15-year Fort Smallwood Park renovation nearly complete

A project to renovate Fort Smallwood Park, a former military site turned public beach, is nearing completion after about 15 years.

Though Anne Arundel’s Department of Recreation and Parks drew up plans for the project in 2009, acquiring the funding for the $15 million project dragged out the process, said Anne Arundel Recreation and Parks Director Jessica Leys. After restoring the shoreline and rehabilitating the beach in 2022, the next phase of the project is set to be done at the end of this month.

That includes sprucing up a historic concession stand, creating more parking and rebuilding restrooms with showers and changing rooms.

“This is one of our most popular regional parks,” Leys said, adding last year there were nearly half a million visitors.

Once the site’s historic barracks are turned into a visitor center, which the department aims to finish by Memorial Day next year, the entire project will be done.

“Then we will be completely renovated at Fort Smallwood,” Leys said. “It only took 15 years.”

Fort Smallwood, named for Major General William Smallwood, a Revolutionary War veteran and the fourth governor of Maryland, was built between 1896 and 1904. It was one of four fortifications created on the Patapsco River during the Spanish-American War by the federal government, said Fort Smallwood Park Superintendent Kevin Keller.

Forts Smallwood, Howard, Armistead and Carroll formed a network of barriers to protect Baltimore from perceived imperialist threats from Spain. By 1927 they were deemed unnecessary and Baltimore City took over the park from the federal government.

In 1931, Baltimore opened it as a public park and operated it until 2005 when Anne Arundel starting leasing the property and operating the park the following year.

Fort Smallwood Park is about 90 acres located where the Patapsco River meets Rock Creek. It includes a fishing pier, playground, boat ramp and a pavilion.

Of the 533 miles of shoreline in Anne Arundel County, the vast majority is private, making public beachfront a hot commodity.

That’s why the project is a major win in the eyes of Lisa Arrasmith, chair of the Anne Arundel County Public Water Access Committee.

“We are all paying to clean up the bay and we should all be able to enjoy it,” Arrasmith said.

And that cleanup appears to be making a difference. Reports from The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science have shown improvement in the health of the bay over recent years. Ernie Dimler, a Sunset Beach resident who has lived on the water nearly 30 years, said he’s recently even started to see bay grasses regrow.

For him, Fort Smallwood is a nostalgic spot. It’s where he taught his now 22-year-old son, Andy, to be a good environmental steward during his childhood. The two would clean garbage off the beach as they searched for seaglass near the boat ramp.

“We don’t own nothing in life,” Dimler said. “We’re just caretakers for like 80 years or however long the Lord gives us.”

Dimler hopes the new and improved beach might inspire lessons of environmental preservation in other people who visit.

He, for one, plans to be out on the sand with a hot dog in one hand and a Coke in the other from the new concessions stand when this phase of renovations is complete, which is planned for May 22 ahead of Memorial Day weekend.

Fort Smallwood is one of three public, county-run swimming beaches. The other two are Beverly Triton Nature Park and Mayo Beach Park. All three have undergone renovations in recent years. A shoreline project at Mayo Beach is expected to be complete around early summer, though the beach is already open. Meanwhile, a ribbon cutting was held last year to unveil a five-year, $6 million restoration project at Beverly Triton.

“If it’s going to bring commerce to the area, and it’s going to bring foot traffic and people come to the beaches and they see our houses and we get more people wanting to buy our houses and our property value goes up. I think it’s a beautiful thing,” Dimler said.