WASHINGTON (Map, News) - An official with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington this week would not rule out closing the Eastern Branch, saying a review of the Clubs’ programs in various locations is under way to determine how best to serve the public.

The future of the Eastern Branch, located on 17th Street in Southeast, has been the subject of much scrutiny on a neighborhood e-mail list in the eastern Capitol Hill community.

“We are undergoing a study to review all of our sites,” Boys and Girls Club Chief Operations Officer Kevin Dowdell said Monday. “The goal of our review is to make sure that kids at all our sites are served in the best possible way.”

Dowdell said he thinks a meeting at the Eastern Branch in late November or early December about its future spurred rumors that it might be forced to close. He would not say whether club officials are considering taking that step, adding that a demographics study of the neighborhood, which has changed significantly in past years, is being done.

“We’ll be making recommendations for all of our sites,” Dowdell said. “There’s a lot of different speculations and hypothesis.”

The Club operates 20 facilities in the Washington area, serving some 20,000 members, Dowdell said. Eleven clubs are located in the District.

“If they reached out their arms to the people in the community, I think they would be more than welcome,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Antonette Russell said.

D.C. Council Member Tommy Wells, D-Ward 6, said he thinks the problem is that the Eastern Branch is being underutilized, something that Russell said she suspected could be attributed to problems with outreach by the club.

“It’s not that they dropped off,” Russell said, “it’s just that they haven’t done any outreach that I heard of.”

Officials from the Eastern Branch did not return phone calls from The Examiner.

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com