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When Syracuse University announced that it was going to sell the Greenberg House — its long-standing headquarters in Washington, D.C. — officials hoped to announce the acquisition of a new building in the district at the same time.

Instead, the university’s plans to replace its aging center of operations in the capital fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Steven Bennett, SU’s senior vice president for academic operations.

“The timing was distorted by COVID,” Bennett said. “We wanted to announce the sale and announce the opening of this new center at the same time. But it just didn’t make sense anymore to do that.”

Before the pandemic, the university settled on replacing the Greenberg House by leasing a new space in downtown Washington, closer to a think tank that hosts some of its largest programs. But COVID-19 and its impact on the district’s real estate market has halted those plans, university officials told The Daily Orange.

SU purchased and renovated the Greenberg House for $2.5 million in 1988, according to university archives. Property records in Washington indicate that the building was assessed to value about $5.4 million in 2021, an increase of over $100,000 from last year’s assessment.

Over the years, the building has helped host and support Washington-based programs for the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the Newhouse School of Public Communications and the College of Law, among others.

SU had myriad reasons for selling the house. The building was too large and cost too much to maintain, despite hosting only one or two employees at a given time, Bennett said. The Greenberg House also didn’t provide adequate space or parking capacity for alumni events and other gatherings.

Perhaps the most significant reason for closing the Greenberg House was its lack of accessibility, Bennett said. The building, a four-story walkup with no elevator, didn’t comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards, and the cost of renovation would have nearly exceeded the value of the house itself, he said.

Although the house used to host classes on-site, as SU’s programs grew in the Washington area, programs began to meet virtually or in other spaces.

“The Greenberg House served a terrific purpose for 30 years, but at this point, it was almost a victim of its own success,” Bennett said.

Some of SU’s Washington-based programs have relocated to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a foreign policy think tank. Maxwell also relocated many programs to the CSIS’ downtown headquarters, where they intend to remain, said Mark Jacobson, head of Maxwell’s Washington-based programs.

CSIS uses the building during the day while students are at their internships, and Maxwell uses the space to hold classes in the evening, Bennett said.

“The school and the university’s deep commitment to D.C. programming hasn’t changed,” said Jessica Smith, director of communications and media relations for Maxwell. “The University simply outgrew the Greenberg space.”

The Maxwell program’s growth along with CSIS’ location in the heart of Washington made the think tank a de facto center of SU student activity, with the Greenberg House located a 10-minute drive away.

“There was really no utility in having this facility up the road,” Bennett said. “What we really needed was to have a facility right near (CSIS), where we could support the faculty that were teaching there, where we could provide student service, where we could do the things we were doing in the Greenberg House for alumni relations and recruitment.”

The university’s ideal fit for a new space includes close proximity to the CSIS, Bennett said. He envisions a more modern, flexible space that SU would rent so it can expand and contract with the needs of the university. Rather than classrooms, the space would have offices to support its academic programs in the district, as well as a small conference space to hold gatherings like SU Abroad pre-departure briefings.

The new facility — potentially located only a few blocks away from the White House — would also provide essential space for SU’s government relations, Bennett said. For larger gatherings, the university would instead rent individual venues around Washington, as it has done for the past few years, he said.

After receiving approval from the Board of Trustees to sell the Greenberg House, the university had narrowed its search for new space down to a selection of rental properties in the same neighborhood as CSIS, Bennett said. The search included some new buildings “right across the street” from the think tank, he said.

But then the coronavirus pandemic arrived in the U.S.

“The university went into serious cost containment mode,” Bennett said. “So leasing a new property is probably not the smartest thing to do when you’re trying not to lay people off.”

SU is still hoping to acquire a new space by the end of its next fiscal year, Bennett said. But for now, officials are waiting for high prices in the Washington real estate market to drop and for the pandemic to subside so SU’s academic programs can resume fully in person.

Another key component of SU’s physical presence in the nation’s capital is its alumni base. With over 15,000 graduates in the region, Washington is a key part of the university’s alumni network, said Lottie Watts, co-chair of the SU alumni club in Washington.

“It’s a very strong presence in terms of alumni who live and work here,” Watts said. “In your daily life as you’re walking around, you’ll see people wearing Syracuse shirts or hats, in recent months even masks.”

Watts said she would like to see SU maintain its strong presence in the Washington-area and provide more opportunities for students. A strong alumni network is as important as physical space to the university’s presence in the city, she said.

The sale of the Greenberg House marked the end of SU’s 30-plus-year stay in the building. But SU also hopes it will provide the university with greater flexibility to expand its presence in the capital, Bennett said.

“We had this big building that was sitting empty for years and years and years,” he said. “And the university now has an opportunity to procure space in Washington which we can fully utilize.”

Published on February 17, 2021 at 9:02 pm

Contact Chris: cjhippen@syr.edu