The only folks I can imagine would complain are the ones who have no real life and live solely to complain about every one and everything because they are bitter and generally unhappy people. What is the real downside here?

Tenleytown is just crying out for urban renewal. So glad that GDS cares so much to invest in our blighted community.

Anonymous wrote:There isn't a single family home within 200 feet of the development proposal. Hyperbole much?

Write annoyingly much? I'm beginning to dislike the "____ much?" a lot!

Anonymous wrote:For the life of me I don't get why anyone in the neighborhood would be against GDS's plans. Tenleytown, and that entire immediate area, is a complete cesspit of crappy retail, run down buildings, with several nasty restaurants and only a handful of nice stores and restaurants. It has one of (if not the) the highest crime rates in the nice parts of NWDC.

GDS's plans will make it so much nicer and upscale and with that crime usually disappears or at least greatly diminishes. The only folks I can imagine would complain are the ones who have no real life and live solely to complain about every one and everything because they are bitter and generally unhappy people. What is the real downside here?

Tenleytown is just crying out for urban renewal. So glad that GDS cares so much to invest in our blighted community.

There isn't a single family home within 200 feet of the development proposal. Hyperbole much?

Their project is WAY too dense and the usage too intense to be crammed up against single family homes. Period. Full stop. Anyone with any grasp of good zoning practices and that is not completely beholden to developers whose families are safely ensconced in Potomac or taken in by the mystical mantra of "smart growth" would recognize that there need to be "buffer" zones when moving from heavy duty commercial to single family homes. If the city starts losing the families and tax base of AU Park to the suburbs, we will be right back to the 80s and 90s when people felt sorry for you if you lived in the District. The city should be very wary of throwing its lot in with the transiency of apartment buildings at the cost of losing the single family home tax base.

I'm upset about their bid to close part of 42nd street. On our neighborhood listserv, this was described as a "transfer of part of 42nd street to GDS." Is this going to happen for free??

Anonymous wrote:For the life of me I don't get why anyone in the neighborhood would be against GDS's plans. Tenleytown, and that entire immediate area, is a complete cesspit of crappy retail, run down buildings, with several nasty restaurants and only a handful of nice stores and restaurants. It has one of (if not the) the highest crime rates in the nice parts of NWDC.

GDS's plans will make it so much nicer and upscale and with that crime usually disappears or at least greatly diminishes. The only folks I can imagine would complain are the ones who have no real life and live solely to complain about every one and everything because they are bitter and generally unhappy people. What is the real downside here?

Couldn't the latter paragraph generally cover most of the complainants in these cases? Look at how long it took to get the Giant rebuilt . . . GDS is probably worried the same thing will happen to them. Meanwhile, the current space remains crappy and eventually will become even more difficult to gain momentum to rebuild.

For the life of me I don't get why anyone in the neighborhood would be against GDS's plans. Tenleytown, and that entire immediate area, is a complete cesspit of crappy retail, run down buildings, with several nasty restaurants and only a handful of nice stores and restaurants. It has one of (if not the) the highest crime rates in the nice parts of NWDC.

GDS's plans will make it so much nicer and upscale and with that crime usually disappears or at least greatly diminishes. The only folks I can imagine would complain are the ones who have no real life and live solely to complain about every one and everything because they are bitter and generally unhappy people. What is the real downside here?

Maybe they will dump the old Volvo property and just build on the Safeway lot. That would make a lot of sense. Even though I'm sure certain developers who are associated with the school had dollar signs in their eyes, it may not be worth the bad blood that will result with the neighbors if they push ahead.

Here's the announcement that the school made to neighbors on its mailing list last week:

Campus Planning Updates

Our campus planning and retail-residential planning work continues with the properties at 4203 Davenport Street, NW and the 4800 Wisconsin Avenue, NW.

PUD UPDATE – Late last month, the DC Court of Appeals overturned a decision by the Zoning Commission, causing GDS to pause and reflect on its project. The PUD in the Durant case had been approved unanimously by the Zoning Commission, and supported by the ANC and the Office of Planning. While the PUD in the Durant case is not identical to GDS’s, there are enough similarities that GDS intends to spend the summer stepping back and analyzing retail/residential options.

GDS remains committed to campus unification, but we need to think about the best way to achieve that goal. GDS will use the summer to continue making progress on the program development associated with the Lower/Middle School.