Consultants show conceptual plan to convert Virginia Key landfill into park with condensed sports fields and expanded hammock habitat

Consultants for the City of Miami presented a conceptual plan to repurpose the 116-acre closed landfill parcel on Virginia Key into a public park that preserves and expands native hammock habitat while concentrating athletic fields and parking closer to Arthur Lamb Jr. Road.

The plan was presented by Barry Miller, landscape architect with Savino Miller Design Studio, and engineers from SCS/SES during the Virginia Key Advisory Board meeting. Hector Badia, assistant director of the Office of Capital Improvements, introduced the item and said city staff brought consultants to present conceptual options to the board.

The consultants said the landfill parcel, which opened in the early 1960s and closed in 1977, now contains large deposits of clean fill that create elevated viewpoints across Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. "It's just an extremely, fortuitously located place, sandwiched between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean," Miller said, describing the site's potential for lookouts and vistas.

Why it matters: the parcel sits adjacent to existing recreation assets (Virginia Key Beach, North Pointe bicycle fields and a kayak station) and to the Central District wastewater treatment plant. The consultants and board members stressed that design choices about access, grading, and storm and tidal flows will affect habitat restoration, public safety and odors from the treatment plant, and the feasibility of level athletic fields on the capped landfill.

Key elements of the concept

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