VERO BEACH – Ocean Drive has been widened and a retaining wall installed along Humiston Park and yet the $1 million renovation of the park continues.
The park is now slated for a grand opening of late January – a month off from when construction crews thought the park could open.
“Things are moving along,” said Don Dexter, of Vero Beach Public Works.
The construction team, Palm Coast Development, is waiting on the pavers it needs to build the parking lot on Easter Lily Lane.
Dexter said those pavers are due to arrive in early January and could take a couple weeks to install.
Along with building the parking lot, other projects still needing completion before the park can open include more sidewalks, paver work along Ocean Drive, sod for the entire park, and finishing the irrigation work, which is 50 percent complete.
“I think it’s going to be very nice once it’s all finished,” Dexter said.
Workers are planting buffer landscaping to protect the bougainvilleas that will line Ocean Drive and provide seasonal blooms.
Bob McNally, of Palm Coast Development said the first thing people will notice when they visit the park once open is the color. There will be numerous flowering plants showing off purple, lavender, raspberry and yellow blooms.
“Most municipal parks are just green on green, but the developer here had a passion to create a thing of beauty,” McNally said. “It will be highly unusual from other city parks.”
Once the work is done, the city will be responsible for the upkeep of Humiston Park, including the landscaping.
“It’s going to be a prettier park to look at,” Dexter said.
The developer of the nearby Ocean Park of Vero Beach has pitched in the $1 million for the park’s renovations.
According to Dexter, Flamevine Properties I LLC sees renovations to Humiston Park as an improvement to the overall area, which in turn enhances Ocean Park of Vero Beach.
Humiston Park will feature wider sidewalks that will give the park a plaza feel, Dexter said, and provide more room for pedestrian-type events. Parking, too, is expected to be improved and expanded.
Instead of offering parallel parking along Ocean Drive, there will be angled parking. The new parking lot on Easter Lily will also provide more spots for vehicles.
An unseen improvement to the area will be the drainage and water quality of water runoff into the Atlantic Ocean, according to Dexter.
Work has been done to collect would-be runoff water so it percolates through a filtering process and is 80 percent treated before being released into the ocean.
“Other than the weather and finding some buried infrastructure from a long time ago, this has been pretty smooth sailing,” McNally said. “The city has been very nice to work with.”
