Courtesy Hardy Holzman Pfiffer Associates LLP The Ryan Administration Building adjacent to Old North has been approved for its $18.3 million conversion to the MBNA Performing Arts Center. The illustration above is an architect’s rendering of the new building from arch 2001.

The five-member District Zoning Commission voted unanimously to approve plans for a new performing arts center at a meeting last onday, April 14. The Ryan Administration Building will be converted to the MBNA Performing Arts Center after an $18.3 million renovation and addition. Construction was originally slated to begin this spring but was delayed after Georgetown area residents raised concerns about the university’s compliance with its ten-year plan, which postponed the hearing before the zoning commission.

Plans for the new Performing Arts Center include a 350-seat theater equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and sound systems. The Ryan Administration building, which sits behind Copley Hall, housed the Office of Student Accounts until last summer, when the building was vacated to prepare for construction.

Original plans for the Performing Arts Center were drafted in 1999, and administrators had originally hoped to see the building constructed by September 2001.

“The university is enthusiastic about the resources [the BNA] Performing Arts Center will provide for Georgetown students, faculty, staff and neighborhood community members. We believe we are in compliance with the conditions of our Campus Plan as set forth, and are looking forward to a construction start date sometime in August,” Director of Protocol and Events Gloria Lacap said.

The university’s ten-year plan establishes conditions for student enrollment and means for regulating off-campus behavior that must be satisfied in order for new building permits to be issued.

“I’m hopeful that this ruling will set some precedent of compliance for future cases, as the university takes steps to improve campus life in the construction of new and exciting facilities for students,” ANC Commissioner Mike Glick (COL ’05) said. “I’m proud that the zoning commission made a common sense decision in approving a building that will reap great benefits for Georgetown’s students as well as the community at large.”

At a January zoning commission meeting, approval for the project was delayed when residents raised three contentions that threatened the approval of the project – concerns that the university is over-enrolled, not enforcing student vehicle registration and improperly dealing with off-campus student misbehavior. The zoning commission’s vote refuted concerns that the university was not in compliance with the ten-year plan.

“This was a huge win for student rights and pretty good news for the administration in terms of enrollment figures,” Eric Lashner (COL ’05), chair of Campaign Georgetown and the GUSA Community Relations Committee, said. “Above all, the Performing Arts Center was approved and we can now begin construction on a much-needed facility.”

Although the commission found the university in compliance with each condition, the commissioners questioned the practice of averaging fall and spring enrollment, instead of counting each semester’s enrollment individually. Fall enrollment usually exceeds spring enrollment, as more students study overseas during the spring semester.

The university enrollment remains below the 5,627-student cap set by the ten-year plan.

“There’s a reason that drives the cap and in each of these cases, it was related to student housing,” Zoning Commission Chair Carol Mitten said in the April 16 Georgetown Current. “The motivations suggest averaging wasn’t an appropriate tool.”

Residents from several citizens’ associations contended that the university had not consulted the Department of Motor Vehicles, as required by the ten-year plan, regarding vehicle registration, but the commission found that the university had complied in requiring students to obtain the necessary parking permits by remaining in contact with the DMV.

“It is very clear that the zoning commission had no intention of making the university comply to the extent that [some] neighbors wanted them to,” Lashner said. “The [commission] said that it should have never put such a condition in because they knew that there was no way to enforce it.”

University neighbors also contended that the university was required to move off-campus students who had behavior problems to on-campus housing, but the commission maintained that the school merely needed to have the option to bring students on campus without actually implementing it. Because the university has required one student with behavior problems to move on-campus, the commission remained satisfied that the university had fulfilled its obligations.

Lashner said that some neighbors wanted an itemized list of each violation with a follow-up on the punishment. The commission found that the current procedures – collecting and keeping aggregated data on the complaints – satisfied the requirements.

Although student behavior is not perfect, Lieutenant Brian Bray of the Metropolitan Police Department stated that behavior has improved. “I believe that great strides have been made to reduce disorderly behavior in the west Georgetown and Burleith neighborhoods,” Bray said in a January letter to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission.

Lashner said that despite the favorable ruling from the zoning commission, students still need to be responsible when in the surrounding communities.

“The [commission] came dangerously close to enforcing these conditions the way some of our neighbors would like them to be enforced,” he said. “It is important that we as students remain vigilant and ensure that we are being treated fairly and like every other citizen in the District of Columbia.”