D.C.'s Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge is a local symbol in a national city

For decades, infrastructure projects in the United States were utilitarian, and nothing more. 

A new generation of infrastructure development, however, takes advantage of its innate opportunities for placemaking and community-building. This emerging paradigm is perfectly exemplified by the Fredrick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C., which opened to the public in 2021.  

“It’s really refreshing and satisfying—after 25 years in the industry—to see [infrastructure] as … a thing you can [now] use to create place,” said Emeka Moneme, president of the Capitol Riverfront Improvement District, in a panel discussion at AIA’s 2024 Conference on Architecture on Wednesday, June 5, “How design of Frederick Douglass Bridge achieved multi-layered community goals.” 

Spanning the Anacostia River in the southeastern part of the city, the bridge connects the more affluent Ward 6 with Ward 8, its across-the-river neighbor that has experienced decades of disinvestment. The new span replaced an outdated swing bridge, the South Capitol Street Bridge, which had stood in the spot since 1950 and provided minimal room for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. Construction on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge started in 2017 after a lengthy planning process. 

Spearheaded by the District Department of Transportation, plans for the new bridge convened architects, city planners, and representatives of both local and federal governments. Ultimately, the goal was to create a waterfront amenity that could aid in longer-term objectives to build a vibrant mixed-income community around the Southeast waterfront. According to press materials from lead designer AECOM, the bridge and its connection to the city’s South Capitol Street Corridor honor Pierre L’Enfant’s 1791 plan for the nation’s capital. 

“Our team at AECOM, as many people know, has a lot of breadth in the kinds of services we provide,” said panel moderator Ryan Horner, AIA, of AECOM. “This was one of those projects where there’s a great overlap between our landscape and our planning studios, as well as our transportation studio and our bridge design, to really come together and bring something really special for the city of D.C.” 

Panelist Anita Cozart, director of the D.C. Office of Planning, touted the office’s 2003 framework plan as the starting point in reimaging what the waterfront could be. “What was really needed was a visioning plan to inspire investment—inspire different thinking about the Anacostia and its orientation to the district,” she said. “We wanted to have not just a place for trade and commerce, but a living waterfront that was resilient.” 

“Substantial transformation” 

Statistics about the Southeast waterfront can look sobering on paper: in Ward 6, the area west of the river that includes the tree-lined streets of Capitol Hill, the poverty rate is 11.7%. In Ward 8, just on the other side, the rate jumps to 57%. This contrast is also borne out in health outcomes: Ward 8 has the lowest life expectancy in the District. However, an influx of new residential and commercial development aims to level the playing field between Ward 8 and the rest of the city. 

Plans for the new bridge had to be formulated in a way that mitigated, rather than exacerbated, existing disparities. Designers prioritized wider pathways for pedestrians and bikers on the new bridge, as well as green space in the form of two oval parks on either side of the river. 

Marcel Acosta, executive director of the federal government’s National Capital Planning Commission, explained that the Anacostia neighborhood has gone through a substantial transformation over the last 25 years, even prior to the construction of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge. Spaces formerly dedicated to public housing, industrial manufacturing, and military uses have been redeveloped for commercial or residential uses or public green space. He described the area as now being “active, vibrant and very people focused.” 

The bridge, the largest-ever public works project in Washington, D.C. at a cost of $442 million, leveraged federal Housing and Development dollars and was championed by Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-NY). 

Honoring Frederick Douglass

You can still visit the carefully preserved home of Frederick Douglass, the formerly enslaved 19^th century abolitionist and social reformer, in Anacostia. As a national figure who was also a resident of Washington, D.C., he provided the perfect namesake for a bridge that aspires to be a local symbol in a national city. Kimberly Manning, another panelist who works at communications and community outreach firm Tina Boyd & Associates, reached out to descendants of Douglass to get their input on the bridge’s design, as well as the four overlook areas that prominently display photographs of Douglass and quotes from his speeches and writing. 

“This man was hugely important to the nation, but he was from this place,” said Alan Harwood, director of urban planning for AECOM. “We wanted the bridge to celebrate his life.” Acosta, of the Capital Planning Commission, said that the bridge “need[ed] to rise to the level of the subject matter.” 

A national model

One of the stakeholders’ goals for the bridge project was to make it a national model for similar efforts that may seek to revitalize a formerly disinvested area or address issues developing in tandem with pollution mitigation, which has been an ongoing effort in the Anacostia River. 

“Thinking about the public spaces and cultural destinations – you want to reinforce the ones that are there, but also bring in ones that are new as well,” said Cozart, of the D.C. Office of Planning. Evidence of the waterfront’s turnaround, she said, is the increase in the number of people of all income levels living in the area. 

“Especially for the adjacent neighborhoods, it was really important that this plan guided investment over 25+ years around the needs that you have related to libraries, recreation centers, all of the kind of civic uses that are really important in addition to retail and entertainment spaces,” she said. 

AECOM was the lead designer for the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge design-build joint venture, in partnership with South Capitol Bridgebuilders, consisting of Archer Western (The Walsh Group) and Granite Construction Inc.