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       The gigantic glass-and-aluminum building is difficult to miss on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. Inside, classrooms are stacked in a multistory configuration around a sunlit atrium. Most of the 660,000-square-foot building is empty. Many of the classrooms still have the desks and chairs left behind by its former occupant, the private, for-profit Whittle School & Studios that closed in 2022.

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       On a recent afternoon, D.C. Council member Matthew Frumin (D-Ward 3) showed off a science classroom with shiny metal desktops and swivel chairs. In a spacious kitchen, an owner’s manual sat on an untouched stovetop.

       Frumin has led several tours through the cavernous space. He is hoping to build enough support to give it a new life. In it, he imagines a new home for MacArthur High School, which opened this school year about four miles away in the Palisades. He sees a home for early-childhood activities, a senior wellness center and college offerings — the University of the District of Columbia is across the street. His supporters call the proposal a worthy investment.

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       But to others, the plan is far-fetched. In a letter to the MacArthur community, an official of D.C. Public Schools said the school district “will not be exploring a move” for MacArthur. Parents there, and throughout the feeder pattern, say the city should focus on improving the current MacArthur and keep its promise to deliver a comprehensive public high school.

       “MacArthur has been a great success. It’s beautiful. And so there is a question: ‘Why would you change?’” Frumin said this week. “On the other hand, if you have this opportunity, it’s worth considering.”

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       The Connecticut Avenue building, and the 13 acres on which it sits, served for decades as the headquarters for Intelsat, a satellite communication services company. In 2019, the futuristic complex became the Whittle School, launched by the education entrepreneur Chris Whittle and designed to be part of a global network of high-end private schools. But financial turmoil and the pandemic derailed the project, and leaders last summer announced that they would close the school. Old posters, in English and Chinese, still line the deserted halls.

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       Frumin wants the city to take over. MacArthur is slated for a $72 million project to deliver more classrooms and other expansions so it can fit up to 800 students. The school now serves 200 ninth- and 10th-graders. But it is in a “difficult-to-reach” location on the far western edge of the city, in a neighborhood that offers “few amenities,” he said in an online statement about his proposal.

       Rather than move ahead with construction at MacArthur, Frumin has suggested, the school should be moved into the old Whittle campus. It could live there, in D.C.’s wealthiest ward, alongside other in-demand services for senior citizens and preschoolers, he says.

       “It’s [a] pretty magnificent space in a very convenient place,” Frumin said. He touted the building’s capacity to accommodate a food sustainability program — such as green roofs — as well as its proximity to D.C.’s sole public university and the Van Ness-UDC Metro station.

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       Supporters have urged city leaders to take control of the building. More than 500 of them have backed the idea in a petition.

       “MacArthur High’s current location is so awkward that most affluent students may spend significantly less time commuting than their less affluent peers,” D.C. resident Sally Murray James wrote in the petition. Frumin shared the feedback he received with The Washington Post. “Moving the school to the Van Ness would be a big step for equity and inclusion,” Murray James wrote.

       Another signatory to the petition, Hedy Moolenaar, wrote: “I have been hoping since the day that Whittle closed its doors that the City would purchase this state-of-the-art building and use it for a public high school. Moving MacArthur High School to this site would make tremendous sense, making the school accessible to all of its students.”

       This pricey school promised a global education. It’s barely solvent.

       Everette Travis, 52, a MacArthur parent, said he saw “nothing wrong” with MacArthur’s present location. He drives his daughter to school, and their commute from Northeast Washington would not change significantly. But “if the campus is safe, the building is safe, the general location is safe, I really don’t see an issue with it,” he said of the proposed new site.

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       It is unclear how much the Intelsat/Whittle building, owned by the New York-based investment firm 601W Companies, would cost. Frumin and a real estate agent for the property declined to provide an estimate. But a purchase could be funded if the city stopped further construction at MacArthur and sold that building to the private Lab School in the nearby Foxhall neighborhood, Frumin said.

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       The Lab School’s leadership would “carefully consider” Frumin’s idea if it were supported by D.C. leadership, Kim Wargo, Lab’s head of school, said in an email. “One of Lab’s key long-term goals is to own a single campus that could easily accommodate our entire student body.”

       D.C. Public Schools, which oversees MacArthur, says it is not interested. Officials shut the idea down in a letter to the MacArthur community last week.

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       “While I understand that the former Intelsat location is intriguing and ripe for other possibilities, I can confirm that DCPS will not be exploring a move for MacArthur High School,” Ely Ross, the school district’s chief operating officer, wrote. “We are already looking forward to graduating our first classes and completing the work at our current location in 2026.”

       Asked about Frumin’s plan, or whether the city would buy the Intelsat/Whittle building for other uses, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s team referred to the school system’s letter.

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       The city bought the MacArthur property, formerly owned by Georgetown Day School, for $46 million. It has undergone some renovations — including to the gym, cafeteria and classrooms — and families say the city needs to keep its promise to complete the school rather than move it elsewhere. “Anything that takes our attention away from that is detrimental to the success of the school,” said Troy Kravitz, whose elementary- and middle-school-aged children are zoned for MacArthur.

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       Parents also have said that some of their concerns about MacArthur, such as traffic in the residential neighborhood and ease of access to the school, have not been serious issues yet. School leaders this year said the district worked with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to put more buses on the routes closest to MacArthur.

       Deandrei James, who lives in Southeast Washington, said he drives his son to school and likes MacArthur’s present location, saying it feels safer than other neighborhoods. “I think because of how D.C. is spiraling out with crime everywhere, this location is ideal,” he said.

       Libbie Buchele, 55, who has children at Jackson-Reed, Ward 3’s other high school, said the city should purchase the Whittle property — but not to relocate MacArthur there. Instead, it could be used for an elementary or middle school.

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       “We should buy it and then figure out what we do, if that means changing the feeder pattern for some of the elementary schools or making a new elementary school,” she said. If it were to become a middle school, the location could be more accessible for students who feed into Deal Middle School from Shepherd and Bancroft elementary schools “who are pretty far from Deal.”

       Frumin indicated an openness to using the building for other purposes. “There’s all different kinds of possibilities. It could be a different high school. It could be a charter school,” he said. “So I don’t want to get too tied to my original vision.”

       But for some in the high school community, Frumin’s idea came as a shock. Eric Slack, who has a ninth-grader at the school, called Frumin’s proposal a betrayal.

       “He’s been involved in a lot of the parent meetings leading to the starting of the school year, and his big thing when he ran was on building MacArthur,” Slack, 43, said of the council member. Slack said he was worried that moving his son’s high school would slow the momentum of investing in the current building. The relocation proposal, he said, “kind of came out of the blue.”

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