| | All-ages activity center
envisioned for Eastern Branch | | January 15, 2010 |  | | | Staff Writer | | The former Eastern Branch Boys & Girls Club would become an all-ages neighborhood activity center under a plan loosely outlined by a task force working on ideas for the space.
Mayor Adrian Fenty announced last week that the city has finalized an agreement to buy Eastern Branch, and several other city clubs, from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. The management and reopening of the 45,000-square-foot Eastern Branch, which has been shuttered since 2007, is still up for debate.
“That is a huge question,” said Chuck Burger, chair of the task force that Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells convened last August. “There are no models for this,” said Burger.
The task force has come up with a number of goals and ideas for using the space at 261 17th St. SE. A document listing them is available at tommywells.org in the “Tommy Blog” section.
Instead of focusing solely on youth, as the Boys & Girls Clubs had, the task force is also envisioning programming for babies, the elderly, single people and families.
“Everybody saw this as a neighborhood activity center … to build community,” Burger said.
Though the city has hired an engineering firm to assess the property’s condition, the task force has already estimated it will cost at least $1.3 million to make the building habitable, a figure that does not include pool reconstruction, air conditioning, roof repair or commercial phone service, among other considerations. Those upgrades could bring the cost to $3 million.
“The cost could dictate what kind of partners we have,” Burger said.
Those partners could include the Boys & Girls Club as well as some of the organizations that have seats on the task force, including Neighbors United, Results The Gym, Sports on the Hill and Sasha Bruce Youthwork.
Neighbors United, an organization that formed in response to the club’s 2007 closing, had originally sought to make the building its own. But after a shake-up in the organization’s leadership last year, that goal is now off the table.
“It’s not something that Neighbors United is even considering right now because we don’t have the money to update the Boys & Girls Club right now,” said Francis Campbell, the group’s chair and a Southeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commissioner (ANC 6B).
Neighbors United is still running an after-school program at Payne Elementary School, and other programs out of a small activity center across the street. Campbell last year had said he hoped the Eastern Branch space would be usable within months, but those hopes have been dashed.
“It would be nice to get a space there, but with all the other things that are going on now, that’s not something that’s a priority of mine,” he said.
Results The Gym, which previously transformed an old school on G Street SE, might also be interested in starting a smaller satellite gym in the space, according to Burger.
Burger said the management model ultimately will depend on what kind of organizations are willing and financially able to move into the space.
“This isn’t going to have groups that can’t carry their own weight,” he said. “Until you know your content, you can’t really know your technique.”
Two years ago, a charter school nearly bought the building from the Boys & Girls Clubs but backed out after Neighbors United mounted opposition to the plan.
Amy Caspari, who lives across the street from the building, said in an e-mail to the Voice that she supports using the building as a school or for a variety of arts, fitness and education programs, but not as housing for after-school programs.
“There is simply no need. For the city to pay for a building, and renovate it, just to allow such programs, would be a real abuse of planning and spending, and further stall any real exciting and innovative uses that would keep residents optimistic about staying in this neighborhood,” she wrote.
Among the many details still to be worked out are the ever-present concerns about parking.
“If it’s very successful, we’re going to have a lot of cars, and there’s absolutely no parking,” Burger said.
The task force is planning a public meeting to talk about the options, but it has not set a date.
Shortly after the task force formed, Wells had promised a September public meeting on the use of the building, but that projection was “too optimistic” said Charles Allen, Wells’ chief of staff. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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