Playground Renovation: Important Dates – foresthillsconnection.com

by Alexandra Chalupa
President, Friends of the Forest Hills Playground

You have some exciting opportunities to directly impact the design of the Forest Hills Playground’s renovation.

The Forest Hills Playground will be closed for renovation in August.(photo by Alexandra Chalupa)

The Mayor’s Play DC Team and the Trust for Public Land partnered up on this project and will be hosting two public meetings focused on having the community provide ideas for the new design; the latter of which will include the participation of children too!

Public Kick-Off Meeting
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Capital Memorial Church
3150 Chesapeake Street, NW

Public Design Charette
Sunday, May 5, 2013
2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Capital Memorial Church
3150 Chesapeake Street, NW
Note: Children are invited to participate in this meeting and help redesign their playground

At the ANC 3F meeting on March 19th, Sarah Moulton, DPR’S Design and Planning Officer, and Kent Whitehead, the Trust for Public Land’s Sr. Project Manager, provided updates about the status of this renovation program.

In addition to announcing the meeting dates, Sarah and Kent discussed with our ANC commissioners the following items:

Budget: The Forest Hills Playground renovation is being conducted simultaneously with Rose Park’s renovation in a kind of partnership. A total of $150,000 have been allocated for the design of the two playgrounds. Although the budget for the construction phase has not been confirmed since it will depend on the final designs, it is estimated that each playground will have about $750,000 to one million dollars allocated for the equipment and construction phase.

Space Being Renovated: The space that will be renovated includes everything west of the path that divides the playground from the baseball field (i.e., the playground and the gazebo picnic structure). Please note that as part of an entirely separate project and budget the tennis courts will be redone. (expected to be completed this April/May).

Estimated Timeline for Forest Hills Playground Renovation:

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April-May: Outreach to the community and design process
May-June: Architect team will spend about 5 weeks using the public input to come up with the design. The results from a survey DC Play conducted last November will also be incorporated into the review process.
Early June: Design will be presented to the community
August: Bidding process (expected to take 2 weeks and start by August 1st)
August – September/October: Playground will be closed until renovation is complete. The project is expected to be completed in the fall.

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The Forest Hills Playground will remain open until the construction phase of the project starts in August. In the meantime, you may come across a few surveyors and architects at the playground over the next few months.

We hope you’ll participate in the community meetings on April 10th and May 5th. For those who are unable to attend one or both, please feel free to email Kent Whitehead directly with your design suggestions. He can be reached at kent.whitehead@tpl.org.

To read more on the background of these renovation plans, and on the playground’s history, visit the At Play section of the Forest Hills Connection.

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