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Greynolds Park
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One of Dade County's first public recreation areas, historic Greynolds Park located in North Miami Beach on the banks of the Oleta River was designed by Landscape Architect William Lyman Phillips and constructed by the Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps between 1936 and 1939.Greynolds Park was one of numerous South Florida landscapes designed by Phillips using the natural, picturesque qualities and incorporating native limestone into landscape features.
Phillips preserved native vegetation and worked with existing site conditions of the mining operation to transform abandoned rock pits into lakes. He buried mining equipment to create an observation mound rising 46 feet above sea level. This Outlook Mound and Tower remain the highest publicly accessible landform in South Florida, offering views of the surrounding lagoons and pine forests.
Activists against the loss of this view shed to high rise development filed suit when the North Miami Beach city council approved rezoning plans in 2013 to construct two ten-story towers for a hotel and a six-story office building on a 4.2-acre parcel adjacent to the park.
The Miami Herald reported on December 18, 2015, that the Florida Third District Court of Appeal has issued a ruling against the planned high-rise adjacent to Greynolds Park. The court overturned a lower court ruling and issued a stern rebuke to the local city council, which had countermanded its own zoning ordinances in approving the project.
This recent court ruling is an unmistakable victory for a significant cultural landscape. It also is an warning that while historic landscapes remain prime candidates for development the landscape architecture profession will have to use more sensitivity when working with them.
For more information, contact:
David Driapsa, FASLA
Historical Landscape Architect