This project promises to be fun!

The Gretna City Park Project began in 2017 with the City’s goal to improve recreational opportunities within Gretna City Park. Effectively, the park will undergo significant improvements that will include additional water storage for city-wide flood mitigation, similar to how the Downtown Drainage Phase 1 project functions. Click here to read about the Downtown Drainage Project.

Besides drainage improvement, the final concept that the City is working to implement, better connects the park to the neighborhood, improves ecological functionality and provides numerous opportunities for green infrastructure features.

“It’s definitely an exciting time in the City of Gretna with the many projects we have completed, have ongoing, and are still to come. Gretna City Park will be the next big one we break ground on and I couldn’t be more excited,” District 3 Councilman Mark Miller said.  

The City partnered with the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center to explore concepts aimed at enhancing passive recreational opportunities, while working with the neighborhood through the process.

The project struck gold with possibilities in April 2018 when Governor John Bel Edwards and the Office of Community Development announced an award of approximately $5.6 million to support the implementation of park improvements that balanced flood risk reduction.

The program was a part of the Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA-SAFE) process. The full Jefferson Parish Adaptation Strategy, inclusive of Gretna Resilience District and Gretna City Park recommendations can be found here.

During 2019, the city hired a design team and continued to work with the neighborhood to assist in refining concepts related to the park.

Gretna was granted the $5.6 million award through the LA-SAFE program from HUD and the Office of Community Development. An expedited design process is now complete and the City anticipates advertising the project for bidding within the next month. Under this timeline, it is expected that Phase I construction will start on site around the start of the new year.

“I’m very grateful for the Mayor, my fellow Councilmen and the administration for supporting, working and seeing the value in this project and what it means to District 3 and the City as a whole. This project will improve our drainage capacity by enlarging the ponds. It will also allow us to add some nice amenities for everyone to enjoy,” Miller said.  

“Some of the amenities include fishing piers, a kayak launch, a pavilion, pathways, improved parking and designated entrances. From the designs I have seen so far, everything looks great. The designs are fitting for the natural areas they will be placed and this was important as we looked at everything. We wanted to make sure we didn’t take away from the wildlife or natural beauty of the park.

“We already have a number of people who enjoy Gretna City Park and these improvements should make their experiences even better!”

The Gretna City Park Project Design Overview specs with accompanying descriptions are shown below.

A video of a virtual public meeting to preview the design progress can be found here. Portions of this article were originally published in “All About Gretna,” Aug 2020 edition. 

###

Scroll through the full plan use the arrow on the side of the images or click on the download button below


Download