Eastern Market Metro Plaza Playground Park Construction Starts this Week

Here’s a rendering of Parcel 1 – the Playground Park – which lies between 8th and 9th Streets on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue.  click to enlarge for details.

Signs went up last Monday announcing the closure of the Eastern Market Metro Playground Park for construction.

Work Starts on the new Eastern Market Metro Park/Playground this Week

By Larry Janezich

Construction of the new Eastern Market Metro Park/Playground will begin on Tuesday, March 3, with the closing of the park between 8^th and 9^th Streets on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue and its enclosure with chain link fence.  Demolition of the existing temporary playground and walkways will follow, prior to the beginning of construction of the new park in mid-March.  An official groundbreaking ceremony – likely the week of March 9 – will kick off the construction phase.  A date and time will be announced.

DGS says it will finish work on the playground/park by the end of this coming June.  The equipment in the current playground – funded by the Hine developers as a community benefit under a Planned Unit Development agreement – will be relocated and incorporated into the new and larger playground on the north side of the parcel.  Funding for that playground and the redesign of the entire Plaza was included in this fiscal year’s budget by CM Charles Allen.  Construction on the rest of the Plaza project, including Parcel 4 where the entrance to Metro is located, will begin this October and will be complete in April/March of 2021.  See below for a rendering of the performance pavilion, a prominent feature of  this portion of the plaza.

DGS hosted a meeting of the Eastern Market Metro Park Advisory Team last Wednesday, where DGS Project manager Diego Martinez (standing at right) provided an updated timeline and details of equipment staging and personnel management for the first construction phase.  For more information, see here:  https://dgs.dc.gov/page/eastern-market-metro-park-project

DGS is close to finalizing the design for the community-inspired performance pavilion near the Metro entrance.  Here’s a rendering of the over-lapping leaf-shaped roof of the open-walled structure, which will have its own lighting plan synchronized with the area lighting for the rest of the plaza.  Performance groups will be able to add specialized supplemental lighting and sound equipment as needed.   The entrance to the Metro is in the background from the view depicted.  See the rendering below for the location of the pavilion.

Here’s a rendering of Parcel 4 which includes the entrance to the Metro and the location of the performance pavilionjust below it.  click to enlarge.