Title: Georgetown One Step Closer to New Boathouse in Agreement With National Park Service, DC

On June 10, Georgetown announced an agreement with the National Park Service and the District of Columbia that will provide Georgetown with land along the Potomac River where the university intends to build a boathouse.

The boathouse, which will be located at the base of the Key Bridge, will serve as a hub for the men’s and women’s rowing teams. Georgetown will also provide rowing programming for the DC community, and the boathouse docks will be open to the public year-round for canoeing, paddleboarding and kayaking.

For decades, the National Park Service and the District of Columbia government have worked to redevelop the Georgetown waterfront to make it more accessible and promote recreation and other uses of the space.

Georgetown has long wanted to build a boathouse there to serve both its rowers and the larger community. The agreement is the culmination of many years of collaborative efforts involving the university, the National Park Service and the city to identify the most suitable location. Three consecutive university presidents have also been involved in the efforts.

“This collaborative effort, which has been underway for decades, will create a special space for the Georgetown rowing community and will usher in a new era for public access to the Georgetown waterfront,” Robert M. Groves, interim president of Georgetown, said in a press release.

“We appreciate the ongoing engagement with both the City of Washington, DC, and the National Park Service, as well as the leadership of Georgetown President Emeritus John J. DeGioia and Mayor Muriel Bowser, as we move to the next stage of this effort.”

The boathouse would be funded solely through external fundraising and gifts to the university.

Boathouse History

Georgetown’s rowing team traces its roots back to 1876, then a fledgling student-run team that would seek a permanent home for decades. 

Georgetown had no athletics department and the rowing team had no institutional funding at the time, said Patrick McArdle, executive director of athletic relations at Georgetown. 

Students raised $1,100 to build a boathouse on the Potomac in 1877, but a flood washed it away a few years later. In the early 1900s, the team operated out of a former athletic club, ice houses that stored ice from the Potomac River, and even a floating boathouse that sank after a storm.

In 1961, the men’s rowing team received official university recognition and funding; the women’s team followed in 1978. In the decades since, both teams have stored shells in Thompson Boat Center, which also rents space to George Washington University’s crew and other college and high school teams. 

Former Georgetown President Timothy Healy, S.J., who began his tenure in 1976, dreamed of building a permanent home for the rowing teams. 

In 1988, the university acquired one acre of land a mile upriver from the Key Bridge. The land fell within the boundaries of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park, a 184-mile-long park that hugs the Potomac bank into Georgetown. While the site was prepared to store racing shells, the land was deemed impractical for a boathouse site.

For the next three decades, the university worked closely with the District, the National Park Service and community groups to orchestrate an exchange of land and the development of a boathouse, facing regulatory, engineering, ownership and political challenges along the way.  

“I am proud to lead a city that works hand-in-hand with our partners to bring long-envisioned projects to life,” Bowser said. “The new boathouse will be an asset and opportunity for residents, young athletes and visitors alike as the District embarks on our own planning work to increase and improve public access to the waterfront.”

For generations of rowing community members, the boathouse is a fulfillment of “a long-held hope,” said Patrick McArdle, executive director of Athletic Relations.

“It provides stability and a sense of permanence, and it is a reflection that rowing belongs at Georgetown,” he said. “We have a home here now.”

Tony Johnson, coach emeritus of Georgetown’s rowing program, said the boathouse has been a dream for generations of alumni. Johnson, a former Olympian, has served as a Georgetown rowing coach for 28 years and advocated for a boathouse on a committee chaired by President Emeritus DeGioia in the 1990s.

“It’s a dream,” Johnson said. “It’s what we’ve worked for since the program began in the 1960’s. It will be a tremendous boost to the program and add meaning to the whole experience of rowing at Georgetown. We are grateful and happy.”

In the coming months, Georgetown will apply for design review and concept approval from the Old Georgetown Board and Commission of Fine Arts, and will prepare for zoning and permitting processes. This agreement is also set to go before the Council of the District of Columbia for approval.

Under the agreement, Georgetown will donate its land upriver, and an associated easement along a trail, to the National Park Service — a donation that will unlock more public access to the national historic park. The National Park Service will transfer a property to the west of the Key Bridge and a property east of the bridge to Georgetown and the District of Columbia, respectively, to improve public access to the river. Key Bridge Boathouse will continue to operate nearby at a new, to be determined location.