Strengthening Civic Connections Between People, Water and Nature
Metropolitan ParkJacksonville, FL—USA
Civitas’ design, currently in progress, not only weaves together the current fragmented park experience and enhances civic connections, it also creates a more resilient park that can withstand future storms and flooding.
Year
In Implementation
Client
City of Jacksonville Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services
Services
Vision Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Architecture
Project type/category
Civic/Municipal, Parks & Recreation, Plaza, Public Realm, Waterfront
Metropolitan Park is a 15-acre urban waterfront that serves as a multi-purpose, family oriented park. The location of Metropolitan Park is key, as it is a prime site for some of Jacksonville’s most beloved festivities that the current revitalization aims to re-energize. Maximizing its appeal as a year-round destination, the renovated park will align itself with the local NFL team’s home stadium and other components of the city’s $1.1B North Riverfront development.
Metropolitan Park has a rich history of hosting major local events including the Jacksonville Music Festival and Jacksonville Jazz Festival. Civitas’ work will renew and strengthen the 40-year-old park’s year-round energy for these and many other activities and events, while enhancing its purpose and appeal as an everyday destination for outdoor recreation and connection to the river.
Critical to Civitas’ design process is an active community engagement process, which kicked off in April 2024 with the first public meeting attended by more than 80 people. Formatted as an open house event rather than a formal presentation, the intent of this first gathering was to hear what the community needs and wants—to share the project’s initial guiding principles and ask Jacksonville community members to offer input about their past experiences with Metropolitan Park and their priorities for its future. An online survey launched in conjunction with the meeting quickly received hundreds of responses, signaling the public’s growing awareness and enthusiasm for this project.
Three guiding principles emerged from this public engagement, clearly reflecting the community’s desires for the park:
- to be a destination for residents and tourists;
- to include nature is a central experience; and
- to successfully and safely host events of all sizes.
In December 2024, following multiple public meetings, discussions and surveys, Civitas presented to the public a preferred conceptual design. The concept not only weaves together the current fragmented park experience and enhances civic connections, it also creates a more resilient park that draws people in year-round for big events and small moments—whether they’re tailgating for a football game, attending a concert or festival, or simply having a picnic by the river with family and friends. In every case, our goal is to create a more sustainable place that draws people in with better, stronger connections and supports the region’s vitality.
Specific design elements include:
- Performance Lawn: Oriented to maximize visibility and accessibility, this elliptical lawn offers opportunities for a variety of field sports and is large enough to accommodate events up to 13,000 people.
- Tailgate Plaza: Offering a flexible mix of spaces for diverse uses, the plaza and lawn area can host small events, picnics and hillside play.
- Discovery Green: This small lawn is shaded by a grove of mature trees and features a planted hillside interwoven with art and informal play elements.
- Tree Canopy Preservation: Metropolitan Park’s tree canopy is one of its most beloved features, so great care has been taken to protect 63 mature Live Oaks, Maple, and Cypress trees in their existing locations, relocate 14 mature trees that are impacted by design updates, and limit tree removal to 10 existing trees assessed as fair to poor by the projects Certified Arborist—all while raising the park’s grade by two feet to improve its overall resilience.
Braided Riverwalk: This vast naturalized landscape will act as a resilient sponge that captures and treats stormwater and protects the park during large storm events; a system of boardwalks, seating areas and an expanded community dock offers direct connections with the river and a unique experience of this wetland buffer.
Parking Grove: Transforming Bay Street into a park-like experience, sixty new parking spaces are integrated within a grove of trees, and can be converted to accommodate tents, vendors and food trucks during festivals and events.
City of Jacksonville Riverwalk System Vision
The City of Jacksonville is heavily investing in its Downtown Riverfront Parks. With the current construction at Riverfront Plaza, the planned improvements for Shipyards West, and the developer-led construction of the Four Seasons Hotel, Metropolitan Park will add to these exciting investments. The park and its amenities will be updated and modernized to continue its history has an important place for Jaxons to gather.
The redesign of Metropolitan Park aims to integrate the abundant open space, to establish space for intentional use for events and performances, and to serve as an example of both sustainable and functional design.
“You have this oasis, then you have development. It helps those private developments to succeed, and the public investments in the stadium and other things are embellished by having this kind of park space next to them.”
– Lori Boyer, CEO of Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority
