WASHINGTON, D.C. — Washington council members pressed developers Wednesday on why the former Fletcher-Johnson school campus in Ward 7, empty since 2011, still has no homes nearly six years after the city chose a team to rebuild it.
The roughly 15-acre site at 4650 Benning Road SE was awarded on Dec. 23, 2020, to Fletcher-Johnson Community Partners after the city’s economic development office, under the deputy mayor, opened bidding in July 2019. An earlier attempt to sell the school in 2014 ended with no award. The building last served as temporary space for H.D. Woodson High School during its renovation.
Plans now call for about 800 rental and for-sale homes, 241 of them affordable, plus shops, green space and a 24-hour freestanding emergency department run by Universal Health Services with 14 treatment rooms. Developers are also pursuing a grocery store of 25,000 to 30,000 square feet but have not signed one.
Testimony put the start of the first residential building in late 2028, with move-ins possibly in 2030. The bill that would let the mayor transfer the land was introduced June 29, 2026, and no committee vote has been set. Demolition and abatement on the site carry a budget of about $8.5 million, a job scheduled to wrap up Sept. 30, 2026. Ward 7 Councilmember Wendell Felder, who once managed the project for the city, said residents have waited too long.
