American University is taking the next step in its new campus plan — the subject of some local residents’ ire — and has filed an application to relocate its Washington College of Law to AU’s eight-acre Tenley Campus at Nebraska and Wisconsin avenues.
The application filed with the D.C. Zoning Commission follows more than a year of discussion with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners and community members about the project objectives and community concerns. AU says it has outgrown its current facility at 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW, where it has been since 1996. The 195,000 square-foot facility’s “instructional spaces are undersized, library areas inadequate, faculty and administrative offices inferior, and student areas undersized and over utilized,” the university says. The law school has been renting 16,000 square feet in three other locations in the adjacent commercial and retail area.
AU is asking to build a 310,000 square-foot building and 450 parking spaces (400 below ground) that could hold as many as 2,000 students and 500 faculty and staff. The law school currently enrolls approximately 1,770 students.
