MAYAGUEZ PARQUE DEL LITORAL

Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, USA
Local Office Landscape Architecture and Urban Design

Parque del Litoral, or Parque Litoral Israel “Shorty” Castro was built after Mayagüez was selected to host the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Games. Though it was proposed for the games, the park was intended to be the main design legacy for the city, directly facing the Mayagüez Bay, and connecting the central business district and proposed sports facilities. The project is a 1.5 mile linear park that was previously the site of seven storm sewer outfalls that had caused degradation across the reef within the Bay. The landscape architects challenged the traditional role of civil engineers in building infrastructure stormwater solutions, and instead lengthened the flow of the river by creating the park parallel to the coast. The stormwater flows through the site, which includes wetland and dune habitats, before it filters out to the sea. The habitats created throughout the project are drawn on Puerto Rican plant communities, including fresh, brackish and saltwater ponds, meadows and dry upland forests. Each of these habitats function as a treatment cell that performs a specific function in the filtration of stormwater. In addition to the ecological considerations, the park was required to host the games and their accompanying spectators, while serving the community into perpetuity. To accommodate the influx of visitors, the landscape architects built permeable pavement parking lots that were immediately retrofitted after the 2010 games as playgrounds, skate parks and community gardens that were prepared as ready-made kits to install. The project was significantly tested during Hurricane Maria in 2017, when it performed as designed to flush water through the park into the city.

2006
494 acres
11 feet above sea level

References:

Links: