Second Park View Field Renovation Meeting is Tonight @ Park View Rec Center, 6:30 p.m.
Then second meeting between the neighborhood and DPR concerning the renovation of the Park View athletic field is tonight at 6:30 p.m. Details can be found by clicking on the flier to the right.
Readers may recall that at the first DPR meeting on May 5, 2011, the planners presented three initial plans for community comment to better help them determine how to renovate the athletic field. Concept two, which eliminate all of the green space in favor of two basketball courts and a tennis court received the least support.
There was a lot of support for both concepts one and three. Based on this, the planners have reworked both of those concepts incorporating additional comments they received at the first meeting, via email, and from this blog. I’m very excited to see how the plans have changed as a result.
To help me better understand what activities need to be supported on the athletic field I decided to play with the plans myself. Taking into account the entire site, and presuming that the DPR and school sites could be united with indoor recreation activities being included at the school when it’s not in session, below is what I came up with.
In this fantasy version, a regulation basketball court replaces the current recreation structure (which originally replaced a tennis court). The children’s pool is also replaced by a spray park that could support a wider range of ages. This plan also provides room for some landscaping on the Warder Street side of the basketball court and a sod area between the spray park and the old field house. Lastly, I’ve included three additional trees since I feel trees are important and Warder is in serious need of trees. In this plan the basketball court does encroach upon Otis Place to about the middle of the street.
What was important to me in performing this exercise was the realization that though small, if designed well everything the recreation center currently supports can continue to be supported without a loss of the expansive athletic field if the functions of the current building can be shifted to the neighboring school in some manner. This is something that DPR is currently planning to do at sites like Raymond.
Tags: athletic field, children, Park View Rec Center, recreation, restoration & renovation
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Park View, D.C. 
June 9, 2011 at 8:30 am
Kent – I think your modified plan is the best one presented yet.
June 9, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I like it too, good job. You might want to sketch in the walking path around the athletic field — I think that had some popularity.