The Six Components of the Redesign Plan for Eastern Market Metro Plaza/Park (click on to enlarge)
Plan for the Park North on PA Avenue, with Children’s Playground on the Lower Larger Part
Graphic Illustrating the Location of Tables and Chairs which will Lie Beneath the Canopy of a Grove of Trees on South Side of Plaza.
Depiction of Tables and Chairs in Grove of Trees on South Side of Plaza (click to enlarge)
Overview of Redesigned Metro Plaza Showing Tree Grove, Library Entrance, Library Pavillion, Skylights for Underground Library. The plan anticipates total renovation of Southeast Library, including digging out the lower level to a depth of two feet.
North Elevation of New Library Entrance on Metro Plaza (subject to design modifications)
Footprint of Underground Extension of Southeast Library
Depiction of Library Pavilion (absent the water feature)
Birdseye View Looking Southwest
$45 Million Eastern Market Metro Park Draft Plan Unveiled
by Larry Janezich
Last night, architect Amy Weinstein of Esocoff & Associates unveiled her $45 million long-term plan to redesign Eastern Market Metro Plaza including the adjacent parks and the Pennsylvania Avenue median strips. The occasion was a meeting of the Eastern Market Plaza Task Force organized by Barracks Row Main Street, comprising community stakeholders involved with the plan.
The primary components of the main Metro Plaza’s redesign will include a new entrance to Southeast Library featuring a pavilion with benches and a water feature, skylights for a new below-grade part of the library under 7th Street, and numerous movable tables and chairs under a grove of trees on the south side of the plaza. The new entrance will provide access to a major underground expansion of the library and will become the facility’s main entrance. The current main entrance of the library would be closed but preserved.
The large park on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue would become a recreational and gathering space and include a children’s playground surrounded by a wrought iron fence. The play area would have a rubberized playing surface, a tree house with a slide, a playhouse, a jungle gym, an educational water feature, and picnic tables. The rest of the park would get new trees, new grass, and numerous benches.
The median strips would be redesigned with wrought iron fencing and features for storm water management and reclamation, while landscaping, trees and benches would be design elements of the small triangle at across Dunkin Donuts.
The whole plan for the entire project anticipates new lighting, relocated bus stops, more bike shares and pedestrian safety features.
The price tag for the project is $45,213,645 million – $13,517,595 for the parks and plaza,
$22,765,637 for the library, and $8,930,413 for DC Agency management fees, reorganization of traffic, and a $1.54 million maintenance endowment to provide the estimated $75,000 annual maintenance costs.
Weinstein said that if everything went without a hitch, her best guess is that construction could begin four years hence, though Sharon Ambrose cautioned that nothing at all would happen until after the election. The next steps, according to Weinstein, would be to find a DC agency to take the lead on the project and to enlist political and community support.
Weinstein will present the plan to the community in two meetings in the coming days, Saturday, June 21, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm; and Monday, June 23, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm both of which will be held at Hill Center. The design team will receive the community’s input and come back with a final plan in September.
The plan will be available here: http://www.easternmarketmetropark.org/ probably after Saturday’s community meeting.
Capitol Hill Corner reported on the evolution of the redesign concept here: http://bit.ly/1duqZJd
CAPITOL HILL CORNER 
Wow, now we’re talking!! This looks amazing. I’m sure that I might have some suggestions or concerns when I get down into the details, but this looks amazing on paper!!
As expected, we now have a completely un-executable design because it was given no bounds. Yes, it would be amazing to have a park like this, but isn’t it better to be realistic?
Why is it un-executable?
Make no small plans…
Who is going to alocate $45M for a ~one acre park? Not the DC Council.
In parcel 4, why isn’t there a direct path from the NW corner (or even just the Metro entrance) to the SE corner? I use that ALL the time.
Have to agree. Not sure how this facilitates pedestrian flow/access between Eastern Market and Barrack’s Row. Needs a clear path between the NW and SE of parcel 4. This is how people will will end up walking anyway, might as well embrace it and improve it somehow.
You can’t tell from these renderings, but parcel 4 does have a diagonal path that facilitates pedestrian traffic along existing demand lines.
As far as cost, the plan is modular. Redesign can be done parcel by parcel, with or without the library (which represents ~$26M or more of the cost). It’s doable, especially when you compare the cost against the actuals from other library construction and renovation across the City. And it’s an important point–this plan gives us a new plaza AND, essentially, a new library.
There will always be naysayers. It’s part of the Hill. But I also know we’re better than that. We can do this.
Brian Pate
What a colossal waste of money; designed with a very poor understanding of our neighborhood’s dymamics and atmosphere. Wait, its Amy Weinstein – no wonder its awful.
Gotta love people who come to kick dirt on an idea (and explicitly make it personal) but who are too cowardly to sign their names to it. Care to engage in *constructive* conversation about how to make the entirely-dysfunctional EM Metro plaza parkland into something that offers value to our neighborhood? And care to do so allowing others to know who you are and what baggage YOU might be bringing to the table (since you apparently feel that Weinstein brings some unspecified amount along)?
I’d only respond anonymously myself, but I agree that everyone should keep the comments constructive, good or bad.
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so what happens to the Library entrance on 7th? From a design perspective, you have an obvious point of entrance. Do they propose boarding that up?
and sorry Brian — I see lines for a path in the Parcel 4 design but it looks like you’d have to walk right through the table and chairs. It’s ineligent, at least in this rendering.
The library is nice, and this square certainly needs some spiffing up. But this is a lot of money to spend on a plan that does not address the big problem, pedestrians crossing Pennsylvania Ave to get to the Metro. An underground entrance on the North side of Pennsylvania Ave is needed.
There is a lot of walking traffic here, and people get hit on occasion.
I’m glad they kept Parcel 1 simple and preserved/improved the play space without some of the gaudier proposed elements. it’s a nice balance. I still don’t know what to make of Parcel 4. In the renderings at leas I’m not impressed with the visual impact of such little open space
I wish it could start sooner. I know the rat problem had to be addressed but taking out the beautiful rose bush hedge at the corner of D and 7th and replacing it with the moon rocks looks like bollocks
can’t wait for the complaints about teens hurling the rocks at each other to replace the rat hysteria
Yes, Capitol Hill residents, if we really try, we CAN make our streetscapes look just like Reston. Add a big “mixed use” condo project at Hine and change the subway stop to “Ballston” and you are set. Really– we can do better than these cookie cutter urban “visions” that are to neighborhoods what Pottery Barn is to interior design. We WILL get a Pottery Barn soon, won’t we? Shoot me first.
$45 million dollars to redo something that works and looks fine – no thank you. I’ll take my tax payer dollars back or can we fix something that is actually broken? How about the trash in the river? How about the homeless situation? Please don’t waste our money on this project