View of Poplar Point from Anacostia Metro. Photo by the author.

“Don’t eat any dirt. And when you get home take a shower,” warned park ranger Jim Rosenstock as he led a dozen residents on a walking tour of Poplar Point this weekend. Despite a flurry of public meetings and development plans in recent years, Poplar Point remains unrealized.

Changes in ownership, pollution, and lack of a consistent vision have hampered efforts to do much with the site. Meanwhile, dumping of toxic materials has contaminated the soil with petroleum, arsenic, pesticides, and other hydrocarbons.

Poplar Point was once a spit jutting into the Eastern Branch that was covered in Poplar trees. Today the term roughly refers to the swath of 110 acres within Anacostia Park that is bounded by I-295 and Howard Road to the south, the Anacostia River to the north, the South Capitol Street Bridge to the west, and 11th Street Bridge to the east. Metro’s Green Line runs about 40 feet beneath the point.

According to the legislation that created Anacostia Park, Poplar Point has historically been planned to be developed as a public park, but that idea has never materialized. Over a period of several decades, ownership of the site has repeatedly been passed between various government agencies, none of whom seem to know what to do with it.

The site hosted the Navy from World War II until the 1960s, and a collection of greenhouses and nurseries operated by the Architect of the Capitol from 1927 to 1993. In fact, many of DC’s street trees come from Poplar Point.

So far, all the major development proposals have fallen through. The most recent was a proposal to build a dedicated soccer stadium for DC United. However, there has been some limited activity there this year, in the form of a new asphalt trail parallel to Anacostia Drive SE. The path can accommodate joggers and bikers, where previously they had to share the road with vehicular traffic.

Photo by the author.

Residents do not seem optimistic that this underutilized piece of land will be significantly improved any time soon.

Currently owned by the federal government, a transfer of Poplar Point to DC has been in the works for years. Before it can happen, the environmental assessment must be completed. Apparently that began in 1997 and is still ongoing.

At a book talk earlier this week with Councilmember Wells and Office of Planning’s Harriet Tregoning, an east of the river resident remarked, “That river is wide and it’s deep; when I read about Manhattan I kept thinking about downtown and northwest, and when I think of Ward 7 and Ward 8, I think of Detroit.”

Out of sight and out of mind to most of the District, development plans for Poplar Point have been a disappointment.