A team from downtown Tacoma-based architecture and design firm BCRA has been named one of two dozen semifinalists for a competition to design the grounds around the Washington Monument.
The National Ideas Competition for the Washington Monument Grounds received more than 500 entries from around the world, it said on its website Tuesday.
Five finalists will be chosen this spring.
However, a spokesman for the National Park Service poured cold water on the announcement later in the day.
Bill Line, a spokesman for the National Park Service, which maintains the National Mall, said Tuesday afternoon that the Idea Competition will have no effect on the grounds around the monument.
The group running the contest “is not at all happy with the National Mall plan that exists,” Line said in a phone interview. “The national mall plan is a finalized document.”
The organizers “may not like what’s written there, but the National Mall plan is an environmental impact statement in which well over 32,000 written – written, not verbal – comments were submitted to the National Park Service by Americans in all 50 states.”
Anyone can invent a contest, he said, but “they have absolutely zero authority to implement anything.”
When asked about that, BCRA spokeswoman Jennifer McKinney was unruffled.
“We did know there was no guarantee that this would be implemented on the grounds,” she said.
Kathleen Cooper, staff writer
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