Jones Point Park, tucked in the southeast corner of the City of Alexandria and stretching down the Potomac River into Fairfax County, is undergoing a face-lift by the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project. But instead of attempting to mitigate the park's age, renovation crews want to highlight the park's role in history. 

The 65-acre park, owned and operated by the National Park Service, closed in November 2010. After $15.6 million in renovations, the park will be ready to completely reopen by June 25.

Due to the park's location under the Wilson Bridge—deemed a critical structure by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—access to the area under the bridge will be limited to parkgoers only. Vehicles will only be allowed to park directly under the bridge after passing a security screening. There will be about one hundred public parking spots north of the bridge.

The park will feature two basketball courts directly under the bridge and two soccer fields on either end of the park. The fields have been grated and irrigated to allow for maximum drainage during rainy periods. The south field used to have a ditch in the middle, but it now crowns and will hopefully remain out of any flooding, according to Wilson Bridge Project project engineer Brad Pittsnogle. 

North of the bridge, a fishing pier and a canoe and kayak launch will sit side-by-side and jut out into the river. Next to the fishing pier, ship finishing pier has been repaired to look as it did when it was used to complete ships during World War I. Just inland from the pier is the ship lawn, designed to give parkgoers an idea of the size of ships built there.

"There are a lot of remains of the structures that were built to support the shipbuilding enterprise," according to landscape architect and NPS point of contact Kate Barrett. Ships were built just south of the present Wilson Bridge in what was known as the shipway and then moved into the river and over to the finishing pier. 

"Once [the ship] was able to be waterborne it would slide into the Potomac and then float over to the finishing pier where it was completed," Barrett said. 

During construction of the bridge, crews unearthed a metal-braced wooden boat rudder. The artifact will be displayed in the park under the bridge.

The park gets its name from Jones Point Light, a lighthouse at the park's southern edge. Constructed and first lit in 1856, the Jones Point Light stands above the old District of Columbia boundary cornerstone set by George Washington to originally establish the southernmost corner of the District.

Over the last year, the lighthouse's interior was remodeled, Pittsnogle said. The structure's front porch was torn down and rebuilt. The roof was re-done with replica chimneys. A shed just west of the lighthouse was recreated, Pittsnogle said, and the NPS will use it for storage. 

Remodeling will allow for the NPS to open the lighthouse's front room on the ground floor, Barrett said. The lighthouse will be handicap-accessible.

"Arrangements would be made on a case by case basis," Barrett said. "Since we don’t intend to staff the park with rangers, it won’t be open regularly." 

The vault containing the cornerstone once marking the District of Columbia's southernmost point will have a second vault around it, and the failing stone wall along the rocky Potomac shore has been rebuilt.

In addition to shoreline stabilization, new trees were planted to compensate for any cut down during construction, and the park's wetland areas were preserved.

As with part of Old Town Alexandria, a portion of the park is an archaeological sensitive land zone. When construction crews work within this zone, archaeologists are present to monitor the operations.

“This whole area was filled in at some point in time," Pittsnogle said, "but the original land mass is a highly sensitive."

If it sounds like a lot history to digest, it is. But the new Jones Point Park has you covered. Twenty historical markers will be scattered throughout the park to educate visitors. A three-panel marker near the entrance will have an overall history of the park, and 17 individual markers will dott the park with information on the finishing pier, lighthouse, cornerstone and more.

Many members of the nearby community are anxious for the park to completely reopen. Barbara Lynch lives on South Lee Street and is a member of the Lee Street Gardens, a community garden club of about one hundred families. Overall, she said, members of the renovation project team have been "very pleasant to work with." Lynch looks forward to having the park completely finished so she can walk her dog.

According to Pittsnogle, the project will be completed by the end of June. No word yet on whether or not there will be an event to mark the completion of the renovations