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Wildflower at King Tide 28 Oct 2019

Wildflower and Silver Palm Park Tracker Update

by Jim Wood

On October 21, 2019 Boca Raton’s design consultant, EDSA, presented their initial Wildflower and Silver Palm Park site plans for approval. This article provides information on the site plans as well as the latest project schedule. Background on Wildflower Park can be found in the article here.

Wildflower Park

The following Wildflower Park graphic was presented by EDSA at the October 21st meeting.

EDSA Wildflower Park Design - Oct 2019
EDSA Wildflower Park Design – Oct 2019

The numbers in the small circles in the above drawing refer to the features in Wildflower Park and are described as follows:

Wildflower EDSA Design Index

At the meeting, residents and City Council members provided comments on the proposed Wildflower site plan. The comments were within the framework of the proposed site plan in the above drawing and included the following:

  1. The design of the buildings should reflect the Mizner architecture
  2. A water taxi stop should be included
  3. A trolley circulator should be included
  4. The playground floor should be soft
  5. The event pavilion should face the larger lawn area, have a stage and have restroom entry/exit on the sides

Margaret Fitzsimmons, the head of the Vision 2020 resident group has been providing valuable, resident-oriented design guidance for the parks. She provided two key suggestions for the Wildflower design:

  1. Vehicle parking, 02 on the above drawing, should be grass or a similar permeable material. Atthe City Council’s request parking has been expanded to 50 spaces. As the above drawing shows, about 50% of the park area is now dedicated to vehicles. Building the parking lot with non-permeable materials limits it’s use for things other than vehicle parking, contributes to heat-rise and doesn’t accommodate good water absorption.
  2. The wall between the Maxwell’s Chophouse property on the corner and Wildflower Park should be removed or lowered in height for vehicle and park user safety reasons.

In addition to park construction a new seawall will be built at Wildflower Park. The following picture illustrates one reason for a new seawall, i.e., at high tides the wall is inundated with water. This will be a non-trivial task as the seawall is 386’ and must accommodate features such as a water taxi stop and soft launch capabilities. It is desirable to have the new seawall completed before construction starts on the rest of the park.

Wildflower lower seawall at peak king tide - 27 Oct 2019
Wildflower lower seawall at peak king tide – 27 Oct 2019

Silver Palm Park

EDSA presented the following drawing for their Silver Palm Park site plan.

EDSA Silver Palm Park Design - Oct 2019
EDSA Silver Palm Park Design – Oct 2019

The numbers in the small circles in the drawing refer to the features in Silver Palm Park and are described as follows:

Silver Palm EDSA Design Index

EDSA explained that the area under the Palmetto Park bridge, 05 on the above drawing, will be leveled and made into an attractive connection between the two parks.

Wildflower/Silver Palm Park Project Schedules

The following diagram illustrates the schedule of major activities to complete the Wildflower and Silver Palm Park enhancement project. Both parks are currently following this schedule and, if the schedule is followed to completion, both parks should be completed sometime in 2021.

Wildflower Park Progress Tracker 10 Nov 2019
Wildflower Park Progress Tracker 10 Nov 2019

Wildflower/Silver Palm Park Naming

The City Council is exploring names for the parks. Ideas are to not change the names, have one name for both parks, etc. Residents are requested to submit their ideas here.

BocaFirst will continue to track and report on the plans and progress of the Wildflower/Silver Palm Park enhancement project.

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