Whether you visit Rock Creek Park’s Nature Center to pick up a trail map, attend a ranger program, or say hello to Pokey the Turtle, the National Park Service (NPS) is working to enhance your experience at this Washington, D.C. destination.
The NPS has approved a plan to improve the Nature Center complex, which includes the Nature Center and Planetarium, Horse Center, maintenance area, picnic areas 13 and 14, and a network of pedestrian pathways and trails. The plan proposes changes that will enhance the visitor experience while protecting the park’s natural and cultural resources.
The approved plan allows for the following improvements:
* Redesigning and expanding the Nature Center to improve accessibility, increase spaces for visitors and large groups, create a protected outdoor classroom space, and address flooding issues.
* Improving the Horse Center by repairing riding surfaces within the indoor riding ring and outdoor turnouts, constructing two new horse turnouts, and adding public viewing areas and educational exhibits.
* Improving pedestrian connections by constructing new paved paths and unpaved trails.
* Repairing current paths and providing new directional signs.
* Repairing the picnic shelter and constructing restrooms at picnic area #13.
* Upgrading the planetarium by expanding its size, increasing accessibility, improving the dome to allow for better resolution of planetarium projections, and installing new seats, lighting and electrical and HVAC systems.
* Relocating the historic Miller Cabin from its current location in a floodplain near the east bank of Rock Creek to picnic area #14.
* Rehabilitating maintenance buildings to improve functionality for park maintenance operations.
Park managers plan to implement these actions incrementally as funding becomes available through a combination of appropriated funds and partnerships.
A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) was signed on May 31, 2019 by acting National Capital Regional Director Lisa Mendelson for the Nature Center Complex Development Concept Plan/Environmental Assessment (Plan/EA) for Rock Creek Park. The FONSI is the decision-making document for the project, and it determined that the project will have no significant impacts. The FONSI and the Plan/EA can be found at: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=67384.
Tags: ea environmental assessment rock creek park nature center horse rehabilitation
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
