For years, the old Fairmont Heights High School has sat empty to the chagrin of former students of the school, who’ve considered it a historic site in Prince George’s County, Maryland, because of its role in educating Black students during the era of segregation.
This week, the Prince George’s County Council took a big step toward finding a new use for the facility, which sits fenced off and run down in the middle of a residential neighborhood near the D.C. line.
By declaring the school “surplus property,” the parcel of land will be transferred to the county’s Redevelopment Authority, which has a deal in place to sell the land to a film company ready to build a studio there that should be finalized this summer. That new use drew lots of praise from former students of the school who spoke to the county council this week.
“It’s not just going to be a company that is producing films, but it’s going to allow people to learn all of the various aspects of what it takes to make a film,” said Fred Smith, with the Fairmount Heights Alumni Association.
“It’s also going to be an opportunity for even the students to learn the new items that one needs to be successful if you want to work in the film industry. It can be an audio technician, a camera person, a sound mixer, a script writer, it can be a set designer — all of those things are going to be opportunities at this facility for people to learn,” Smith said.
That aspect of the future is what led the alumni association to back the project.
“That is a good thing because it was a school, and it still is a school, even though it’s going to be transformed,” Smith said. “But it’s still going to be an educational facility, and that’s the thing that we like about it. It’s going to be an educational facility as well as a filmmaking studio.”
The county worked with the alumni association to make sure whatever use the school would have, it would have the backing of those who graduated from there.
“When the proposal came our way to potentially do this film studio concept at the site, I sent them immediately to meet with the community and figure out if there could be a meeting of the minds between the uses that they were proposing and what the community had always said that they wanted to see,” said Angie Rodgers, the county’s Deputy CAO for economic development.
The state of Maryland is also kicking in $5 million to help with the project.
“We feel that supporting this legislation would be a great opportunity for us to continue to attract film productions to Prince George’s County,” said Donna Dodson, with the Prince George’s Film Office. “Not only does it generate revenue to the community, it brings tourism, it brings people in. It puts us out in the universe as a place to come to.”
Dodson argued film companies continue to search for alternatives to California, and that the county would be a viable and desirable alternative to Atlanta and New York when it comes to East Coast film studios.
There will also be a museum and community space at the facility.
However, there was a hiccup in getting to this point. In recent days, there was a push by other groups to start over.
Brad Heard, who leads the Greater Capitol Heights Improvement Corporation, argued the site would be better used to address the housing shortage in the region.
The old school sits just off Addison Road, and is within a mile of both the Cheverly and Deanwood Metro stations.
“It’s a 14-acre property that you could build a lot of pretty significant mixed-use development in that place, multifamily residential, both affordable and market rate,” Heard said. “It really could be a viable place for a close-in community in Prince George’s.”
Those who spoke at the council meeting on Tuesday disagreed.
“It has been a long time coming,” said Joan Crowder, the president of the Fairmount Heights Alumni Association. “This is the absolutely, amazing, correct and the right use for the building. Yes, it is.”
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