Live chat with NCPC on activating federal places

NCPC is involved in the planning and design of security at several levels. For projects located in the District, we work very closely with federal and District agencies on trying to find a design that meets both the federal agency’s needs while being consistent with local regulations intended to protect public space, one of Wahsington’s most important assets. For these types of projects, NCPC has approval authority.

During our work on developing the Framework Plan, we looked closely at Constitution Avenue and specifically at finding ways to enliven the avenue through programming and landscape improvements. The Framework Plan envisions Constitution Avenue as a sustainable linear park with not only public amenities such as seating and vending, but also sustainable features designed to address stormwater management. In addition, NCPC is also interested in developing a Federal Triangle Heritage Trail which will run along Constituion Avenue and throughout the Federal Triangle. NCPC recently completed a Federal Triangle Heritage Trail Assessment Report which can be found on our website.

As you just noted, the buildings in the Federal Triangle are notable for their art and architecture and surely could not be razed. That’s not to say it would be impossible to incorporate ground-floor retail in the area, it would just have to be thoroughly studied and done very carefully. However, if it is determined that it would be too intrusive on the historic fabric there are other alternatives. The Federal Triangle has an enormous amount of public space and can be programmed with food vendors, concerts, and farmers markets. Some of this is already going on such as the farmers market and concert series in Woodrow Wilson Plaza.

NCPC was very much involved in the master planning process for the west campus of St. Elizabeths and continues to be involved in the design review of individual projects contained in the master plan. This process was carried out in close consultation with a host of federal and District agencies including the DC Office of Planning. As for public access to the campus, DHS has committed to maintaining public access to the historic civil war cemetery through scheduled tours.

and one of the recent success stories from this collaboration is the GSA Headquarters Building and the addition of ground floor retail. The video above illustrates this.

In any project that has a security component as well as a public access / amenity component we work hard to try to find an appropriate balance. With regard to St. Elizabeths, making the cemetery available to members of the public is not the ideal solution to public accessibility but it is a good start while still taking into consideration the security needs of DHS. Hopefully, in the future we might be able to identify a way to provide additional access to areas of the campus without overly compromising security. We might one day be able to visit historic areas of the campus or “the Point.” In general, in every security project NCPC works very closely with federal and District agencies to find a way to provide for the federal agency while protecting access to public space. This close coordination has led to big successes on recent projects such as Federal Office Building 8 in Southwest, DC.