(This article originally appeared in the November 2020 edition of the Foxhall Community Citizens Association newsletter.)

Key sites along the east end of MacArthur Boulevard are in play.

A blank slate now occupies the site where a 15,000-square-foot Safeway store once stood, leaving the Palisades with no large, full-service grocery. Developers have gained approval to put in its place a nursing and residential complex for seniors.

Despite concerns about the project’s impact on the community, ANC 3D voted to support the developer’s application that went to city zoning authorities. The ANC, expecting city zoning approval, traded its backing for a deal with the developer that covers construction management and an effort by the developer to include a grocery store. The store would be about a third the size of the demolished Safeway.

Part of the development, a residential cluster at the rear of the site, required a special exception, which went before the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustment on November 4. The Board approved the project application.

3D04 Commissioner Michael Sriqui, who wrote the ANC’s letter to the Board, said it might be months before the Board issues its order on the project, which would show more clearly the developer’s obligations.

“Pretty much as we expected, the BZA ignored the far-reaching concerns the community has, and approved the application in as much as it met the guidelines for such a project in the Zoning Regulations,” Sriqui said in an email to me.

Farther east, Georgetown Day School officials said recently that the sale of the former lower school campus at Q Street and MacArthur remains pending. GDS Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Houser said the school still has a purchase contract with the original buyer, described as another school.

But the closing of deal has been extended while another entity seeks to find another buyer for the property. The property has been marketed for use as a school and for redevelopment.

Just across the Boulevard from GDS, a single-family residence has been targeted for denser occupation.

ANC 3D Commissioner J.P. Szymkowicz, seeking comment, recently informed community residents of an application from Polygon Holdings LLC to convert the single-family dwelling at 4457 MacArthur Boulevard to a nine-unit building. The proposal calls for constructing a third-story addition and three-story side addition. At least two other nearby single-family dwellings have been converted to multiple residences.