• By Stephen Staudigl
• May 08, 2018

Banneker Park Connection Helps NCPC Plans Come to Life

Construction on the Banneker Park connection is nearing completion. NCPC approved final plans in 2017 for the project that makes it easier to walk and bike from the National Mall to Banneker Park and The Wharf, a new development on the Southwest Waterfront. It also restores an important historic park and marks the latest example of NCPC plans coming to fruition.

History of the Park
Designed by noted modernist landscape architect Dan Kiley, the eight-acre park opened in 1967. It is named after Benjamin Banneker, an African-American scientist who helped survey Washington's original boundaries. Located at the terminus of L’Enfant Promenade (10th Street, SW), it functioned as an overlook, offering views across the Potomac River. Banneker Park was determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites in 2012. However, over the years the site was underused and felt somewhat abandoned, partly due to the park’s remoteness, minimal pedestrian traffic along 10th Street, and the lack of a convenient way to walk down from the park’s overlook to the Southwest Waterfront and the Maine Avenue Fish Market.

Seeds of Change
Multiple NCPC plans recognized that the Banneker Park site did not live up to its potential and provided recommendations on how to make it a better destination. One goal of the Monumental Core Framework Plan (2009) was to improve connections between the National Mall and the Southwest Waterfront by redefining 10th Street as a mixed-use corridor and establishing its terminus as a premier cultural site. The SW Ecodistrict Plan (2013) further refined this vision of an inviting civic corridor with an improved Banneker Park as the hub of a significant destination hosting memorials and museums.

Simultaneously, plans were underway to transform Washington’s Southwest Waterfront into a premier destination with restaurants, shops, offices, concert halls, apartments, and a waterfront promenade. Dubbed The Wharf, its first phase opened in October 2017. But how to get people from Banneker Park to Maine Avenue and the waterfront? Only informal dirt trails provided pedestrian access down a steep hillslope. Something new was needed.

Park Design and Construction
The 10th Street Programmatic Design Study, funded by NCPC and conducted by the agency and ZGF Architects, provided the initial concept for a temporary connection. A condition of the Planned Unit Development approval by the District Zoning Commission required Hoffman Madison Waterfront, developer of The Wharf, to contribute to the connection’s design and construction costs. They hired ZGF to design an interim connection from the park to the waterfront that would be in place while the area awaits future redevelopment identified in the SW Ecodistrict Plan and the Memorials and Museums Master Plan.

Through a partnership between the National Park Service, Hoffman Madison Waterfront, and the District of Columbia the plans came together. Funding for the $4 million project included money provided by Hoffman Madison Waterfront, as well as a $2 million grant from the District’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development.

In April 2017, NCPC approved designs for the improved connection, which includes a new staircase, paved paths, tree plantings, replacement of the current embankment, improved lighting, and integrated stormwater management. The approved plans were sensitive to Dan Kiley’s original design, and did not diminish the park’s historic integrity. The completed project represents a successful adaption of a designed landscape, one of the key themes of the Parks & Open Space Element update.

NCPC Commissioner Thomas Gallas noted, “This connection has been a long time coming. The site now is an impenetrable wall, and this project will be so important to bring the waterfront into the city.”

More Information
Construction began in September 2017 and was finished in the spring of 2018. The National Park Service and the SW Business Improvement District will jointly maintain the area. This new connection linking the National Mall to the Waterfront realizes a key SW Ecodistrict Plan recommendation. Read about some of the original plans below.

NCPC's Approval of Banneker Park Design SW Ecodistrict Initiative SW Ecodistrict Plan Monumental Core Framework Plan