Efforts Aim to Enlarge Kingsman Field

Ms. Wells related the following update about a lot that lies west of Kingsman Field to Marc Borbely, 536 13th St. NE, on Nov. 8. Ms. Wells and others have been trying to get the lot added on to Kingsman Field.

It was pretty much just a dumping ground. There was a lot of illegal dumping up here, because it's pretty hidden, and you can't see when people dump stuff. It's useless space, so we thought, "We don't we just moved the fence back, so that all of this can be part of the field?"

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy, because we had to get an alley closing to do that. Even though this isn't an all-the-way-through alley, technically we had to get the alley closed.

It's taken two years. When you get an alley closed, you have to get all of the utilities — like Pepco and Verizon — to agree that you can close the alley. And then the City Council has to approve the alley closing.

Unfortunately with this alley closing, Verizon held it up for about a year, because they said they needed access to lines here. And it was a long process, but the Department of Parks and Recreation gave Verizon what they call an easement, so they can get access to their lines, and then Verizon dropped their objections.

But the long and the short of it is we're in the final stages; it's been submitted to the D.C. Council; I hope within the next three to four weeks they approve it. When they do, D.C. Rec is gonna come back, and they're gonna take this fence down, here, they're gonna move that fence back; and the field is gonna be about 3,000 square feet bigger.

Now the problem over there [west of the city-owned lot] — we wanted to take all of that and make it part of the alley — but that little square over there is owned by Pepco; it's not owned by the city. We wrote letters to Pepco; we spent two years with their real estate department, asking if they would donate the land to D.C. Rec — so that that whole section would be part of the field — and they would not agree to do it. So we're going ahead with the city's portion.

All of this is just trying to create more green space for children who live in this neighborhood to play, whether they play in organized sports leagues — soccer and baseball — that have games here, or if they just come for casual play any other time. It'll just make the field feel bigger when this section is added on to it. All we're about is just trying to make this field the best thing it can be for our neighborhood.

And everybody is welcome, and we want everybody using it, and we love the basketball court; it just adds one more recreational activity that people have. Once this temporary fence comes down, it's just gonna be a big, wonderful recreation area for our neighborhood. §