[11] Nixon's message provided a new impetus for planning in Georgetown, and in January 1972 the federal government funded a $250,000 study intended to spur zoning changes which would permit large-scale redevelopment of the waterfront.

Even though Georgetown Inland was proceeding with its plans (it now intended to construct two nine-story office towers), the federal study recommended that only mixed-use developments should be permitted on the waterfront.

Under home rule legislation, however, the zoning commission membership would be a chair, vice-chair, and public member appointed by the mayor and subject to approval by the D.C. City Council; the Architect of the Capitol; and the director of the National Park Service.

The final legal development occurred when, on October 17, 1978, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled in Citizens Association of Georgetown v. Zoning Commission of the District of Columbia, 392 A.2d 1027 (D.C.

The Chessie System and Western Development hired GMR Limited, an architectural firm located in Rockville, Maryland, to design Washington Harbour.

This design was a six-story, squat, heavily massed set of buildings (connected by bridges on the upper level) which utilized as much of the development area as possible.

In addition, the NCPC ordered that an environmental impact statement (EIS) be drawn up for the various development and park proposals, a study which would take at least six months to complete.

Nine of the 13 D.C. City Council members sponsored a bill to ban construction on the project until the Federal Emergency Management Agency (which was already conducting a floodplain study of the area) was complete.

The court lifted its order on November 14, concluding that the hearing showed that Thompson's actions had not irreparably harmed the DCHPO permitting process and that the second site visit had been properly held.

The GCA and local rowing clubs opposed these requests, arguing that the boat basin and dock would attract too many powerboats — which would threaten the many kayakers and scullers who used the area.

[51] Contractors rushed to complete the floodgates at the base of the Washington Harbour towers in early November 1985 after the Potomac River, swollen by heavy rains, reached 7 feet (2.1 m) above flood stage.

[57] The facades varied widely: Architect Arthur Cotton Moore said that massed, block-long building lines were necessary due to the need to use as much space as possible.

[57] Thomas Jefferson Promenade ended at the giant elliptical water-dance fountain, which contained a five-story high Greek Revival temple-like tower on the western side.

[59] Architect Roger K. Lewis, writing for The Washington Post, generally praised the structure, calling it an "incredibl[y] diverse, complicated, at times overwhelming architectural collage".

[55] Two years after the project opened, Forgey maintained his opinion that Washington Harbour was a "giant, busy architectural egg", but one "redeemed mightily by its fine urban design".

[64] Architect and Catholic University of America professor Peter Blake in 1987 derisively called Washington Harbour "theme-park architecture in search of an appropriate theme", and found it a "wacky, bizarre assemblage of columns, curves, battlements, domes, turrets, fountains, bollards, bastions, crescents, terraces, gun emplacements, alleys, promenades, boulevards, piazzas and more columns and columnets, plus too many other fantasies to mention or to describe".

[65] Speaking in 1987, GCA board member Donald Shannon called it "a disaster, a collection of junk," and denounced it for being kitschy and for catering to yuppie consumerism.

Roger K. Lewis, a strong critic of deconstructivism, claimed the project has "mildly deconstructivist aspirations" because its architectural elements are fragmentary and arbitrarily grouped.

[69] In the evenings, hundreds of businesspeople, cyclists, joggers, nearby residents, and tourists flooded the complex to enjoy the fresh air, water, and fountain.

[73] Problems with the management of Washington Harbour first became public on October 27, 1987, when the complex's lead restaurant, Warner LeRoy's high-priced and luxurious Potomac, closed without warning.

)[75][76] By the end of October, other anonymous retail and office tenants were complaining to The Washington Post that they, too, encountered high unexpected costs and that Western Development was unresponsive to their complaints about physical plant problems.

[75] Some unidentified tenants also claimed they were misled about the project's operating costs, learning only too late that they did not cover all operating costs nor the real estate taxes; that space was often not finished until six months after the delivery date; that construction errors were not corrected; and that on-site employment (which retailers depended on for sales projections) would be 2,500 people but ended up being only 1,200 people (even though 85 percent of the complex was leased).

[73] Western Development blamed the District government for rising costs, claiming the city had doubled the real estate tax on the complex in the past year.

[75] The rising operating fees caused the Hays Harmon gift shop to close and the owner of Cafe Rose to attempt to sell the business.

[73] In December, Washington Harbour Associates asked a federal bankruptcy court to release Potomac from its lease, so that the complex could rent out to the space to another tenant.

In June 1990, the Japanese exercised their contractual rights and, with the financing from Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, bought out Cafritz's interest in Washington Harbour.

[89] Although Washington Harbour was drawing "huge crowds" every evening and on weekends when the weather was warm,[90] Prudential Real Estate Investors sold the complex in March 2010 to MRP Realty and the Rockpoint Group for about $244.5 million.

[94] On April 19, a $5 million class action lawsuit was filed against MRP Realty on behalf businesses and employees which lost income due to the flood.

[102] In November 2012, MRP Realty announced it was investigating the feasibility of constructing either a six-story, 88-family residential building or a 120-room hotel on the wooded northeast corner of the Washington Harbour property.

The decision to raise the gates is made by the management company, which contacts the National Weather Service's River Desk at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.