Georgetown Waterfront Park

The Georgetown Waterfront Park faces the Potomac River in historic Georgetown in the District of Columbia. The 10-acre park represents a 40-year effort to transform the Georgetown waterfront from an obsolete industrial site into a signature civic space meeting both national and local community aspirations. WRT was the lead design firm through a 9-year, two-phased implementation process involving numerous public meetings, fundraising, and coordination with District and federal agencies.

The design aimed to express the confluence of a historic wharf environment with the garden-oriented townscape that defines Georgetown. This layered approach led to the creation of sectionalized spaces dividing the park into garden rooms, like divisions in a ship’s hull, framed by wide walkways extending the street grid to the waterfront. Overlooks afford wide river views and the opportunity to track the site’s history through imagery etched onto tilted granite displays. A wide promenade links the garden rooms to the water’s edge, where railings were eschewed in favor of planting as a way to dramatize the notion of a waterside garden.