Comments on Where will Georgetown get 100 acres? - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by William

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:15:53 EDT

There were thoughts of moving UDC there bout 15-20 years ago. It would have given them the best campus in the City. It is too bad the powers that be insisted on keeping the neo-70's bunker campus in Van Ness.

Comment by Brian

Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:31:34 EDT

I have always thought the west campus of St Elizabeths would be perfect for a college campus. I did the walking tour and it has amazing views, not to mention it already IS a campus. The first buildings were built in 1800's.

The public would get to enjoy this historic campus instead of being a secure, closed off facility. There are 2 metros and (maybe) a streetcar line coming that would serve students and faculty.

Comment by LoyalColonial

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:17:29 EDT

If GU hospital moves out of NW, it's great news for the more modern, state of the art GW Hospital and Medical Center!

Comment by Andy(2)

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:54:56 EDT

@MLD - lots of cities have hospitals concentrated in a single neighborhood (see San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, San Diego, Boston). In addition to making access to specialist easier - it can spur related development (bio-tech, pharma...).

Comment by MLD

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:23:39 EDT

Move it to McMillan? Or the Soldiers' home area?

I dunno if you guys noticed, but there's already a hospital right there! And another hospital a mile away!

Clearly what that area needs is more hospitals.

Comment by Rich

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:02:16 EDT

Having used GU's outpatient clinics, the clientele seems pretty mixed economically. The current location is not great. Moving to the Soldier's home seems like the most viable choice. Some but not ideal public transit access, but good road access. A lot of GU staff also work at WHC and it would be easier for them. It's not unusual for urban hospitals to have different facilities on a single campus with different target audience--in fact, it's a very old model.

Very few academic med centers relocate to the 'burbs. Loyola is the only one I can think of, off hand and it's in an old inner ring suburb and I believe that it started with an existing campus.

Comment by AlexW

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 06:02:57 EDT

Moving the hospital or medical school out of Georgetown or that region of DC would be heartbreaking. The current situation around the campus is entirely too congested and disorganized however good planning, design, and phasing can address the problems which really stem from the low density brutalist style plaza and pavilion classroom and lab building that stretches on eastward from the hospital for several city blocks. If this sprawling underutilized area was rebuilt without the unused plaza and other inefficiencies into a bucolic ivy covered brick, stone, and ivy cluster of buildings more respectful to the fantastic icon of Healy Hall there would be space to replace the medical center, expand the medical school, deal with transportation, and integrate new parking within the buildings. The campus would benefit as would the neighborhood while the great spirit the medical school and hospital bring to the Georgetown University experience would be retained and enhanced.

Comment by tour guide

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:42:28 EDT

McMillan Reservoir? Too close to VA & Washington Hospital Center?

Comment by Richard Layman

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:30:23 EDT

um, I can't multiply. A 300x300 foot block is slightly more than 2 acres. More importantly, as I always point out, in the eastern quadrants in the L'Enfant pPlan, the 13000 block is a triple sized block. So it is bigger than 2 acres, more like 7 acres. But still, 7 acres is less than 40, 60, or 100 acres. And it's a lousy place to try to insert highly used infrastructure.

WRT the Safeway, expect it to be redeveloped some day to be an appropriately sized City Vista type development. Although doing even 6 stories there will be very difficult politically (cf. Hine development).

Comment by Richard Layman

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:24:44 EDT

Will, for what it's worth, a block is about 1.5 acres.

WRT the West Hyattsville suggestion, it doesn't serve GU's hospital clientele. Remember that Medstar owns the hospital. They already have Washington Hospital Center serving the eastern part of the city/close in suburbs.

Plus, a large teaching hospital there would interfere with the PG County/UMD plans to deal with the PG Hospital mess.

Comment by Nicoli

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:41:37 EDT

@Patrick - As the author noted, they could try to move the hospital and medical school.

@Will - According to google maps, that site is only about 7.8 acres. I think they have slightly more ambitious plans than that.

What about the old pepco site EOTR? That has 80 acres and wouldn't be ready for development for a decade, which seems to be the right timeframe for GU.

Comment by Ken

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 19:41:36 EDT

The city did not "go back to square one" as this story claims on Res 13 aka HillEast Waterfront. DMPED said it would restart the process with two parcels (rather than bid out the entire site) but would continue to follow the Master Development Plan for the site. That plan calls for a small healthplex on the site (about 3 acres) -- not a medical complex.

Comment by Will

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:55:19 EDT

Not quite 100 acres, but the block containing the International Graduate University and the SE Safeway between 13th, 14th, E and F streets SE should be considered. The IGU is a travesty of poor land use, and the Safeway is due for an urbanist upgrade. If the whole block were redeveloped, it could contain a new grocery and significant campus or medical infrastructure. It's also right off of PA ave and a stone's throw from Potomac Ave. metro.

Comment by Patrick

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:22:50 EDT

Extraordinarily unlikely that any undergraduate classes or housing would be moved off the current campus. Its fine to set that as a goal to appease the neighbors, and I can see more offices, particularly grad school offices, moving to their buildings on Wisconsin Ave and over by the School of Continuing Studies in Clarendon, but the ludicrous idea that either the whole school or the hospital would/could move must be permanently put down.

