Revisiting stories: rooftop recreation and sports facilities in cities

Obviously, for a long time there have been rooftop pools at hotels and apartment and condominium buildings.

Many years ago, I mentioned a rooftop football field for a space constrained high school in New Jersey.

And I have written about how parks and recreation planning often under-considers very dense areas and fails to plan for recreation space, which can be part of mixed use multi-story projects.

These points likely influenced my writing about this in the context of Silver Spring, Maryland, the conurbation located on the northern border of DC, where the high cost of land makes providing "a recreation center" difficult.

The County was aiming for an arena.  And Montgomery College separately has a recreation center.

Tennis courts on top of a building in San Francisco


Athletic field on top of a high school in Union City, New Jersey


Rooftop basketball court, Flamingo South Beach Tower, Miami


And I argued not only should they be combined, and could be built on top of a parking garage like the County's RFP suggested, but that athletic fields could be built on top of other parking structures, since there are so many.

-- "Creating the Silver Spring/Montgomery County Arena and Recreation Center

Photo by Dan Swartz for Washingtonian. 

The smallish Washington Kastles tennis stadium on top of DC's Union Market is the first example in the area of how it can be done ("Here’s What It’s Like to Watch Tennis on Union Market’s Roof," Washingtonian Magazine).

The team had a facility on The Wharf and was supposed to go to a new facility there, but I guess the very short season for professional team tennis didn't make it work out. 

After their previous facility was closed, they shifted to indoors.  With the rooftop tennis court in Northeast DC, now they go back to the outdoors.  And the facility could be used for multiple purposes in the other almost 11 months that the Washington Kastles don't play.

I can't claim they got the developer, Edens, got the idea from my 2017 article, but it's nice that a firm committed to best practice does best practice, instead of me just writing articles imploring people to think bigger.