Carmel Clay Central Park

At Carmel Clay Central Park, the designers sought to transform an agricultural landscape into a dynamic new ecosystem. The challenge was integrating economic, environmental, and aesthetic aspirations, while simultaneously striving for maximum recovery of the costs for operation and maintenance. Moreover, the Carmel/Clay Board of Parks and Recreation required an involved and transparent planning process, particularly due to a recent controversial trail project.

Solution

The design achieved the Park Board’s objectives by creating a place that balances heavily programmed and intensively-used built elements (community center, waterpark, skatepark, parking lots, etc.) with landscape features for passive use (lagoon, trails, forested wetlands, etc). The program-intensive elements generate revenues that support the management of the open spaces, and the open spaces are designed to integrate, distribute, and buffer the hydrologic and social impacts of the development. For instance, the lagoon and wetlands economically treat massive amounts of greywater discharged from the water park. The relatively low cost of maintaining the native plantings also helps to keep park operations and maintenance costs low enough to be as much as 90% covered by revenues from the community center and water park. Designers actively engaged the community, convening advisory committees and meetings of over 5,400 people. As a result, the park received overwhelming support and voters passed a $55 million park bond to support the project and affiliated efforts, including the Community Center and water park.

• The park preserves 60 acres of woods, including high quality stands of beech-maple forest habitat. Woodlands of this type, with their rich mesic soils, have some of the most diverse flora of any forest system with species such as bloodroot, scarlet trillium, and pawpaw.
• The park restores 40 acres of farmland to prairie/native plants. To restore the pre-agriculture ecology and reduce irrigation water demand for ornamental plantings, the landscape architect specified 38 hardy, native trees, shrubs, forbs and grasses plus seed mixes containing 39 species as the primary restoration treatments for the formerly tilled acreage.
• Visitors are encouraged to explore the woods and prairie/native plant areas on and off the trail system, providing opportunities to create memories and to avoid generations with “nature deficit disorder” as expressed in the publication Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.
• The park features a 6.5-acre constructed lagoon and wetland, which store and treat the site’s stormwater runoff and the greywater from the water park before discharging it into Carmel Creek. Excavated soils create gently sloping meadows flanking the lagoon.
• Over 1,000 feet of boardwalk provides access to the park’s lagoon and wetland for fishing, bird watching, and passive recreation.
• Seven acres of meadows overlooking the lagoon accommodate daily first-come-first-served recreation such as soccer practice and kite flying, as well as social gatherings and special events.
• Stormwater runoff flows from the parking areas through curb cutouts and into drainage swales or across vegetated open ground, allowing the water to infiltrate into the soil.  Similarly, runoff from the Monon Center roof flows through downspouts into bioswales. Any water that does not infiltrate enters the lagoon and wetland system.
• Brush-layering and native stone riprap secure 80 feet of steep streambank along Carmel Creek as it passes through the park, mediating bank erosion attributed to increased stream flows from off-site urban development in the surrounding watershed.
• The park promotes the use of non-motorized transportation through its 4 miles of asphalt and crushed stone trails that connection to the regional Monon Trail system.
• Modern pit toilet latrines equipped with solar lighting serve trail users all year round.
• Traffic calming features that complement the vocabulary of the landscape design include concrete ribbon curbs and faux bridge crossings along the east entrance road to give the pavement a narrower appearance.
• Recreational facilities within the park’s naturalistic surroundings include the 146,225-sf Monon Community Center, a 2,098-person waterpark, 2 picnic shelters and a 10,000-sf urban-style skate park.

• The park has approximately 55 acres of open area with 15 acres of turf and 40 acres of prairie/natural plants. By choosing prairie/native plants instead of traditional turf for 40 acres, the park saves $56,000 in annual maintenance costs.

• A main design goal was establishing a high-quality forested wetland zone that could be periodically flooded but not hold standing water. However, the volume of stormwater entering the forested wetlands was greater than expected, resulting in extended periods of inundation and high tree mortality. Since then, tree species proving to be more flood-tolerant have been introduced. Due to the project’s large scope and rapid timeline, the hydrologic design was based on generic baseline information. In retrospect, more site-specific hydrologic data should have been collected. The experience at Carmel Clay Central Park led the landscape architect to acknowledge “the importance of conducting thorough studies of existing and proposed site hydrology and allowing us to customize our design approach for each site.”
• The project was characterized by a spirit of collaborative experimentation and innovative partnerships. For example, native plant experts educated the contractor in how to identify and protect sensitive plant species during the construction process. The contractor embraced the design team’s efforts to minimize impact in the ecologically sensitive wooded area of the park, even though this meant confining construction activities to the width of the path and carefully staging and handling building materials.
• Educational signs posted in native plant zones were more effective in keeping neighboring residents informed of changes to the landscape than mass media efforts, such as flyers and news releases. During the early stages of establishing native plantings, some residents thought areas of the park looked unkempt and unattractive. After the signs went up, comments from residents were more favorable, according to park management.

Project Team

Client: Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation District
Landscape Architect, Civil Engineer, Ecologist: SmithGroupJJR
Architect, Waterpark: Williams Architects
Civil Engineer, Structural Engineer, Surveys: Schneider Corporation
Building Structural Engineer: Thornton Tomasetti
Electrical Engineer: Oberlis Consulting
Owner’s Representative: Summit Construction and AJ Armstrong

Role of the Landscape Architect

The landscape architect led the public planning and participation process, worked side-by-side with scientific consultants and community stakeholders, and produced comprehensive documentation for proposed park improvements, including a detailed program for park facilities, design principles, guidelines, and an implementation strategy to guide future decisions.