Our mission: to preserve, restore, and adaptively reuse historic McMillan Park in Washington, DC for the benefit of the people.
Friends of McMillan Park is a group of community volunteers who support sustainable development and long-term planning for McMillan Park and Washington, DC. We believe that historic preservation and sustainability go hand in hand, and we would love to see McMillan Park set a high standard as a great metropolitan park of the 21st century. Our statement of Core Values codifies our collective position.
The Friends believe that open space is essential for modern life and provides sustenance for humanity and all living things. In densely populated Washington, DC, we understand the urgency of open green space preservation and that once land is developed, returning it to its natural state can prove very difficult.
About McMillan Park: McMillan Park is an historic national landmark Olmsted park. Since the District of Columbia government purchased the McMillan Park Sand Filtration Site in 1987 from the US Army Corps of Engineers, the Site has deteriorated due to lack of maintenance and is now threatened by pressure for commercial and residential development. The property was selected by the now-defunct public-private National Capital Revitalization Corporation (NCPC) in a land swap deal for Anacostia Riverfront property used to build DC’s baseball stadium. In advance of a NCPC completing a Request for Proposals process, disgraced DC Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. selected a sole-source development team that proposed a scheme that included 1,200 units of housing in buildings up to 10 stories tall, a 100,000 square foot shopping center, a 125-room hotel and conference center, and underground parking. This team proposes to essentially bulldoze the entire park and pave it over with dense urban development, leaving very limited open green space to remain. The team has ignored virtually all community input regarding their proposal to destroy our national treasure.
We know that our City can do better than to let historic McMillan Park become an amorphous grid of buildings.
