Mayor Williams and his developer pals have long lusted for control of the District’s most valuable real estate, especially sites occupied by schools and libraries, in order to feed the industry’s insatiable desire for profits at public expense. In recent months, Mayor William’s plans have been materially advanced by new legislation passed by DC Council that encourages the sale of publicly owned real estate, and the promotion of so-called “mixed use” development through which developers can purchase “air rights” above or beside public buildings, thus effectively submerging or compromising public ownership and control of these properties in favor of private ownership.

For the libraries, what is immediately at issue is the sale of Library property – in fact the sale or ostensible lease of the present Martin Luther King building located between 9 and 10 ST NW, on G Street. The Mayor has adopted a plan – more than a year in gestation – that would require a new Downtown Library to be built on the Old Convention Center site, with the sale or lease of the Mies building as the means of generating capital for either the construction of a new building or the reconstruction of the branches.

Legislation to facilitate this (and similar) transaction(s) is embodied in Bill 16-49, aka the “Library Enhancement, Assessment and Development Act of 2005” which states that the legislation “would create an organizational structure and process for developing public-private partnerships to renovate and modernize public libraries in the District of Columbia. Second, the legislation would designate revenues, generated primarily from the use of assets of the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) system, to finance the partnerships and improve library facilities.”

At this moment (Wednesday, February 8), it is clear that the Wiliams administration is orchestrating a broad campaign to gain support for the sale of the public property to developers. The recent Bush administration announcement of 30 million dollars to the DC Library system is being interpreted by Williams as support for his plan to sell off the Mies building and other library property, while Linda Cropp ( a strong Williams ally on Council) has introduced legislation that would extend the provisions of Library Bill 16-49 to embrace the schools.

The DC Library Renaissance Project is opposed to Mayor Williams’ plan to sell or lease the Mies building first, because public property should not be alienated from public use, and second because we do not believe that the Mies building can be profitably renovated by a developer given the costs of removing asbestos and reconfiguring the interior spaces in the building. Thus, we believe that the plan to lease or sell the building as a means of retaining it as an example of Mies architecture is a cynical ploy designed to remove some objections to the removal of the Library to a new building at the Old Convention Center site, while, in due time, the plan is to raze the Mies building to make way for new development.