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.

What most of the people using the park don't know is that the ground under their feet has already failed two engineered fixes, and the city is now designing a third that costs roughly twice what the last one did.

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.

Why a Drainage Fix Needs the City's Slowest Sign-Off

If the geography explains why the erosion keeps returning, the neighborhood's layered history explains why fixing it takes so long each time.

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.

Not everyone in the neighborhood is satisfied with how that process landed. The petition, filed with DGS, pushes back directly against continued objections to the approved design:

The actions of a vocal minority should not replace the fair and full process our community has already undertaken. We ask that the decisions of the majority be respected and that the restoration of Kalorama Park continue as soon as possible.

That's not the language of a routine city maintenance project. It's the language of a neighborhood that treats its three-acre park the same way it treats a Wardman rowhouse facade or a Beaux Arts entry hall: as something that can't simply be redone without public input, historic review, and, apparently, some public disagreement about how much input is enough.

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.

The larger point for anyone who lives near this park is less about drainage and more about pace. Kalorama doesn't fix things quickly, and it doesn't fix them quietly. A hillside that has beaten two prior engineering attempts is now getting a third, more expensive try, filtered through public meetings, an ANC vote, and a historic preservation board that also happens to review additions and facade changes on the houses surrounding the park. If you're trying to read how this neighborhood handles change of any kind, the park is the clearest example running.

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, whether or not anyone nearby knows the ground under the grass has already outlasted two attempts to fix it.

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.