Gateway Designs to Be Shared April 19
By • April 9, 2018 0 664
Whether you drive, ride or walk to Georgetown, there are four distinct entrances into our village: at K and 29th Streets, at M and 28th Streets, at the Georgetown end of Key Bridge and at R Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Long anticipated “Georgetown Gateway” designs for the first three sites will be introduced at a Thursday, April 19, town meeting.
The meeting will take place at 6 p.m. at Georgetown Suites, 1000 29th Street, on the corner of K Street. “If the weather is good, we’ll walk the site to get a real feel for the gateway’s placement,” said Jamie Scott, economic development director for the Georgetown Business Improvement District, which is overseeing the project. Comments and suggestions by Georgetowners and others are welcome, according to Scott.
Each of the gateways is different in that they respond to their particular placement and site environment, Scott explained. But they all will share three elements: signage, lighting and landscaping. Signage will make use of the same color scheme, though the materials may differ in accordance with the requirements and feel of each site.
The K Street gateway may reflect more of the industrial history of that site, while M Street will have a civic feel and the Key Bridge site will recall the busy jurisdictional crossing of the bridge from Virginia into the District.
The design work for the project was awarded by the BID to architectural firm Beyer Blinder Belle last February after a competitive bidding process. The implementation plan is designed to phase in gateway elements at various sites during 2018.
The K Street entrance will probably be the first to be implemented, since work is still needed on the others, Scott said. Because the M Street signage will be placed on National Park Service property, the NPS approval process must be followed before submitting the design to the Old Georgetown Board for review. The Key Bridge signage must pass through a District Department of Transportation review process before going to the OGB.
Progress on the gateways project will be reported on the Citizens Association of Georgetown website and at Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E’s next meeting on April 30.
The unremarkable K Street entrance into Georgetown is set to get some kind of signage. Google Maps.
