Lack of action on the Foundry building. At last! At the end of April, after only 14 months, councillors sprang into action: They approved a $40,000 study.
The Foundry building, a 52,000-square-foot structure at 101 Rogers St., was given the city in January 2012 as part of the rezoning that let Alexandria Real Estate Equities build its lab and office space tall and dense on a 15-acre campus along Binney Street. As part of the deal, 10,000 square feet of the Foundry is set aside for community use.
Councillor Leland Cheung began work on repurposing the Foundry building with a June 2012 Neighborhood and Long Term Planning Committee meeting, soon being joined by Toomey in asking how to sell, reuse or lease the space. Both asked late the next month such specific questions as whether it could be rented as is or “what would make the building operational, habitable and safe to use.” On Dec. 3, Toomey, Cheung and the other seven councillors issued a joint order reminding Healy of the earlier order and asking for an update.
Yet another order came Feb. 11: a full-council request for a task force of real estate and engineering professionals that could give an independent assessment of the building’s strengths and weaknesses. Healy responded two months later with the suggestion for a $40,000 study that could be passed off to a “house doctor” architect firm – meaning one that had been on contract all along and could probably have been asked to do a study immediately after Alexandria delivered ownership to the city.
This section of this post was updated June 6, 2013, to reflect that Cheung began the Foundry discussion.
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Excellent article. I hope voters consider all these issues in November.