What Will Haymarket's Washington Street Park Become? The Answer Firms Up This Winter

Who decides what the playground, reflection circle and community garden on Washington Street turn into? Until November 13, Haymarket residents have a real say. After that, the design moves to a stage where there is much less room to change it.

The Town of Haymarket is designing a permanent Haymarket Community Park on what it calls the Harrover property, at 14710 and 14740 Washington Street. The site covers three parcels and 4.35 acres. Today it holds a playground, a reflection circle, a community garden, a garage and storage building, and a Little Free Library. The land has served as a park for years. What's new is that the Town is now settling what kind of park it will be for good.

A homestead the Town bought to keep open

The site's history explains why it feels a little improvised. The Town's August 2026 Community Park presentation includes an aerial timeline. In 1989, a house and its outbuildings sat in the wooded middle of the property, surrounded by mostly open, semi-rural land. By 2002, large-scale grading and construction had started just north of it, and new neighborhoods were spreading north and southwest of Washington Street.

In 2005, the Town bought the two Harrover properties "to preserve a portion of Haymarket's diminishing open space." The purchase also left room for future public buildings if the existing Town facilities ever became inadequate. At the time, the land was still a wooded home site with development closing in on all sides. Over the next two decades, the neighborhoods around it filled in, and those trees became a green pocket in the middle of town.

The Town considered a government center on the site at one point. Its earlier master plan records that the intended public use moved away from that idea and toward a park. The playground, garden and reflection circle there now grew up while the land waited on that decision.

The 2015 plan set the starting point

The Harrover Property Community Park Master Plan carries a cover date of December 29, 2015, and a printed Council adoption date of January 4, 2016. That study weighed three directions, each with a concept-level cost estimate from 2015:

These figures are more than ten years old and are not a current budget. They show the range of what the Town considered, from an outdoor park with event space to a building with a fitness component.

The adopted plan called for a multi-use pavilion, a lawn amphitheater, a playground, trails, picnic and passive recreation areas, and a hilltop green. It also called for reusing one existing home on the site and removing another that had once served as a police station. The public input behind it pointed the same way. At a 2015 stakeholder forum, a community park, center, garden and playground ranked near the top, along with an open-air amphitheater and events. One group also suggested a pavilion, an ice rink and concerts.

Before starting the current work, the Town Council agreed in July 2025 to keep preparing a request for proposals for civil engineering across the whole park. The first step would be reviewing and reaffirming the Harrover master plan, followed by preliminary and final engineering. A Town Manager memo dated August 25, 2025, described the work as design services for the Harrover property and listed the Town of Haymarket as the funding source. The 2026 design builds on that decade-old plan. It is not starting over.

What the 2026 presentation puts on the table

The August 2026 presentation lists proposed program elements in two groups.

Pavilion and restroom structure

• ADA restrooms, including an ADA family restroom
• A concession offering pre-packaged snacks and beverages
• A picnic shelter
• A gathering space
• Storage

On-site parking

• One parking space per acre, including ADA parking
• Bike parking

One space per acre on a 4.35-acre site works out to just a handful of spaces. With bike racks included, that points to a park built for people who walk or bike in from nearby neighborhoods and the town center. A park sized for people arriving by car would look different.

The presentation also shows a page of possible activities. These include rain garden and bioretention education, picnic areas, open-lawn picnics, wooded seating, a wooded path, movies in the park and concerts on the lawn. The playground ideas lean toward nature play, including a hillside slide, water play, log climbing and balance features, rope play, boulder play, a nature agility course, sand play and wooded play. The ideas pages go on to public art and amphitheater seating.

All of these are labeled as potential elements. None of them has been approved. Even so, the outline is familiar. A pavilion, lawn events and a playground set among the trees match what the 2015 forum asked for. The 2026 list stays close to 2015's Alternative A, the "Central Park with Gardens & Event Venues," and does not include the community center buildings from Alternatives B and C.

The calendar narrows fast

The presentation splits the design into four phases. Phase 1 covers site analysis and a potential park program. Phase 2 produces two concepts. Phase 3 picks a final concept. Phase 4 covers final design and approvals. Here is how the Town's planned dates line up:

The order of those dates is what matters. Survey #2 runs while the project is in its two-concepts phase, between the 20% submission and the 80% submission. The next round of public input, Survey #3 and Community Meeting #3, comes only after the 80% design has been submitted on December 4. By then, the big decisions about what goes where, how large the pavilion is and what kind of playground gets built will mostly be settled. Later rounds can still refine the design, but they come too late to change its basic direction.

That makes November 13 the practical deadline for anyone who cares whether the lawn is big enough for a concert, or whether the playground keeps a wooded feel. The Town calendar set Community Meeting #2 for Sunday, October 25, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The survey is scheduled to stay open until November 13, nearly three weeks after that meeting.

These are the Town's planned dates from August, and schedules for public projects often shift. The presentation does not give a construction date. The cost estimate is due at the Council review on March 1, 2027, so any construction budget comes after that.

Two addresses, one project

The park itself is at 14710 and 14740 Washington Street. The community meetings are held at 15000 Washington St. #100. That's the same address the Town calendar lists for the farmers market, which has Sunday dates on November 1, 8 and 15 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. If you come for the market on November 1 or 8, you can walk down Washington Street afterward and see the park site before you fill out the survey.

The Town's Town Park page and the main Town website are where updates on the project are posted. The full August presentation includes the site analysis, the current-uses map and the timeline above, so you can look at the same material the design team is working from before you send in your answers.

Andrew Capuano has lived in Prince William County for years and follows projects like this one because they shape what everyday life in Haymarket looks like. If you have questions about what's planned for Washington Street, or about the town center around it, Andrew R Capuano is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.