[Rendering via dlandstudio.]
After years in the pipeline, work's finally started on Gowanus's futuristic canal-fronting park that will help filter runoff and storm surge before it flows into the Superfund site. Workers are now on site at Second Street on the western side of the canal digging out five feet of toxic soil to make way for dlandstudio's Sponge Park, DNAinfo reports. The soil will be shipped to a location that handles toxic materials, and will be replaced with engineered soil that will absorb storm water and plants that will help filter it. When complete, the 18,000-square-foot park will have metal walkways surrounded by plants. Although the plants won't appear until the spring, the walkways are due to be installed within the next 90 days.
The timing on the park's build-out lines up with the progression of work at Lightstone's massive 700-apartment development that's rising next to the park. Lightstone has funded a canal access point for the Gowanus Dredgers canoe club within the park; at the same time, it's taken dlandstudio several years to cobble together the $1.5 million that it costs to build out this section of the park. DNAInfo says that dlandstudio's principal envisions the Second Street portion as part of a larger esplanade of walkways and green space around the canal.
To the north of Sponge Park, work's also set to begin on the remediation of a fuel depot that fronts on the canal. The Brownfield site that formerly housed the Bayside Fuel Oil Depot Corp. is still littered with 1.5 million gallons of empty, above ground oil storage tanks, a garage, and a parking lot. Some soil will be dug out from the site before the city decides how to proceed with its cleanup.
· Two Gowanus Canal Cleanup Projects Gearing Up [DNAinfo]
· These 5 Futuristic Parks May Transform NYC's Landscape [Curbed]
· Sponge Park Is Actually Coming To the Gowanus Canal [Curbed]
· All Sponge Park coverage [Curbed]
Loading comments...