Watch: A presentation with new renderings and details of a DC Archives at UDC

A rendering of the DC Archives as viewed from across Van Ness Street, looking northwest.

A presentation on plans to demolish UDC’s Building 41 and construct a permanent home for DC government and historical records was the main event during ANC 3F’s July 18th meeting.

For about an hour, DC State Archivist Lopez Matthews, and archives and UDC representatives presented slides on the project and answered questions.

Some highlights:

• Matthews said this building will be unique among state archives, most of which keep only the most important historical records on site.

“One of the goals of this building is to consolidate all of DC’s history into one facility,” Matthews said.

• UDC students will have opportunities to do research there.

“I just left Howard University where we have a major research center on campus,” Matthews said. “Most of the people of color who are in the archival world come from Howard because they have the experience… and that’s something that we hope to UDC students experience – the idea of working any world-class archives so they themselves can also be involved in that community.

• Summer 2022, Matthews said, was “when it came out that we couldn’t reuse Building 41 because it would collapse under the weight of the records.”

• Several members of the UDC Garden Club raised objections and concerns about a lack of campus community engagement, and losing access to the gardens they’ve cultivated to supply UDC’s student food pantry and other food pantries. The response: Access to the existing UDC gardens would have been impacted temporarily during a renovation of Building 41. New gardening spaces are included in the archives landscape design.

“We are committed to preserving [the gardens] and making sure that they are still a part of the UDC campus after this project is completed,” Matthews said.

• Matthews also pointed out that the existing street trees along Van Ness would be preserved. The trees were only left out of renderings (like the one above) so people could see what the building would look like.

• A public design meeting, to happen later this summer, is to focus on uses of the public and archival spaces within the building.