Burlington’s City Hall Park Recognized with Public Places Honor Award
Vermont Urban & Community Forestry, American Institute of Architects Vermont, Vermont Planners Association, and the Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the City Hall Restoration Project for Increasing use of Community Space
Burlington, VT – Yesterday, Vermont Urban and Community Forestry, Institute of Architects Vermont, Vermont Planners Association, and the Vermont Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects recognized the City Hall Park restoration project with a Public Spaces Honor Award. The project began when hundreds of Burlingtonians participated in the Imagine City Hall Park process in 2011, continued through the Great Streets Initiative during 2016-2018, and culminated in its reopening in fall 2020.
The park restoration was led by a group including Wagner Hodgson Landscape Architecture and skilled members of the City of Burlington team from the Departments of Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, Public Works, Planning, City Arts, and Community and Economic Development (CEDO). The park now features infrastructure that makes it greener, more accessible, and better suited to its current uses in the center of the city.
“We had a clear vision for how City Hall Park public use and enjoyment could be expanded with accessible pathways, rain gardens to manage stormwater, public art, multiple small event spaces, and of course, the fountain to splash and play in,” said Mayor Miro Weinberger. “What we couldn’t have known when we began this project is what an important, healing space the new park would be during the pandemic, and now, in the earliest days of the recovery for the thousands of community members and visitors who have come to City Hall Park to meet, play, rest, enjoy, and rejoin public life here in Burlington in recent weeks.”
Since construction was completed in October of 2020, and with the easement of state and local public health restrictions, the City has dramatically expanded public programming in the park, including; Splash Dance, the Twilight Concert series, All Heart in the Park, Flicks in the Park, the Summer Concert Series, and Art Market. Information about upcoming events can be found at burlingtoncityarts.org/events.
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