District Wharf Fish Market Washington, DC

Services Provided

Landscape Architecture
Urban Design
Construction Documentation

People Involved

Jonathan Fitch
Joe Chambers
Xibei Song

Located four blocks from the National Mall, the District Wharf Fish Market connects downtown to DC’s Southwest Waterfront while celebrating the durable, hard-working character of this historic place.

The District Wharf Fish Market, located on the Potomac River at the northwestern end of Washington, DC’s District Wharf development, is the oldest continually operating fish market in the US. Landscape scope for the project includes a riverside promenade that connects to the remaining District Wharf development, several plazas for outdoor dining and small gatherings, a new streetscape along Maine Avenue, areas for automobile parking, and a series of shared spaces that accommodate automobile, pedestrian, and service traffic.

The neighborhood surrounding this site was largely demolished during the urban renewal movement of the 1960s.

Since then, the Fish Market has become an important symbol of continuity to the community that was displaced at that time; it is also an indispensable cultural artifact treasured by the entire city. The new development left intact the heart of the fish market – a series of floating seafood barges and associated piers – while incorporating five new retail-oriented buildings, renovating an existing historic building, and reorganizing the pedestrian and vehicular circulation as a series of shared spaces. Service functions for the active fish market were also reworked in order to reduce issues associated with unpleasant smells.

The interweaving of curbless pedestrian and vehicular spaces around and through the buildings work in concert with distinctive planting, site furnishings, and paving materials to create a coherent sense of place.