The design team at work planning proposed improvements to Kirk Munroe Park and Fuller Street in Coconut Grove presented its latest plans for both public spaces last week during a community meeting at Miami City Hall.
After a year of community meetings, the proposed redesign of Kirk Munroe Park in Center Grove has arrived at a fully visualized plan – one that bears little resemblance to today’s park with its patchy grass and outdated recreation equipment.
“I think we’re getting really close to saying this is your park,” said Rafael Portuondo, the president of Portuondo Perotti Architects, one of the design firms hired to work with local stakeholders to craft a final plan for proposed park improvements.
The park plan presented by Portuondo and others on Thursday at Miami City Hall was well received by the passionate though smaller-than-usual crowd that attended the third of four planned public meetings.
Residents who attended the meeting also got a first look at a companion design plan for nearby Fuller Street, the popular pedestrian lane that links Grand Avenue and Main Highway, although that plan was greeted with a degree of skepticism.
The proposed plan for Kirk Munroe Park, perhaps best known for its tennis center at Oak Avenue and Matilda Street, incorporates several new features, including butterfly gardens, sun shelters and a garden surrounding the park’s old-growth banyan tree.
Current park amenities, including a hitting wall, a playground and fitness area, will be clustered on the western flank of the park and enhanced.
At the center of the park, the design team is proposing a 6,500-square-foot “Great Lawn” the size of a baseball diamond. The lawn will be framed by the park’s new and existing features, and anchored by a pavilion with tiered seating.
The proposed design plan also includes keystone pathways and park benches, underground power lines on the park’s perimeter, newly resurfaced tennis courts, new trees, and a 30-foot hedge buffer between the tennis courts and Oak Street.
Portuondo said the overall effect will be “picturesque,” a dramatic improvement over what he described as a “sort of haphazard park that’s been there forever.”
The design process for both Kirk Munroe Park and Fuller Street is being led by Allen Morris Company, which plans to build a mixed-use development known as Ziggurat next door to the park, at the corner of Grand Avenue and Matilda. Demolition of the existing storefront properties on that block began last week.
Under an agreement struck this year with the City of Miami, Allen Morris will shoulder $2 million of the project’s estimated price tag of $5 million, manage both the design and construction phases, and cover any cost overruns. The city will contribute $3 million.
As part of the deal, Allen Morris Company also agreed to open up the planning process to the community to arrive at a final design that reflected neighborhood priorities.
Mark Burns, the executive director of the Coconut Grove Business Improvement District (BID), said that mandate for public input has already produced a better design than what was first proposed last year by the developer.
“The original design was beautiful, but I think it did not really serve the community the way that this does – it’s a much-improved design,” he said.
The current design, which emphasizes strategic landscaping and canopy coverage, seeks to replicate the “rustic” feel of Coconut Grove by integrating the landscape elements into the park’s built environment, said Andres Arcila, founder of Naturalficial and another member of the design team.
“The beauty of (the proposed plantings) is that they start sort of crawling over the walls and kind of taking over the built environment and meshing the two together,” he said.
Residents who attended last week’s meeting were largely in agreement with the design team’s efforts, but several sticking points remained.
The parents of young children and the Coconut Grove Elementary Parent Teacher Association once again expressed safety concerns about the addition of multiple park entrances. The park currently has a single point of entry. Design team members said the shift to multiple entries is required under government-mandated safety codes.
Residents also wanted to ensure that the look and feel of the newly enhanced park would be distinct from the architectural styling and landscape features of the company’s Ziggurat development. Spencer Morris, the president of Allen Morris, said it would.
“We were really intentional to hire a completely different architectural team for the park,” he said. “I feel like it’s a completely different space now.”
While the park design appears largely set, the project’s last significant hurdle may be the budget. Allen Morris will need to ensure that the cost of the planned upgrades – for both Kirk Munroe and Fuller Street – fits the proposed budget. Morris said he’s confident that $5 million will be adequate for both components of the project.
In the case of Fuller, those improvements are simpler. The proposed plan would raise the level of the street to match the existing sidewalks, expand those sidewalks, add trees and pavers, and shrink the passage down the middle of the existing street.
Residents questioned whether the proposed design would provide enough space for the public gatherings and events that have transformed Fuller into a public forum of sorts.
Jasper Nelissen, a resident and nearby business owner, suggested Fuller might lose its charm if the public space at the center of the street were to shrink so that the sidewalks on either side could grow. “Where are the tables going to go?” he asked. “I think there’s a danger in (making) it too narrow so that both spaces become unusable.”
Nelissen was referring to the outdoor seating that now lines the street, including tables and chairs placed outside Chèvre, a cheese and sandwich shop that shares a Fuller Street storefront with the Ziggurat sales center opened by Allen Morris Company.
The Chevre tables, which disappeared after the Spotlight asked city officials if they were properly permitted, were back in place this week outside the cheese shop.
Read more: The Great Fuller Street Table Takeover
Asked about their disappearance, Morris said, “We removed them while we’re working through a permitting issue.”
The fourth and final community design meeting is scheduled for Friday, May 15 at Miami City Hall. Allen Morris Company expects to present a final design for both public spaces to the City Commission on Thursday, June 25.
To track the progress of the project and provide feedback, follow this link.
