New grass at Logan Circle is browning and dying months after a federal renovation closed the Ward 2 park, residents say.

The turf trouble surfaced as early as Aug. 4, when the neighborhood blog PoPville reported that freshly laid sod was "already browning in neat rectangles." By Wednesday, Sept. 2, conditions had worsened. Logan Circle resident Tom wrote on PoPville that the park was closed from April through June for a renovation costing millions of dollars, grass areas remain off-limits until the end of October, and there are now "lots of brown turf."

Another reader wrote in the same PoPville update that the grass is dying despite the park still being fenced off.

The park closed in April for the renovation and reopened in June, but roughly 90 percent of the grass areas remain behind snow fencing. According to a reader report, those sections will stay closed until the end of October.

The renovation was part of the Trump administration's "safe and beautiful" initiative for Washington. The National Park Service (NPS) repaved walkways, repaired the circle's statue, installed a new irrigation system, replaced the grass, and added new benches, lights and a water feature, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto said in a post on X on Aug. 5. Pinto called the circle a beautiful gathering space and said she was thrilled by the restoration.

Weeks later, the grass began dying.

CNN reported on Aug. 25 that nearly 300 NPS staffers from the agency's incident management team, normally deployed for wildfires and natural disasters, were sent from parks in California, Alaska and elsewhere to Washington for the beautification push. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took what CNN described as an unusual, hands-on role in the effort. A longtime NPS employee told CNN the political attention to project timelines was "highly unusual."

No official cost for the Logan Circle renovation has been published. Residents describe the price tag as millions of dollars, but no NPS budget figure or contract amount has been confirmed. NPS has not publicly responded to the reports of browning turf.

The de facto dog park area at the circle reopened around Aug. 24, with readers noting small gaps in the fencing. The rest of the grass areas remain off-limits, with an October reopening target that comes from resident reports, not an official NPS announcement.