Margaret Pace Park Redevelopment
Edgewater neighbors might have heard about plans to redevelop Margaret Pace Park, maybe from drawings revealed by the City, or perhaps from a Change.org petition that criticized some of the proposed changes.
Since a lot of our neighbors have been asking us what’s going on, here’s the latest. Just over a month ago on August 10th, the City of Miami’s new Parks Director Chris Evans and our local commissioner Commissioner Sabina Covo unveiled plans for a significant re-design of the eight acres, a suggested master plan that’s expected to guide a multi-stage renovation.
Rumors and suggestions about dedicating money to re-making Margaret Pace Park have been floating around the City for years. Four years ago, under a different City Parks director, BNA hosted a very large community meeting that served to bring together residents and park patrons to discuss what they’d like to see.
Because Margaret Pace Park is so popular, and became even more so during and after the pandemic, there are a lot of voices asking for different things to become a focus. Some neighbors want to maximize open spaces, others dream of adding a slew of new spaces for athletic activity, or with a passive garden, or with improved access to the water. There is always some tension in trying to accommodate the park for use by small children, dog owners, active atheletes, and residents who simply want a quiet stroll.
One of the priorities that Commissioner Covo has mentioned is to make sure the park re-design adapts to the increasing heat that Miami will face in coming decades. For years and under the leadership of prior Commissioner Russell, the park has been adapting to sea level rise. That is expected to continue: reinforcing the shoreline before any changes take plan within the actual footprint of the park will almost certainly be Step 1 of any revamp. There seems to be some constituency who would like to have some kind of indoor recreational center built as part of the park footprint, though it is unclear if the majority of neighbors would prefer that.
While the City presented some maps and renderings, and perhaps rolled them out a bit too enthusiastically, nothing is set in stone. Over the next weeks and months, we expect the City, the commissioner and BNA to work to get a sense of what neighbors truly want, and focus on making sure a final plan delivers on that.
Our first move on this will be to ask neighbors what they want, with an online poll we have put together. We will be taking information from this poll and bringing it forward to the City. To take the poll, click here.
We believe the voices of neighbors need to be incorporated into the process. Perhaps they should have been brought in earlier. But it’s a minor hiccup in what we expect will be a multi-year process or at least five or six years, and one we are in time to correct.
Let’s work together as a community to make sure we have the best Margaret Pace Park possible.
