Community Preservation
The goal of the Bridge Park’s Preservation Plan is to ensure that the park is a driver of development in adjacent neighborhoods. By following a community-driven process, it is our hope that other cities can look to the Bridge Park as a prime example of how the public and private sectors can invest in and create world-class public space and build generational wealth for nearby residents.
Washington, D.C.’s first elevated public park will be perched over the Anacostia River.
Bridge Park Preservation
Throughout our community-led process, it became clear that the Bridge Park had the potential to be more than a park. In particular, the Bridge Park could symbolize a unity and a new connection between a booming area of the city and one that has long been excluded from the city’s economic progress. A key goal of the Bridge Park is to serve as an anchor for economic growth for nearby residents. The Bridge Park’s design strategies will increase connectivity between those living on both sides of the Anacostia River, but more must be done to ensure that residents and small businesses nearby will continually benefit from the success of this signature new civic space. To achieve this goal, the Bridge Park staff worked with community stakeholders to create a series of actionable strategies in 2015, that was updated 2018 & 2024.
Our Community
The speed of change and economic opportunity that D.C. has experienced over the past 15 years has been tremendous, but uneven. Decades of disinvestment, coupled with the economic and geographic segregation of Wards 7 and 8, mean that many of the communities east of the river are areas of low homeownership, high poverty and unemployment. With an increasing wealth gap and a high concentration of poverty east of the Anacostia River, the Preservation Plan strategies provide a new way to address these challenges.
Our Community Plan focuses on the one mile area surrounding the Bridge Park.
How to Create a Plan For Your Community?
Learn More-Do More!
See more videos in our Community Tool Kit! Explore tools to create your own community-driven plan and learn more about our community investments to date.
