Our friends over at the Urban Environment League Blog have been doing a great job of covering the latest on the Virginia Key Master Plan. Check out the complete May 20 presentation here. Given the upcoming Planning Advisory Board vote, I thought to highlight some of the good and not-so-good aspects of the plan.
The Virginia Key Master Plan is divided into 7 areas: the Fishing Pier, the Marina and Sports Stadium Basin, the Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area, Rickenbacker roadway changes, the Regional Active Recreational Area, Shrimper’s lagoon and a coastal hardwood hammock restoration, and Northpoint Recreational area.
As you can see from the aerial above, most of the key is comprised of natural areas that surround a WASD plant. The large area of recreational fields to the south of the water plant is part landfill/part impacted mangrove habitat.
The pedestrian connection under Rickenbacker looks nice, as do the improvements to the marina.
Regional Active Recreation Area
The Recreational area is over-programmed as a Regional Recreational facility. If anything this area begs for environmental remediation, and passive uses such as nature trails. Apart from the 7 multistory parking structures arranged haphazardly around areas called ‘mangrove habitat’, it looks like the planners had their way with the baseball field/tennis court template.
Basin Area Properties
This area has great possibilities, but in its current form is still off. With the recent push to make the Marine Stadium a historic landmark, the plan rightfully uses the stadium as an entry focal point. The big problem with the area is not the size of the development, but the tenuous relationship between the buildings and the public space they try to form. The development fails street-side by turning its back on the Parkway, rather than having an active street-front with shops that hide the parking and provide a destination for pedestrians.
The ambiguous public realm continues once past the entrance as you veer off of the main axis to enter a circular open area. A simple rearrangement of the structures around the park would yield a much better definition of public space, while also creating active places people will want to visit.
I hope the Planning Advisory Board and City Commission both think carefully before adopting this plan. EDSA Planners and city officials should take a ‘less is more’ strategy with Virginia Key, and let nature do most of the heavy lifting.
Related posts:
4 Responses to Virginia Key Master Plan: A Closer Look
Leave a Reply
Contact Us!
Planetizen – Urban Planning, Design and Development Network- Toward a Universal Subway Typology May 16, 2012Brandon Keim explores the fascinating findings detailed in a new paper, which shows that the world’s major subway systems appear to be organically converging on an ideal form.read more […]
- Should the Bay Area Have Four Million More Residents? May 16, 2012Noting the Bay Area's relatively slow growth rate over the past two decades, Timothy B. Lee argues that the area's "bad housing policies" are harming business growth and investment opportunities in Silicon Valley.read more […]
- What Does "Creative Placemaking" Look Like? May 16, 2012Launched one year ago, ArtPlace works to accelerate creative placemaking by making grants and loans. So what does that actually look like on the ground? A new video from ArtPlace gives a glimpse of what they've accomplished so far. read more […]
- Cities Fight Over Shrinking Convention Pie May 16, 2012Despite a dramatic decline in the number of, and attendance at, conventions nationwide, cities across America are investing their limited resources in building and upgrading convention centers. Fred A. Bernstein explores the irony.read more […]
- What Are (Realistic) Options For Federal Transportation Funding? May 16, 2012With the unlikely possibility of the Congressional conference committee agreeing to a new transportation bill, much less an agreement to address the decreasing gas tax revenues to the Highway Trust Fund, Kathryn Wolfe looks at the remaining options.read more […]
- The Dangers of Walking While Poor May 16, 2012Low income people are more likely to get hit by cars. Kate Hinds reports on the social and infrastructural factors responsible for the disparity.read more […]
- Sprucing Things Up on the Wrong Side of the Tracks May 16, 2012Will French takes a look at the success of Birmingham's downtown revitalization, which – in the absence of a waterfront – embraced its historic railroads, instead.read more […]
- New York's Killer Trees May 16, 2012It sounds like the plot out of a bad B movie, but to the families of those killed and injured by falling limbs and branches from trees in New York's parks and public spaces, it's a real-life horror story that raises questions of municipal liability.read more […]
- Television Series Tackles Weighty Issue May 16, 2012Sarah Henry spotlights "The Weight of the Nation," a new series airing this week on HBO that explores obesity and its enormous economic, emotional, social, and health costs.read more […]
- What's Left for Venice in Its Golden Years? May 16, 2012Josh Stephens muses on the modern state of an erstwhile global capital that has kept its aesthetic charms, but lost its anima. read more […]
- Toward a Universal Subway Typology May 16, 2012
- John.Hopkins's blog
- Curds 'n' waves at Cabot ride sendoff May 13, 2012A few intrepid bicylists pedaled out from Miami's Bicentennial Park on Saturday to start the Cabot Community Tour, a 2,300-mile journey up the East Coast Greenway to Portland, Me. In this pre-ride photo by Suzanne Kores, the long-distance riders are in white jerseys. Cabot, the Vermont farmers' cheese cooperative, held a little fair for them on the […]
- Cyclists ride in Rocafort's memory May 7, 2012Hundreds of cyclists turned out on Sunday to honor cyclist Miguel Rocafort and appeal for the driver who struck him down on March 31 to surrender to police. "We'd like to encourage the guy who hit Miguel to turn himself in," said Eli Stiers, chairman of SafeStreetsMiami, a traffic safety campaign of Green Mobility Network. "It […]
- Ride for Miguel on May 6 April 26, 2012As you probably heard, our memorial ride for Miguel Angel Rocafort was postponed because of Sunday's hard rain Rocafort, of course, was the cyclist who was fatally injured March 31 at SW 137th Avenue and Eureka Drive. The hit-and-run driver who ran him down still hasn't been identified, but there's probably someone out there who knows who it i […]
- Curds 'n' waves at Cabot ride sendoff May 13, 2012
It looks like pavers are being used to designate the crosswalks across crandon blvd. Pavers are unfriendly to pedestrians (trip hazards) and to cyclists.
They might be inconvenient, but mostly to drivers. Pavers are used because of their benefit to pedestrians. They help denote the pedestrian realm better than lines drawn on asphalt, while also slowing traffic down (almost acting as a minor speed bump).
I think some of the pedestrian improvements along Rickenbacker are good (like the paved crosswalks), but I have reservations about the ‘pedestrian bridge’.
Join the Friends of Virginia Key FACEBOOK group. See links, updates.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=88158191391&ref=ts
Tony, I just caught up to this…great post and analysis! GOOD GOD THERE IS TOO MUCH PARKING!