Make no mistake: Any of the finalists in the competition to design D.C.'s 11th Street Bridge Park is a winner. This is the savviest proposal for adapting outmoded infrastructure since the High Line. The four teams that made the grade as finalists to design the thing met the challenge.
The people behind it, namely organizer Scott Kratz, also checked off all the right boxes. In preparing for this stage of the competition, the 11th Street Bridge Park organization has hosted hundreds of meetings (more than 300, Kratz says) with the communities on both sides of the Anacostia River, assembled a first-rate design jury, and earned the support of the National Park Service, the Washington Navy Yard, the D.C. City Council, and others in D.C.'s vast panoply of stakeholders.
