South Battery Park City Resiliency

South Battery
Park City Resiliency

Battery Park City, NY

Services Provided:

Landscape Architect of Record

Supporting landscape resilience in a changing climate.

Photo credit: Battery Park City Authority

As climate change brings increasingly destructive storms to New York, developers and city officials are making far-reaching waterfront infrastructure investments to reduce the risks of future catastrophic flooding. As part of this effort, the Battery Park City Authority sought to increase flood resiliency while preserving access to open space.

The project design includes one half-mile of continuous flood barrier extending south from 1st Place, encompassing the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Wagner Park, and Pier A Plaza and terminating at the existing bikeway at the northern boundary of Historic Battery Park. The project integrates planted berms, engineered flood walls, and operable flood gates into several prominent public open space areas.

Serving as the Landscape Architect of Record, SiteWorks provided design services for paving and hardscape improvements, architectural treatments for flood walls and operable flood gate elements, site furnishings, planting design, site irrigation, and a new 8,000 SF pavilion.

Key Project elements include:

Constructing a 10-foot grade change over nearly 12 acres of the existing urban fabric while providing universal access for the new park and pavilion building.
Installing flip-up flood barriers tucked seamlessly into existing sidewalk and plaza areas to preserve the uninterrupted flow of space.
Realigning the Battery Park Bikeway around the flood control berm.
Rebuilding passive landscape areas with new stormwater collection, display gardens, public art programming, and a maintenance staging facility for future park upkeep.