| | 
| | | Council rescues Eastern, Hopkins clubs | | June 03, 2009 | | | | Staff Writer | | The D.C. Council announced Wednesday that is has reached an agreement to buy the Eastern Branch Boys & Girls Club at 261 17th St. SE and continue programming at the Hopkins Branch on 12th Street SE.
“I’m thrilled we reached an agreement to keep the Boys & Girls Club buildings, in particular the Eastern Branch, to benefit our neighborhoods,” said Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells in a news release. “Over the last few years, we’ve lost a lot of youth programming but today’s decision stops that trend.”
The city will also buy the Jelleff Branch in Georgetown and Clubhouse #11 in Columbia Heights. The purchase of the three clubs will cost the city $20 million over five years. It’s not clear how continued programming at Hopkins will be funded.
Wells also said he will create a task force made up of neighborhood organizations and community leaders to work on ideas for programming at the Eastern Branch.
“I want to bring to the table the advice and experience from successful efforts to transform currently shuttered buildings into neighborhood hubs of activity,” Wells said in a release. “In addition to youth oriented organizations like Neighbors United and Sasha Bruce Youthwork, I plan to explore all options, such as the experience of groups like Results the Gym, that found a creative way to program activities in an old city building that brought it back to life.” Results the Gym’s Capitol Hill location is housed in the former J.R. Giddings school on G Street SE.
The Hill East group Neighbors United has been aggressively pursuing the space since the Eastern Branch closed two years ago. When negotiations to rent or buy the space from the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington broke down, it set up an after-school program at Payne Elementary and recently rented private space for an activity center.
Ellen Opper-Weiner, chair of Neighbors United, testified at a D.C. Council hearing Friday that the group is running out of space "while Eastern Branch sits vacant," she said.
Despite some water damage, 60 percent of the clubhouse is "immediately usable," Opper-Weiner said, including a full-size basketball court, indoor swimming pool and auditorium. "Neighbors United's goal still is to acquire access. Please help us save Eastern Branch for our community," she told a council committee.
Wells said then that he would like to bring in an outside group to run the club, but he is not sure Neighbors United has the needed financial backing. "They're certainly in the mix. I have no interest in the city running another recreation center there," Wells said.
Some residents at community meetings have questioned whether Neighbors United, which the city funds through the Youth Investment Trust, has the expertise and organization to run the 46,000-square-foot Eastern Branch building. Last year, a charter school company bid on the space, but pulled its bid in the face of community controversy over the use of the building.
Boys & Girls Clubs officials have said they needed to sell the clubs to generate cash, and have attributed the group's financial struggles largely to the burdens it assumed in a 2003 merger with the Metropolitan Police Boys & Girls Clubs. Efforts to reduce its $7.5 million debt have included layoffs and furloughs, as well as the controversial closure and proposed sale of properties.
Staff writers Elizabeth Wiener and Carol Buckley contributed to this report. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
| |
|
| | | |
|
