Upon completion of the award-winning City of Ocoee Downtown Master Plan prepared by GAI’s Community Solutions Group (CSG), the City identified implementation of the master stormwater and environmental park, now known as Unity Park, as the first critical step to enable future redevelopment and economic growth downtown. The City engaged GAI’s CSG as
the prime consultant to provide professional technical services.

Unity Park serves two important functions: stormwater management for 40+ acres of redevelopment and public open space. After passing through a baffle box upstream, incoming stormwater enters the park’s filter marsh and is cleaned through vegetative nutrient uptake and natural soil filtration. During intense rain events, water spills into the wet detention pond where traditional stormwater management is augmented with extensive littoral shelves, native aquatic plants, and cypress trees. A pre-existing swale and piped conveyance system through the site is realigned and naturalized as a
gentle stream. The design incorporates check dams to slow the flow and encourage contaminant settling and vegetative nutrient uptake through additional native plantings.

These stormwater management functions are enveloped in a new people-friendly park that features a quarter-mile walking loop with views of the filter marsh and naturalized stream, a pier and shade pavilion overlooking the wet pond, a Florida native planting palette throughout, and special memorial to the victims of the Ocoee Massacre of 1920.

GAI and CSG’s services included site master plan, landscape architecture, civil engineering, permitting, and construction phase management.