Powhatan Springs Park

About Powhatan Springs Park

Powhatan Springs features a concrete skatepark, public restrooms, drinking fountains, and lockers, Next to the skate park, visitors can find a stream (Should your dog play in the stream?), a rectangular grass field (for youth use by permit only) complete with goals, and an ornamental rain garden and a fountain. The Rain Garden was designed by Oculus along with artist Jann Rosen-Queral. The site combines a children’s learning experience and a bioretention area into a single element of the park. Bioretention cleans stormwater runoff through a man-made wetlands or “rain garden.” The flow and collection of rainwater is exposed and animated to emphasize collection and placement of water into the bioretention system. The stormwater collection system also provides interactive fun for children.

• Water vessels collect water from the roofs of park buildings and release water a drop at a time creating a trickle of water for days after rainfall.
• Water Pump and Water Flume. A water storage tank is installed beneath the bioretention area. Rainwater fills this tank. From this tank, water is pumped into a flume which runs through the nature area to the stream. Children can place objects in the flume and watch as they float downstream.
• Wetland Plants and Stepping Stones have been placed in the bioretention area so children can hop from stone to stone and touch, see and smell the wetland plants.
• Raindrop System. Drops of water are released and fall from pipes on the restroom building a few minutes every hour on the hour. Children can play in the water drops, collect them or run through them. A minimal amount of water will be used to maintain the wetland plants.
• Wall Embedments. The concrete wall surrounding the Children’s Nature Area is embedded with long pieces of wood that will decay and leave behind impressions.
• V-Ditch leaf impressions, jade river pebbles, copper bits from parking lot to rain garden

Construction of the rain garden was made possible by a grant from the Kiwanis Club of Arlington.

The park is named after a spring in the southeast of the park, itself named after Chief Powhatan, a Native American chieftain from the Tidewater area, whose rule extended as far north as Arlington.