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By Terry Galvin
Georgetown University, which has had a rowing team for nearly 150 years and has worked on building a boathouse on the nearby Potomac River for at least 50, has secured riverfront land for one.
The agreement announced June 10 between the university, the National Park Service, and the District of Columbia follows decades of work with the overlapping jurisdictions that control parts of the Potomac waterfront to agree on a location and a somewhat complex land swap to make it available.
The agreement shifts control of four parcels of land on the district’s side of the river:
1 — The university will donate one parcel to the National Park Service to allow uninterrupted use of the Capital Crescent Trail.
2 — The Park Service will transfer control of two parcels at the base of the Francis Scott Key Bridge to the District.
3 — The District will transfer one of those parcels, one just west of the bridge, to the university for a boathouse.
4 — The District will develop the fourth parcel involved in the agreement, on the east side of the bridge and adjacent to the existing Georgetown Waterfront Park, to improve public access to the Potomac River and to the Capital Crescent Trail.
The boathouse will serve the university’s men’s and women’s rowing teams, giving them a home of their own for the first time since an early one was washed away by a flood in the late 19th century. For decades the teams have been based in the Thompson Boat Center (TBC). TBC, a mile west on the river from the Key Bridge, is also where the crews of George Washington University, 13 high schools, and two master’s programs store their equipment and launch. The university pointed out that its teams’ move from TBC will provide more space for others there.
“This collaborative effort, which has been underway for decades, will create a special space for the Georgetown rowing community and will usher in a new era for public access to the Georgetown waterfront,” Robert M. Groves, interim president of Georgetown, said in a news release.
Planning, design and permitting work will follow now that the site has been secured.
TBC and the parcel west of the bridge, where the new boathouse will be, are operated by a Park Service concession, Boating in DC, which rents out kayaks and other small craft without motors. The concession to be displaced by the new boathouse will move to a nearby location to be determined later, according to a university statement.
Another neighbor of the new boathouse, the 156-year-old Potomac Boat Club, welcomes the boathouse development, which will be on the other side of three townhomes from PBC, boat club president Lena Wong said.
Georgetown Coach Emeritus Tony Johnson is a PBC member, she pointed out.
“We have supported Georgetown University and Tony’s vision of getting the school’s boathouse for well over 40 years,” Wong said.
The Washington Canoe Club, built in 1905, is about 400 feet east of the PBC.
The new Georgetown University facility and a planned boathouse on the Arlington side of the river both will help relieve the pressure on facilities caused by the area’s growing population and popularity, Wong said.
In addition to housing the Georgetown crew teams, the new boathouse will provide rowing programming for the local community. The public will be able to use its docks to launch their own canoes, paddleboards and kayaks, according to the university.
The boathouse’s construction cost will be funded by private donations, the university said.
