Eco Park competition - First place winner

The much debated Hollywood Gateway Park has finally seen a winning design.

The park, which is located at 4703 Edgewood Road is an approximately 6,800 square-foot lot at the intersection of U.S. Route 1 and Edgewood Road.

Zoned as Commercial Shopping Center (C-S-C), the City purchased the property using Program Open Space funds and plans to redevelop the site as an eco park and gateway to the Hollywood neighborhood.

The City worked with students in the University of Maryland’s Landscape Architecture program to develop design alternatives for the site through a competition and nine student teams prepared drawings for the site.

NCPCA approved the concept of the park design in 2009 and hosted the designs in last April.

You can view the drawings here.

The top 3 designs winners are: (1) Drummond (2) Laura Nic Sarah and (3) Aroom. Congratulations to all of them.

The resident design committee is still considering these proposals and other ideas submitted by residents to come up with a proposal.  The proposal will be available for review by the community and will be up for public discussion at a Council meeting sometime in the future.

The Council will decide tonight’s council meeting if it should spend any fund for the project this year. The City The staff’s recommendation was to allocate approximately $86,000 to allow for completion of the Hollywood Gateway Park, and the remaining amount (approximately $88,000) to be allocated to the Duvall Field renovation..

Council member Chris Nagle thinks it’s a “total waste” to spend funds on the park. She wants the entire POS fund be allocated in renovation of the Duvall Field.

Ms. Nagle counterpart in District 1 Patrick Wojahn disagrees. He thinks feel that the project should receive sufficient funding to enable a contractor to follow through on the design of the resident committee. “Although I understand that Councilmember Nagle opposes the Hollywood Gateway Park project, I feel that the resident sentiment, with considerable discussion, has been to move forward with the Gateway Park project.” – Mr. Wojahn said. He plans to introduce an amendment to Councilmember Nagle’s proposal to proceed with staff’s recommendation.