The City of Jacksonville is considering new design concepts for the long-awaited updates to the Riverside Park Duck Pond.
Shared with the community at a Jan. 30 public meeting, the new concepts allow for the pond’s fluctuating water levels throughout the year. These renderings reflect improvements from the previous design, which was deemed incompatible for several reasons with top concerns focusing on those changing water levels. In the dry season, the previous design could see the pond completely dry while in the wet season, it could overflow and flood the oval walking path encircling it.
Riverside Avondale Preservation Executive Director Shannon Blankinship said the City and RAP wanted to communicate the reason for the delay with the community.
“It is that new information was attained through the long-term study of the groundwater modeling underneath the Riverside Park Duck Pond,” Blankinship said.
Blankinship explained that an analysis of that study resulted in the need to reevaluate what the duck pond’s profile would look like.
“The goal of this project and the new iteration of restoration here of the duck pond is to reconnect the pond itself to groundwater, so that as the groundwater levels fluctuate…then you’ll see a fluctuation of the water levels in the pond as well.”
GAI Consultants, Inc.’s Community Solutions Group Senior Landscape Architect and Project Manager Daniel Ashworth Jr. presented the new concepts at the Jan. 30 meeting, both of which included new features for the pond, including a littoral shelf as constructed wetland and a rookery island as well as a new profile for the pond itself.
Option 2 emerged as a crowd favorite with Jacksonville historian Dr. Wayne Wood speaking in support of it. He later explained that the bridge bisecting the pond gave the appearance of two separate bodies of water, which is reminiscent of the park’s early days, when the park had several lakes and ponds, though he said there is still room for improvement.
“I would still love to see more than one body of water with water flowing through it,” Wood added. “That would be, I think, the ideal.”
Wood said he and other residents also objected to a concrete abutment included in the design that would help regulate the oscillating water levels.
“That was deemed by many people, including me, as not attractive and hoping to minimize that so that you see a very natural-looking setting and not a wall of concrete across part of the lake.”
These new concepts are in the early stages of design and will change based on community feedback from the meeting. A projected timeline points to April as the point for 60% design and cost estimates, with the design being 100% complete by October and the project going out to bid by the end of the year.
With the duck pond refresh already several years in the making, District 7 City Councilmember Jimmy Peluso said there is a sense of urgency to move forward in the design process while funding is available for this project.
“We’re trying to make sure that we don’t waste the opportunity of it being funded right now,” Peluso said.
In a Feb. 25 e-mail, Ashworth stated the City will be moving forward with Option 2 based on community feedback. He said the development team anticipates breaking ground on construction “early to mid-2026.”
