Envisioning City Life Along the Rivers

One of the few small-business owners left along the river, Baxter watches each day as Park Service contractors bulldoze and grade a plot just downstream. He wonders how long he can remain and fears for the future of his livelihood as the new Georgetown waterfront park goes up.

Already, he has been asked to make changes: An old shack he used as an office has been torn down and replaced by a construction trailer. Extra gear is now kept in a portable storage unit. The original corrugated tin shack that his father, Jack, built in the 1940s so far has been allowed to stay. The tropical mural painted on the side is faded and peeling.

Baxter competes with two other boathouses on Park Service land along the Potomac. Both are run by a professional management company that rents kayaks, canoes, rowing shells and sailboats. Standing next to his pink-and-purple shack, with colorful deck chairs and handmade signs, he senses that his business goes against the Park Service's aesthetic grain. He fears being squeezed out by the riverfront improvements.

"We just want [the Park Service] to know there are people who want to keep it the way it is," said Baxter, steadying a canoe for a longtime customer who steps in, wearing a yellow inflatable airline life preserver. His business is simple and, he said, "something that people like."

Land-use maps show wide swaths of green space along the Potomac and Anacostia that have grown as the region has shifted its thinking about the rivers -- as natural assets to be restored and celebrated. The Park Service has acquired nearly 225 miles of contiguous shoreline from Cumberland, Md., to Mount Vernon; the nearly 8-acre Georgetown park was the last missing piece along a river system that is decidedly cleaner than it was a decade or two ago.

All of this is a point of pride for John Parsons, an associate regional director for the National Park Service, who has played a prominent role in the evolution of greater Washington's national parks. His philosophy, which has guided Park Service rules on the activities permitted on the land, is that more active uses -- like waterfront cafes, vendors or other commercial enterprises -- are better suited for non-park settings.

"So here we have all this green landscape, which a lot of people think is very dull and boring," he said. "The excitement of what is going on here is the private property along these shorelines that are about to be developed."

This has, at times, been a point of frustration for planners and officials, who would like to see federal parkland, because it occupies so much of the waterfront landscape, permit amenities like those found along the other great urban waterways -- cafes, performance artists, perhaps chair rentals or other vendors.

"Parks and trails are great, but they're generally pretty passive," Kent said. "Well, what do you do on a trail? What are the destinations? There ought to be 10 extraordinary destinations within that whole Potomac River area, including Alexandria, Georgetown and some very active park areas."

Linking the Waterfronts

Glimpses of this vibrant vision are evident in the amalgam of plans for redevelopment below Georgetown, along the Washington Harbour area on the southwest side of the District, around the promontory occupied by Fort McNair and up the Southeast waterfront.

The District firm PN Hoffman, which was selected to be the master developer for the Southwest waterfront, has joined forces with Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, the developers who helped drive the renaissance of Fells Point on Baltimore Harbor. Their 47-acre redesign promises to transform the Washington marina and channel area by expanding access for water traffic and creating new neighborhoods with parks, gourmet grocery stores, local retailers, a hotel and a waterfront promenade.

For national security reasons, Fort McNair remains off-limits to public access, so any linkages of the waterfronts will have to go around it. But along the Southeast side, JBG Cos. of Chevy Chase has been instrumental in launching the building blitz with construction of the Transportation Department's new headquarters between the Navy Yard and the Nationals stadium.