By 6:35 on a summer morning, the west side of Kalorama Park already has its regulars. A few dogs work the grass off-leash before the 8:30 cutoff. Someone is on the second lap around the community garden fence, checking whether the tomatoes made it through the heat. Later in the day the bocce court fills, and by early evening the two fenced playgrounds, one for the smaller kids and one for the bigger ones, are doing the after-work handoff that every DC parent recognizes. None of this looks like a construction site. It hasn't for years.

The ground beneath the park has been the subject of two unsuccessful engineered fixes, and the city is now designing a third project with a budget roughly twice that of the last one.

Two Fixes, One Hillside

Kalorama Park sits on three sloped acres at the high point of the neighborhood, near Columbia Road and Kalorama Road NW, and the slope is the whole problem. Water runs downhill off the grass and hard surfaces, and that runoff has been eroding the park's soil, exposing tree roots, and clogging storm drains for well over a decade, according to DC's Department of Parks and Recreation.

The city's first attempt to solve this was built in 2010 and 2011. It didn't work. The general contractor was released from the project, and in 2012 DPR commissioned a report to figure out what had gone wrong and what to try next.

That report led to a second project, run jointly by DPR and the Department of General Services, that started in May 2014 and wrapped in the summer of 2016. It carried a combined budget of roughly $950,000, split between anti-erosion and soil remediation work and plaza and landscaping improvements, according to DGS's own project page. That project is listed as complete.

Except the erosion came back. The current project on the books, called the Kalorama Park Erosion Remediation project, exists to address, in the city's own language, "ongoing issues related to erosion," the same issue the 2014 to 2016 project was supposed to have closed out. Its budget is $2 million, more than double the prior completed fix, and as of DGS's most recent posting the project is still in design, with a construction start date listed as TBD. The design phase began in fall 2025. DGS project manager Saun Cox and DPR project manager Peter Nohrden are named as the current leads, with a firm called Atmos serving as design-build contractor, per DGS's project detail page.

Three attempts at the same three acres is not a bureaucratic quirk. It's a hillside that keeps winning.

How History Shapes a Drainage Project

The project also takes place in the context of the neighborhood's layered history.

Kalorama Park wasn't handed to the neighborhood easily the first time either. The Kalorama Citizens Association spent decades lobbying before the park was formally dedicated in 1949, according to the association's own history of the park. The land underneath the current grassy oval was once the site of a 19th-century manor house that anchored a slave-holding farm, and in 2008 the National Park Service designated the site as part of the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. The city nominated the park to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015, citing that cultural history alongside the archaeological remains still in the ground.

That means a project billed as drainage and landscaping work also has to clear the Historic Preservation Review Board, not just the neighborhood's Advisory Neighborhood Commission. A petition submitted in support of the current renovation lays out just how many checkpoints that process involves: six public meetings, comment collection through email and surveys, a design that was adjusted based on that input, presentation to ANC 1C for approval, and then a separate presentation to HPRB for its own sign-off. ANC 1C's own website still lists "Kalorama Park Erosion Mitigation" among its active agenda items.

A petition filed with DGS supports the approved design and asks that restoration continue.

Those review steps form part of the project’s path toward construction.

What Actually Changes This Year

For anyone using the park right now, the honest answer is not much yet. The project remains in design as of its last public update. The most recent checkpoint was a community meeting on March 26, 2026, focused on stormwater stabilization, with both the meeting and a video recording posted by DGS. No construction start date has been announced.

That doesn't mean the daily rhythm of the park is frozen in place while the paperwork moves. It still runs on the same informal rules it always has:

• Dogs are allowed off-leash between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m., and off-hours use draws a ticket.
• The community garden allots its plots through a lottery, not first come, first served.
• Kalorama Recreation Center staff run a regular calendar of programming, including seasonal parties tied to the calendar year.
• The park remains a stop on DC's Bocce League circuit, and a short walk from the Harris Teeter at Kalorama and 17th.

Whenever construction does start, it will be worth watching how much of that rhythm survives the build, since a $2 million stormwater and landscaping project touching a National Register-nominated site is unlikely to be a quick in-and-out.

For anyone who lives near this park, the current project brings together drainage work, public meetings, an ANC vote, and historic preservation review. The historic preservation board also reviews additions and facade changes on houses surrounding the park. A hillside that has seen two prior engineering attempts is now the subject of a third, more expensive project. For anyone following change in Kalorama, the park offers an example of how public works and historic preservation intersect.

None of that changes what the park is for right now. The dogs still get their two hours. The tomatoes still need checking. The bigger kids and the smaller kids still trade the playground at the same time every evening, as the city pursues a third effort to address erosion beneath the grass.

If you're weighing a move to Kalorama, or already live here and are thinking about what a property near a National Register-nominated park means for your own renovation plans down the line, Jonathan Taylor Group can walk you through what that historic layering actually means at the closing table. Request a Private Consultation.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.