Project Purpose: A 1.6-acre private park built by a private foundation for public use. It is intended as a memorial to a private individual whose family trust dictated that a park be built in her honor. The following is posted in the park:

 

"Helen's Park exists for thoughtful contemplation and quiet relaxation. It offers something many seek; a refuge from the fast pace of city life in a peaceful setting of natural and manmade beauty. All who visit Helen's Park are invited to marvel in its colorful splendor, rest in its confines, meditate in peace, and celebrate their solitude."

 

Role of the Landscape Architect: As the Prime, the landscape architect led a design team that included an associated landscape architect, architect, civil and structural engineers, and mosaic tile artist. The Landscape Architect also had a significant role in the construction phase and will continue to assist the owner with park management and maintenance into the future.

 

Resolution of the Project's Program: The program was outlined in the family trust and dictated a park for quiet repose and reflection with a fountain of lovely colors. In response, the landscape architect designed a passive park that is visually exciting and offers many opportunities for quiet activity.

Visitors can enter the park between a pair of sentinel Live Oaks and along a walkway that-becomes a "trail of color" with quiet pools on one side and perennial flowers on the other side. Flames of perennials flowers radiate from the central fountain extending the "lovely colors" into the garden. Three seating areas are strategically placed along the walkway. A wood overhead trellis provides shade for visitors and creates an architectural edge along the east side of the park. The park focal feature is a fountain, covered in a colorful tile mosaic that represents the four seasons. A central water jet splashes over the dome and onto the fountain at seating height. Eight palm trees frame the fountain creating a Court of Palms and two rivulets flow from the Court and meander through the park.

Helen's Park serves as the central garden entrance to the Stella Link Campus Park. It provides tranquil beauty not only to park visitors, but also for people using the new adjacent facilities. Passive activity is accommodated through the meandering walkways along brooks, seating under a wood pergola structure and at the pools, and in open lawn areas. The pergola will ultimately connect other community facilities into a pedestrian system.

 

Special Factors: A 40-acre property, in which Helen's park is located, was a blighted core of an upper middle class neighborhood. It included mixed land uses bracketed by a middle school and an elementary school that served the neighborhood, and had become a center for illegal activities. A group of concerned neighbors created a non-profit organization, the Stella Link Redevelopment Corporation, to purchase the property and create a redevelopment plan. The plan included a new YMCA, library, parks, and Sheltering Arms, an adult day-care facility.

 

Impact and Significance: The purchase of the land to build Helen's Park was one of the initial stimuli that helped move the redevelopment effort forward. To date, ground has been broken on the YMCA and Sheltering Arms has built a new facility overlooking Helen's Park. A new library also abuts the park site. These improvements have eliminated the illegal activities that once were prevalent and property values in the single-family neighborhood have rebounded.