Georgetown Day School is negotiating a contract to sell its MacArthur Boulevard campus to another private school and anticipates signing a contract in the “next month or so,” according to GDS Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Houser.

Houser said tonight (December 12, 2017) that the prospective buyer has provided a letter of intent and that the contract is in the “wordsmithing” stage. Houser characterized the prospective buyer as a school group that does not currently operate in Washington, D.C., and is interested in running a campus with a grade arrangement comparable to GDS’s PK-8 program. He declined to identify the school, per an agreement between the parties.

Five entities have expressed “bonafide” interest in the property, located at the bottom of Q Street and now fully enrolled with 575 students. The entities include two other schools — one within D.C., but not DCPS, and the other outside — and two developers, according to Houser, who said GDS’s preference has been to sell to another school.

“They like what they see as a solution to running a school,” Houser said of the top prospect. “There aren’t that many options in D.C. for a plug-and-play.”

Projections now call for GDS to vacate the MacArthur campus by the close of the 2019-20 school year and move to the GDS upper school at Davenport Street near Wisconsin Avenue, in Tenleytown. Houser declined to put a price on the deal, but said GDS must sell or otherwise convert the MacArthur campus to cash in order to finance expansion of its Tenleytown campus.

Houser’s comments came at a meeting with residents of the neighborhood around the MacArthur campus. Such meetings are required quarterly by zoning rules, and he spoke with the eight residents who showed up for more than 90 minutes.

Foxhall Community Citizens Association President Bob Avery called Houser’s news positive for the area and that he hoped there would be a seamless transition.

Houser said that sale to a developer might bring a higher price, but that it also might mean a longer and more difficult transaction if it involved changing the use of the property.

What a school new to the nation’s capital would have to do to market itself and gain necessary enrollment was not clear. But demand for private schools remains strong, according to Houser, who said that, among GDS and its core peer schools, the current application trend is stronger this year than the prior year.

Houser came to GDS about five months ago from the Keyser commercial real estate group in Phoenix, where he led the education practice. He previously was the vice president of financial and corporate services for BASIS.ed and helped start BASIS charter schools in Arizona. BASIS schools include a public charter school in D.C. and a private school in Northern Virginia.

Houser could not say exactly how any new owner of the GDS lower campus would operate. But complaints in recent years have been few and relations with neighbors over traffic congestion and other issues have much improved, according to Avery.

Houser said that traffic congestion associated with private school operations appears to be more of a concern than actual enrollment. Under an agreement GDS reached with city zoning officials in November, enrollment at the combined Tenleytown campus could swell 125 over the next four years, above the current cap of 1075, so long as traffic associated with the campus does not rise above current levels, according to Houser. He said people’s use of vehicles is changing and that GDS encourages use of public transportation, including providing subsidies to suburban students to equalize with benefits offered to students who live in D.C.