Instant Urbanism

Site Plan from Developer website

 

View of the currently completed National Harbor
as seen from the meadows of future phases

Sunday I visited National Harbor, a new development on the Maryland side of the Potomac, right outside the DC beltway. Prince George's County is mighty proud to have such a glitzy jewel in its somewhat worn crown, easily able to beat Montgomery County's Bethesda and Silver Spring town centers in "wow". PG County was so eager that it threw several hundred million dollar subsidies at the project.

National Harbor is hard to classify, not a downtown grafted into a suburb like Bethesda Row or downtown Silver Spring. Not even an artificial downtown eventually surrounded by communities like Reston. No, National Harbor is 300 acres of incredible density landed right out there next to rural MD 210 to smallish Indian Head. It is part Las Vegas, part new town, partly Inner Harbor and partly a category of its own.

The National Harbor is the kind of monument that some developers like to erect in their older days. Milt Peterson is the guy who succeeded here where two similar earlier incarnations of big developer dreams, Bay America and Port of America, had failed to get off the ground, or at least, beyond foundations. And the grand gesture also needs art and so Peterson shipped even Seward Johnson's "Awakening" here, the sculpture of a giant digging himself out of the dirt.

Relocated sculpture "Awakening"

Essentially mostly a convention center and resort with its own brand-new instant urban town-center complete with exclusive interstate exit, marina and promenade and thanks to water taxi and a bus stop there is even transit. Roads, the bus and the boat are all tax payer funded initiatives to appease the early opponents of the project. The Potomac outside Woodrow Wilson bridge is impressive as a backdrop for this new stage-set. With the help of huge hotels it also generates it's own instant population which mills around in the three-intersection town grid like so many movie extras dutifully munching the many chain-food offerings.

Things were cooked to the perfection by Sasaki's urban planners following all the new-urbanist recipes. Public spaces emulate everything from Las Ramblas to Harborplace. Unlike in Venice or Barcelona, though, here are plenty of parking garages (10,000 parking spaces are envisioned at built-out for the total 7 million square feet of uses) of course, and the architecture of almost everything is more instant than ancient.

However, the 18 story 2000 room Gaylord convention-resort-hotel complex lording over the development  is truly impressive. Like a Russian doll, it has its own town-center within, basically a replica of the entire National Harbor concept condensed like in a snow dome with a gigantic window to the river and towards Mt Vernon and Alexandria. The 1.6 acre courtyard is covered by a wide span glass roof held up by trusses and tension rods in white steel.  This enforces the nautical theme that brands this "new town" down to a big pirate ship in a large playground. To date National Harbor is the inverse of  the suburb. It has only public spaces and really no private ones to speak of. Not yet. And no beggars, schools, hospitals or gas stations.

A dream place to enjoy like a stationary cruise ship.

Inside the Gaylord covered atrium as touch of Williamsburg

A bit of Harborplace with the main avenue dropping down and opening up to the water

three blocks of las Ramblas are well accepted by folks watching the street life