Georgetown’s plan to build its own boathouse west of the Key Bridge cleared a major hurdle Tuesday when the National Park Service released an assessment that concluded the project would not substantially damage the environment.

The long-awaited assessment, which examined the potential effect of the boathouse on the local area, said that it would not pose any serious environmental problems, but also recommended that plans be altered to lower its height in order to mitigate concerns that the boathouse may damage sightlines of the Potomac River.

There assessment will still be subject to a 45-day review period during which the NPS may issue a revised decision, but university officials said that the boathouse has cleared its biggest hurdle and they expect little change in the final report’s findings.

“I don’t know if there is anything that can be said that can cause the Park Service to reconsider the work that has been put into this thus far,” University Architect Alan Brangman said.

The university’s plans to construct the boathouse, which has already received approval from the D.C. Zoning Commission, Old Georgetown Board and the Commission on Fine Arts, had been stalled for months awaiting the findings of the NPS assessment.

Georgetown’s fight for its own boathouse dates back nearly a quarter century. The university’s crew teams currently share the Thompson Boathouse, located two miles southeast of the proposed construction site, with George Washington University and several local high schools.

The report’s findings were based partly on an assessment conducted by EDAW, a landscape architecture firm contracted by NPS. Of three design plans, EDAW’s analysis identified the plan that called for the lowest boathouse as the “preferred alternative”.

The company said the decreased height would help preserve the views along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Towpath, a scenic path near the Potomac River for pedestrians and bikers.

“For viewers standing immediately adjacent to the building at the C&O Canal Towpath … [the original plan] would result in the least impact to views towards the river and the Virginia shoreline,” the assessment says.

Brangman said that the university will reduce the height of the proposed boathouse in accordance with the assessment’s recommendations. The 36-ft, 6-in peak of the preferred alternative is almost 15 feet lower than the height of the boathouse originally called for in the university’s plans.

“Given the agreements that we’ve made to date, there’s no way we could build [the original proposal],” he said. “We got [the boathouse] down as low as we could get it and still accommodate our program,” Brangman said.

Brangman added that lowering the height of the boathouse could be beneficial by lowering construction costs. He said that the boathouse’s cost will be contingent upon new price estimates, which take into the increased price of building materials.

Brangman estimated the total construction cost for the boathouse at $15-$17 million in October.

C&O Canal Association President Robert Perry said that he opposes the university’s decision to construct its boathouse in the C&O Canal National Historic Park.

“We’re not opposed to the university having a boathouse,” Perry said. “It’s just the location.”

The boathouse has also faced opposition from the Washington Canoe Club, which is located adjacent to the Potomac River directly east of the proposed construction site.

Under a deal agreed to in 1998, NPS will swap the parcel where the university plans to construct the boathouse for another piece of land that the university owns a mile up stream. NPS views the upstream site as an important historical landmark, according to the report.

“Potential development at the upstream site could impact cultural resources within the C&O Canal,” the report says.

After the 45-day review period, the university must receive approval for the swap from the National Capital Planning Commission. The swap then requires final approval by Congress following a 120-day review period before construction may begin on the boathouse.

Brangman said that the university is going to wait until it “owns the land outright” before it begins applying for building permits.

Permit approval typically takes three to four months, Brangman said, but could require up to nine months.