Willowbranch Creek Project Aims to Restore Ecosystem

The long-awaited Willowbranch Creek Stabilization Project is getting closer to reality as new designs reach 30% complete.

Updated details and designs were presented to the community at a public meeting hosted by Riverside Avondale Preservation at the end of March, where residents could review Concept 3A, which was the design concept selected for revisions following previous site visits and community feedback.

According to Gary Goldsberry with the Engineering Design Section of the City’s Department of Public Works, the canal’s existing cement block wall has begun breaking up at various points now that it has outlived its life expectancy. To enhance the canal’s overall resiliency moving forward, proposed designs call for a Geobag Stabilized Terraced Slope, which “will provide a more natural look while increasing the storage and conveyance potential of the creek. The Geobags will support plant cover for a more natural appearance.”

RAP Executive Director Shannon Blankinship said she hopes this project will help establish the waterway as a destination for parkgoers.

“In the future, I hope that this waterway will become a destination for people to be able to enjoy waterside picnics or other ways that we might interact with a creek and a waterway within the heart of an urban historic district like Riverside and Avondale,” Blankinship said. “I think functionally, what is going to happen is that it will overall improve the flow and drainage of the waterway so that we see less flooding and less overflows.”

The stabilization project includes a landscape design element, though Goldsberry said it is too early to state which species will be included in those designs.

Goldsberry added, “…Planned landscaping will include indigenous species shade trees with medium height terrace plantings and low ground cover on the embankments.”

Goldsberry added that more public meetings are anticipated as designs are finalized. The City anticipates 60% design by June and 90% in August. Final design and permitting is expected by this December.

Erosion, flooding, and drainage have plagued the Willowbranch Creek for several years. In 2024, the first open house was held to share details about this new stabilization project to rectify and revitalize this underutilized community asset. The City of Jacksonville, RAP, Halff Associates, Inc. Meskel and Associates Engineering, PLLC, Smith Surveying Group and Acuity Design Group comprise the team overseeing this project.

Current early estimates for this project place the cost at $3.6 million.