Planning and Design
THE PROJECT
The Village of Royal Palm Beach sought to redevelop a defunct golf course into a 163.5-acre regional destination offering a variety of outdoor recreation opportunities. Part of the acreage was set aside for future development, such as a horticulture center, an arts center, a dog park, a senior center, and an amphitheater.
Erdman Anthony was selected to serve as lead consultant directing the efforts of the golf course designer, landscape architect, and architect, and guided the internal civil engineering efforts.
FEATURES/SOLUTIONS
The finished project included:
- A nine-hole golf course (currently being used for disc golf)
- Kayak, biking, and hiking trails
- A sports center with meeting space, shops, and a café
- A great lawn with picnic pavilions, playgrounds, and sand volleyball courts
- An interactive fountain
Design services included grading for the site, including the water bodies, which were intended to support aquatic plants. The project included irrigating the site with surface waters, requiring the preparation of a water-use permit for the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD).
Our firm also prepared utility plans to provide water distribution, fire protection, and sanitary sewer collection, including a pump station and pretreatment grease traps. The design included addressing potential uses for the outparcels slated to be developed at a future date.
IMPACTS
Erdman Anthony prepared a soil- and groundwater-management plan to address issues from the previous golf course use. The plan included the following elements: containing the contaminated soils under landscape berms or impervious surfaces, thus removing the source of groundwater contamination; construction of lakes, converting much of the contaminated ground water to surface water, which has a higher allowable concentration level; and institutional controls so that no potable water wells are installed at the site.
We also prepared a dewatering plan for the construction effort and processed the construction dewatering permit through SFWMD, which involved close coordination with the contamination cleanup effort.
PUBLICATIONS
https://www.concreteconstruction.net/projects/infrastructure/polluted-golf-course-to-regional-attraction_o
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Sustainable Design Impact
The project resolved an environmental issue in the neighborhood with the implementation of a soil and groundwater management plan that isolated contaminated soils in safe locations and monitored concentration levels of contaminants in groundwater before, during and after construction.
The project uses surface waters for irrigation of the large green areas of the park thus eliminating the need for potable water for irrigation purposes.
The surface water management system not only addresses flood control but also provides water quality treatment for the site by detaining the runoff in the large lake system where nitrogen, phosphorous and other nutrients are removed in the littoral zones and permanent pool and where suspended solids are allowed to settle.
Due to the site’s improvements, additional parking at the park was necessary, particularly during seasonal events. Our firm provided extra services to the village to design the additional parking lots, and the parking spaces were designed with a grass surface to contribute to the sustainability of the facility while meeting the infrastructure needs.
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