American University officials are floating plans that would build some new dormitories and may well relocate its law school in the upscale Tenleytown neighborhood.
University officials already have unveiled a proposal to build the new residence halls on what are now parking lots near the Tenleytown-AU Metro station on Wisconsin Avenue NW.
“We’ve got demand exceeding the supply,” said David Taylor, chief of staff to American president Cornelius Kerwin. “We’re trying to improve our housing stock.”
Authorities are also considering moving the law school from its current headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue to the main Tenleytown campus.
“When we placed the law school there in 1996, we didn’t envision them outgrowing it in a 12 to 15 year period,” American vice president Jorge Abud said.
The plans have provisional support of some “smart growth” advocates, who see the buildings as a chance to increase the population density in upper Northwest.
“In the abstract,” blogger Neil Flanagan wrote on the Greater Greater Washington Web site, which was first to report on AU’s plans, “the relocation should benefit the neighborhood and bring more life to the southern part of Tenleytown.”
But advisory neighborhood commissioner John Bender says the university has gotten off to a bad start by proposing a huge law school project and then hastily rescaling it when neighbors objected to the scope of the proposal.
“It made it difficult, at least initially, to work with AU and solve some of these problems,” Bender said. “Overall, I think moving the law school to the Tenley campus could be a win-win, but to bombard you with clich?, the devil is in the details. But it hasn’t been what I would call a genuinely collaborative process.”
American already owns the properties under review. Neighbors could derail projects with city zoning boards.
“AU does not have an unfettered right to put what it likes on its property,” Bender said. He added that he hoped future discussions will transcend “saber rattling and chest pounding.”
