By Bill Hendrickson, DRCA president
On January 13, the city released the draft report for improvements to the city’s six major parks, including Eugene Simpson Stadium Park (Simpson Park) in Del Ray. I am seeking comments from members about the report, which can be emailed to me or shared in the comments section of this post. We will also have a discussion about the draft plan at the February 10 DRCA membership meeting. The Park and Recreation Commission will hold a public hearing on the plan at its February 20 meeting. I urge DRCA members to testify at this meeting.
The draft plan includes 19 recommendations for changes and improvements at Simpson Park, with an estimated cost range of $3.9 million to $5.1 million. (For all six parks, the estimated cost range is $31.2 million to $39.5 million.)
The priority for implementation of the 19 recommendations is characterized as either medium or high, with a time frame of 3 to 10 years.
Simpson Park was never planned as a park per se but rather evolved over time. In 1953, Eugene Simpson contributed money to build two ball fields, known as Big Simpson and Little Simpson, envisioning a central location for Alexandria sports team to play. The other facilities were added over time in a piecemeal fashion, the most recent of which were the two soccer fields that opened in 2013 in the area previously occupied by the now-rebuilt highway bridge over Route 1.
As a result of the ad hoc way in which the park was developed, it has never functioned as well as it could. Parking is inadequate. Access to and through the park is not very clear. There are drainage issues. Storage containers are visually unappealing and take up open space. Passive areas have not been adequately cared for.
The city staff, after extensive surveying of the community, has devised a plan to tie Simpson together in a more coherent way as well as upgrade the facilities.
The 15-acre park has a variety of core elements: a baseball field and a softball field, two soccer fields, a basketball court, two tennis courts, a dog park, a playground, and demonstration gardens planted and maintained by the Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia. Changes and improvements are being recommended for all of these areas, except for the just-built soccer fields and the gardens, although the gardens could potentially be affected by the proposed widening of a north-south path through the site that is adjacent to the gardens.
All of the above are used or enjoyed by people who live all over Alexandria and even by some who live elsewhere. Many of those who visit the park come for one reason only.
One key weakness of the current park is the lack of quality space for more informal neighborhood use. As the report states, Simpson Park “lacks…a welcoming space to throw a Frisbee, gather for a picnic, or let kids just run around.”
The plan proposes to rectify this by re-grading and improving the landscape in existing open space areas to accommodate multiple passive uses.
The plan would also increase neighborhood use by increasing the size of the playground, adding features for children who are older than five, adding shade and new benches, and better connecting the playground to passive open space areas of the park.
The draft plan can be found here.
Rather than email Bill directly ( and leaving him the all the work), I suggest we share our thoughts & comments with the broader audience by posting online.
Who knows – posting as a discussion may spark some great ideas!
Cheers – Amy
I understand that parking is at a premium around here, but it seems a lot of the funds are going towards parking lots and car accessibility. Instead, connection trails and entrances that branch into neighborhoods would be my choice. Encourage walking or cycling to places. Provide some incentive to do so, whatever that my be in physical form (beautiful entrances accessible via walking or free locked parking for bikes, akin to the storage racks for the bike shares). I hate how cluttered everything is now with cars, and I would rather see that money go towards more green space and less blacktop.
Also, the dog park at Simpson is a joke. It’s large, but as mentioned in this draft, no shade, no grass, eroding, etc. Also, the fence is bad. I’ve seen more than a few 15-25 lb dogs scuttle through gaps in the fence. A seperate dog park for smaller dogs would be nice as well. Too many large dog owners use that park and sit there while their large dogs are being held back by the small dog owners whose dogs are being beaten up on. It works in Shirlington very well.
I do appreciate the effort to make the parks modern and accessible though.
I think it is great that the city is investing in improving all of its parks. I have looked over the changes proposed for Simpson Park. I have a question related to the proposal to expand the parking lot adjacent to the basketball court and dog park – How many additional parking spaces will the expansion provide? There is currently some passive park space and a couple of picnic tables in the area that will be replaced with a parking lot. It would be a shame to get rid of them to add parking spaces unless it is a significant number of parking spaces. Having said that, I am torn over adding additional parking spaces – the Mayor even said that we need to get out of our cars. Adding parking isn’t going to help with that.
Second, the proposal for the dog park is to create terraces along the slope. It may be better to regrade the slope. The dogs may tear it up the terracing material or be at increased risk of injury. If the slope were made less steep, the issue would be solved – especially if the city could remove the rocks and broken glass that keeps surfacing as that hill erodes.
There is a swale proposed along the dog park, but it is unclear if that swale will be in the dog park or outside of it. Anything that might cause pooling of water in the dog park should not be located in or near the dog park.
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