How about this interesting old article from The Washington Post, printed on August 6th, 1975.

Initially, there was a plan to demolish the entire 700+ unit complex and replace it with a large park and compound for foreign embassies.

The owners of McLean Gardens announced plans yesterday to demolish the 723-unit moderate-income housing complex in Northwest Washington and replace it with an elaborate $150 million diplomatic enclave of embassies, chanceries, apartments, shops and international boutiques.

The enclave is the latest in a series of proposals over the last decade by the CBI-Fairmac Corp. for the company’s extremely valuable, 33-acre McLean Gardens site along Wisconsin Avenue NW near the National Cathedral.

…

The proposed diplomatic enclave for the McLean Gardens site is not the first to be considered within the city limits. The federal government has announced its intention to convert the old National Bureau of Standards site at Connecticut and Van Ness Street NW into an area for embassies and a new headquarters building for the Organization of American States.

…

Linowes said that the estimated $150 million cost of the proposed complex calls for $100 million to be spent by foreign nations on their embassies and $50 million to be spent by CBI-Fairmac to construct 650 to 700 unites of largely upper-income housing.