Barrett Kays & Associates - Ecological Restoration

When New York's Central Park conservancy needed an engineering firm to guide the largest known urban landscape and ecological restoration project in the world, they began a search for the pre-eminent scientists and engineers in the U.S. They chose Barrett Kays & Associates to investigate and rebuild Central Park's famous Great Lawn and Belvedere Lake.

To unravel the problems that lay beneath the lawn, then design a plan to make the lawn strong enough to take the abuse that comes naturally from being the number one gathering spot in America's largest city was no easy feat. BKA's investigation revealed that the lawn was built atop a nineteenth-century reservoir filled with construction debris waste and capped with clay in the 1930's. BKA also discovered that the old reservoir had filled with over 230 million gallons of water. BKA's blueprint for the improvements required construction of an extensive underground drainage system both in the landfill and near the surface to stabilize the new engineered topsoil and turf to handle large concerts and outdoor events. A New York Times editorial proclaimed "the reconstruction has been a work of extraordinary dedication and a technological feat."

BKA also undertook the complete ecological rebuilding and expansion of Belvedere Lake, the primary study area for the Central Park Ecological Center and adjacent Museum of Natural History. If you have a major private or public urban development or redevelopment project, BKA stands ready to devote our talent and resources to bring your project to a stunning completion

For more information about Environmental Sciences, contact Jim Spangler via email, jim@barrettkays.com, our Contact BKA form, or at the address and phone number below.

Barrett Kays & Associates, P.A.