Planned Waterfront Park in Georgetown Lacks Some Crucial Elements

Lots of attention has been focused on development of the Washington Nationals baseball stadium and surrounding area near South Capitol Street and the Anacostia River. But that attention is eclipsing news about the Potomac River waterfront in Georgetown and its impending transformation.

Monday night at St. John's Episcopal Church in Georgetown, Sally Blumenthal of the National Park Service presented to the Citizens Association of Georgetown the latest design for a waterfront park. It will occupy federal property between the Whitehurst Freeway and the Potomac River, stretching from Key Bridge to the foot of Wisconsin Avenue. Now a vast parking lot, this property has been exploited for industrial uses for more than two centuries.

Blumenthal reminded the audience that a quarter century has elapsed since John Parsons, the park service's long-time regional director, began pushing for this park. Conceptually, the current proposal, culminating seven years of design and redesign accompanied by countless meetings, was approved in 2003 by the Old Georgetown Board, the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. Now, creating the park is a matter of elaboration and detailed refinement.

Designed by park service consultants Wallace Roberts & Todd, a Philadelphia-based landscape architecture firm, the park will be a passive rather than active environment, a place for reclining on lawns, watching boat races or just strolling. It will not be a park for playing games.

Within the park, a granite-paved, trapezoidal plaza and low-level fountains will visually terminate Wisconsin Avenue. As the plaza widens, it will connect to a broad set of steps, cascading down to the river to accommodate seated spectators during boat races. A shade-giving pergola will flank the curved pathway above the steps and abut the adjacent lawn.

Each of Georgetown's north-south streets perpendicular to the park -- from 31st to 34th Streets -- descending toward the river is marked visually in the park by paved paths, establishing a series of "rooms" in the landscape corresponding to the adjacent pattern of streets and blocks to the north.

The conceptual model shows other park features: shade trees at the street edge and within the park, along with ornamental trees; a children's sculpture garden; planted embankments as well as concrete bulkheads lining the river; and three projecting overlooks at the river's edge surmounted by very tall masts supporting flexible, "transparent" sails.

The undulating sails are to be built of stainless steel rods threaded together with stainless steel cables. The artistic aim of these sculptures is to recall the tall ships that once docked at the historic port of Georgetown.

There appears to be little opposition to the park or its overall composition. However, citizens have expressed concerns about the quality of lighting -- new street lights installed in recent years in parts of Georgetown are too high, harsh and garish -- and about the mast/sail sculptures. They look minuscule on the model, but nearby residents worry that the sculptures will be too tall, could obstruct river views and could be a bit too kitschy.

Blumenthal assured everyone that lighting would be carefully designed not only to look good, but also to provide well-distributed ambient illumination throughout the park in the interest of public safety.

Monday night's discussion revealed clearly that both God and the devil are in the details. The park's design is still very schematic, and its ultimate aesthetic success depends a great deal on things not yet resolved, precisely formed or specified -- paving materials and patterns, fountains, the pergola, light fixtures, guard rails, outdoor seating, plantings and sculptures.

I also wondered why this park was without a place to buy a cup of coffee or sandwich, a waterside destination where one could sit at a table chatting with friends, sipping a drink or reading a newspaper. Why isn't there a sensitively designed pavilion or two in this architecture-free zone? Certainly it's not because Washington lacks riverside parks. In fact, what the city most lacks are places to occupy, not just to stroll, next to the river.