Report a Comment

The main problem with building a homeless shelter in a location with a lot of suburban strip malls is that places like that aren't in the District. I agree that there are jobs for people with limited education available in places like Clarendon or Rockville, but the District can't close their shelter and build something out of state...I think MD and VA might have some opposition to that.

As for closing the shelter and using the revenues to build somewhere else in the District, even if we assume it's a place with as many jobs, access to transit and service providers, etc. as CCNV (doubtful) there are a couple of issues:

* where are the current residents going to stay when CCNV closes? And if you say "build a new building, move people there, then demolish CCNV" do you really think the Council would want/be able to borrow or raise revenues enough to make that possible?

* the District tried this. Look into the Franklin school-turned-shelter. They closed it in 2008 and it has not been redeveloped and is stuck in federal court. See http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/housingcomplex/2010/08/03/franklin-school-shelter-in-federal-court-tomorrow/. So even if DC did close CCNV, it would be years before they saw any revenue from it.

* Let's assume the building rents for $45 per square foot (high, but it's a nice location) and has a million rentable square feet (also optimistic, but why not?). That sounds sweet, until you realize that RENOVATING Constitution Center into a nice new office building of similar size cost $250 million. So let's say demolishing the current building and doing everything required to build it back up is $400 million (which I'm admittedly making up). How much of the $45 million in rent (assuming full lease-up from the beginning, which is optimistic for a huge building) do you think would be left over each year after paying off the construction loans? Do you really think it would be enough to provide the awesome services in some less-densely populated part of DC (remembering, of coure, that you also had to borrow to build the new shelter?)

by sb on May 18, 2011 12:55 pm • link • report