Holifield Park is an existing 16-acre neighborhood park located adjacent to an elementary School and an abandoned Tank Farm site. The City of Norwalk recently purchased 15 acres of the Tank Farm site with hopes to expand Holifield Park and offer more programs and outdoor recreation opportunities to the surrounding community. EDGEland worked with the city to develop program options that were based on neighborhood outreach which resulted in a strong desire to have more baseball fields and an event area to host seasonal civic festivals and programs. The resulting design expanded the parks 2 baseball fields to 8 fields that range in size to offer baseball opportunities to all age levels.
Additionally, the park’s design integrated new playground areas, 15 outdoor fitness stations, picnic gardens, and a drought tolerant display garden. A new 3-acre civic lawn is located along the northern edge of the park next to an expanded parking field. Additional parking areas were added to the south side of the park along with a soundwall and buffer landscape adjacent to the existing neighborhood. All of the park’s programs are connected via a continuous 3/4-mile-long pedestrian promenade that encourages exploration and interaction throughout the park.
In order to deliver this park which is located on an abandoned Tank Farm site, EDGEland worked with soil scientists and environmental engineers to determine the soil condition and ways to mitigate the unfavorable elements (e.g. compaction, nutrients, etc.) to improve the soil performance and drainage profile that included bioremediation strategies.