Comment by Tom Veil

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:22:46 EDT

100 acres is a square .4 miles by .4 miles. That's huge. And inside the DC metro area, that kind of land is crazy expensive, as we all know, and a logistical nightmare to acquire. It might be cheaper for the University to just pay for a subway station, we're talking so much money. And while G.U. is certainly not suffering, its endowment is very small compared to a lot of other elite privates. It's going to need the city to hand it that land.

Comment by Nicoli

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:12:53 EDT

I didn't see anything stating that the 100 acres needed to be contiguous. GU could pick several different parcels through the city. I suspect though the St. Elizabeth's would not be high up on the list given its isolation from the rest of GU. Also, the timeline in this post said 2018 as the start date to have "conversations about identifying..." the 100 acres. It could take another decade before they actually make a move, which also changes the list of tenable options. I also agree with Jacques that 40 - 60 acres seems much more likely.

Comment by Scott

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:51:25 EDT

How about at the West Hyattsville metro station? Depending on the source you reference, there are between 150 and 200 developable acres at the metro station and in the surrounding streets. It's a 15 minute metro ride into downtown DC, with relatively easy access to 495.

GU Hospital would be an excellent building block for a medical research campus.

Comment by Kevin C

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:31:14 EDT

The hospital is going to want to stay near its current upmarket clientele and its staff. Here's my list:

1) Grosvenor: Might be able to straddle Rockville Pike between G'town Prep and Holy Cross.

2) Medical Center: Demolish Walter Reed and rebuild

3) A failed shopping mall

Comment by Alex B.

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:31:03 EDT

One other option that was pointed out to me is Poplar Point. That's got over 100 acres.

Not really. The legislation that transferred that land to DC (which still hasn't officially happened yet, as far as I know) mandated that 70 acres of PP's 110 total remain as open space of some kind.

Comment by charlie

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:52:13 EDT

I wouldn't call St E's central. Or desired for a medical campus.

Old Soldgiers Home is interesting. What happened to Walter Reed? Any space left?

To be honest, RFK seems to make the most sense.

Comment by Dane

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:36:24 EDT

A new facility is all but off the table in the new campus plan, as it requires MedStar to submit plans through the Zoning Commission before beginning any serious planning (Ask GU what that's like.)

Comment by Dizzy

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:34:35 EDT

One point on which people appear to be saying very different things is how content MedStar is with the current location. Some are saying that they can't wait to move and find the facilities to be obsolete. Others say that GU is their most profitable campus in the area and they would be loath to move to another location (which would inevitably be in much lower-income surroundings), but see the writing on the wall that GU is going to kick the hospital out before too long and absorb the space into Main Campus. Whatever their true attitude is - and it may well be undecided or inconsistent - will probably have a significant impact on the direction this goes.

Relevant information:

Howard Federoff, executive vice president for health sciences at the Medical Center, raised in a June letter the prospect of the entire Medical Center moving off campus in the years ahead, as he anticipates that the Main Campus will ultimately need the space and the Medical Center will outgrow the current location.

Source

Federoff: In five years, we have to have an organization and financial model that produces limited but nonetheless sustainable growth in the Medical Center. It has weathered incredible adversity, and the fact that it has survived suggests we have very talented people here. But we have to look to the future, and that means recruiting young, talented, best-in-class faculty.

Beyond five years, I anticipate that we will need a new physical location. I don’t believe this medical center can legitimately be competitive within the region or nationally if we remain here on the Hilltop. Not because the Hilltop isn’t a great location, but our infrastructure here is tired, and it’s extraordinarily, some might say prohibitively, expensive to renovate for world-class research. Moreover, I believe strongly the entire Hilltop will be needed for the university’s main campus so, like the Law Center, we’ll have to pick ourselves up and move to another location.

Source

Comment by Topher Mathews

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:33:25 EDT

One other option that was pointed out to me is Poplar Point. That's got over 100 acres.

@PaulB
You're right. Medstar doesn't want to move and their PR department has denied the possibility. However, I have been told by multiple sources that GU is nonetheless moving forward with plans to move. I don't know all the ins and outs of GU's deal with Medstar, but GU seems fairly confident that it can move the hospital, whether that means buying out Medstar or convincing them or what, I don't know.

Comment by PaulB

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 14:14:07 EDT

No way the hospital is moving. They have several what-if plans in place for building a new facility right there. Lot A, Yates, etc.

They could be talking about building academic space out in Loudoun for all we know, like GWU already has done. But the Med school and hospital are not leaving Reservoir Road. MedStar just launched a new identity campaign at GU which shows even more commitment to that site.

Comment by Jacques

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 13:57:02 EDT

I think it will be fascinating to see how this plays out. And if I had to guess, I would bet it winds up as one chunk in the 40-60 acre range, plus a few smaller parcels elsewhere.

Comment by spookiness

Tue, 12 Jun 2012 13:47:19 EDT

Are those 100 limited to inside the DC boundaries?