Tenleytown community leaders are opposing a plan under consideration by Mayor Adrian Fenty’s administration to incorporate the new Tenley-Friendship Branch Library as part of a mixed-use development on what is now public land.
The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development is pursuing a private-sector partner to lease or buy the 3.6-acre site of Janney Elementary School and the former Tenley-Friendship Library. According to the draft Request for Proposals, the developer would construct a new 20,000-square-foot library and a larger, modernized elementary school in return for the right to develop the site.
But the area’s advisory neighborhood commission voted recently to oppose the request. Until the District has conclusively determined the Janney site is not needed for public purposes, it should not move to turn over the property to a developer, said Anne Sullivan, an area ANC commissioner.
“It’s been a cart-before-the-horse process,” she said.
The existing Tenley-Friendship Library was shuttered in 2004 and razed earlier this month.
