Here’s How the Eastern Market Metro Station Park Could Look

(Updated at 12:40 p.m.) Plans are advancing for the Eastern Market Metro station to get an overhaul with new landscaping, a playground and an underground entrance to an expanded Southeast Neighborhood Library.

Barracks Row Main Street published conceptual designs this week of how the space at the intersection of 8th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue SE would look with a $44 million makeover. The designs show new plantings, a rain garden and a Navy Yard-inspired playground.

BRMS board chairman David Perry said the next steps for the plan are securing a sponsor agency within D.C. government and determining whether a months-long environmental assessment will be needed.

“This entire effort to date has been carried out by a group of citizens,” he said. “We’ve taken it as far as it can be taken by private parties. At this point, it needs to become a government project, and a particular city agency should take the lead.”

In the next few weeks, BRMS will meet with relevant city agencies and Ward 6 Councilman Charles Allen, Perry said. There have been “encouraging developments,” he said, including $22.4 million approved for the District’s fiscal year 2019 budget for the library expansion.

The overall goals of the Eastern Market Metro Park overhaul are to make the space more useful and beautiful for everyone, Perry said.

“This two-block area is the connective tissue between the retail on 7th Street … and Barracks Row. We want it to be a great urban space,” he said. “It would be nice if it was a really beautiful and welcoming space that encouraged people to stay and linger.”

ANC 6B backed the plan late last year, as Hill Now reported.

Anyone who wants to weigh in on the plan can contact BRMS via their website.

Images via Barracks Row Main Street