Club redevelopment opposed

The initiative announced by the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Washington on Tuesday applies to the club on 14th Street in Graham’s ward as well as Clubhouse 11 in Congress Heights, the currently shut-down Eastern Branch on Capitol Hill and the Jelleff Branch in Georgetown.

The four are part of a network of 11 D.C. Boys & Girls Club facilities, all of which have been operating under a long-standing deficit.

Boys & Girls Club CEO and President Will Gunn emphasized to The Examiner that specific redevelopment plans have not been made. In the next few months, developers and community groups will be able to submit proposals pertaining to the four club locations. Uses could include condominiums and retail.

With the Jelleff and Eastern Branch sites, “anything’s on the table,” because applicants won’t even be required to keep a Boys & Girls Club open on the property, Gunn said.

In the case of the sites in Columbia Heights and Congress Heights, any redevelopment must include a club to serve the existing population. But it doesn’t necessarily have to stay in its current space.

Graham said Wednesday that he couldn’t be more supportive of the agency’s accomplishments, but now is not the time for it to move ahead with plans for the Columbia Heights site that would likely require temporary closure or relocation of the club.

“We have gotten very, very clear signals from parents and stakeholders that they really don’t want to see a development project here,” he said. “I don’t think we want more market condominiums.”

In the past two months, more than 100 shots have been fired near the facility, Graham said, putting the club “in the epicenter of a lot of gang violence.”

The councilman said he would prefer to work with the organization on securing city money to pull it out of its financial woes.

According to the latest annual report, the organization’s expenses last year surpassed revenue by $1.7 million.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com