Rosemary Square Streetscape Improvements
A New Modern Aesthetic to Reinvigorate Ongoing Development
Originally opened in 2000, CityPlace was an innovative, upscale lifestyle center featuring retail, entertainment, restaurants, offices, and residences. The initial project brought new life to a blighted, high-crime area in downtown West Palm Beach, Florida, and was a catalyst for numerous improvements throughout the city. The Mediterranean and Venetian styles of architecture were implemented to honor an existing historic church, restored as a mixed-use venue, known as Harriet Himmel Theater, that is the centerpiece of the central plaza. For nearly 20 years, the mixture of retail and restaurant spaces operated primarily as an independent lifestyle center, spiritually detached from the rest of downtown West Palm Beach. Many restaurants and retail spaces came and went throughout the nearly two decades leading to its redevelopment, with too-large lease spaces, a lopsided mix of uses, and nighttime safety for families as ongoing concerns. In 2017, Macy's, an original and significant tenant, closed its doors.
In 2018, the CityPlace ownership team engaged a consultant team, consisting of urban planners, landscape architects, architects, engineers, and artists, to assist with the rebranding and establish a new physical framework for the development to successfully navigate changing consumer and entertainment trends. The transformation to Rosemary Square, now known as "The Square," is an intentionally ubiquitous name that fits with the community. The Square is designed with less on-street parking and more walkable, transformable spaces, along with a drastic increase in art and modern aesthetics, more whimsy and discovery within public spaces, and more ways for people to interact. Additionally, a 'radically lush' tropical planning design and an emphasis on high-end and durable finishes were established. The lease spaces were reconfigured into smaller units to generate more variety, with greater emphasis on diversifying its uses. Recently, a new Class A office tower opened adjacent to a Brightline train station on the north end of the development. Furthermore, a 21-story apartment building is currently under construction at the former Macy's site, further increasing density and establishing The Square as the west side anchor of downtown West Palm Beach.
In collaboration with an international team of designers - including Gehl Studio, Inc., Design Studio Boca, The Office of James Burnett, Studio Jeppe Hein, and Symmetry Labs and developer Related Companies - Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. began the design of the four city blocks and one-acre plaza in 2018. The scope of work entailed redesigning this mixed-use development, situated amongst several city streets west of Downtown West Palm Beach. All the existing hardscape and most of the existing landscape were removed from building face to building face within the project limits and replaced with new hardscape treatments, plantings, lighting, public art pieces, and an interactive fountain. Kimley-Horn collaborated on and implemented the concept design led by Gehl Studio and a portion of the streetscape planting design supported by Design Studio Boca.
When it came time to bring the conceptual design to fruition, the team was met with some design challenges. Understanding the many underground elements and utility requirements of the fountain played a large part in the plaza design layout. Instead of interrupting the paver pattern for typical utility box covers, WunderCovers were used to help these functions blend in seamlessly. Another challenge was understanding the owner's maintenance plan for the paver installation. Due to the plaza's high vehicular and pedestrian traffic, the pavers are cleaned weekly and sometimes daily to maintain the high-end look of the plaza. The intensity of the cleaning did not lend itself to sand-filled paver joints, so a mixed sand and cement blend was swept into the joints for a permanent joint sand solution.
In 2019, Burkhardt Construction, Inc. led a phased construction, beginning with redesigned streetscapes for Rosemary Avenue and Hibiscus Street, transforming each into curbless shared street plazas that eliminated all on-street parking in favor of seating, valet areas, and rideshare spaces. Four existing parking garages on the property already provided adequate parking for all uses, so preference for the street was given to the pedestrians. The design features a modern palette of warm and cool greys, including a paved valley gutter. Planting pits emerge from the paver spaces, seemingly breaking through the surface as if pavers were removed and plants arise from the voids. A lush and varied tropical palette was implemented, including banyan, strangler fig, shady lady black olive, canary island date palms, coconut and solitaire palms, and flowering verawood trees. Hibiscus, grasses, plumbago, crotons, bougainvillea, ferns, and other flowering tropical plants enhance the design and define the radical lush aesthetic.
The roadway paver surface was converted to a curb-less section using the existing asphalt roadway as a base layer to support the desired large paver sizes and the multiple-shaded French pattern. The decorative pavers were strategically arranged to delineate pedestrian and vehicular areas while cohesively unifying the project. When the street is closed for events, the paver pattern transitions create an expanded pedestrian environment. Existing shade trees were preserved where possible, and existing palms were selectively removed in favor of more shade trees and a more diverse palette of palm trees. The planting design establishes a lush tropical environment, forming pockets of shaded and secluded spaces for all to enjoy.
Structural soil was utilized to increase the effective root zone for larger trees within the project limits.
The main public plaza, designed by the Office of James Burnett, is centered around an interactive fountain designed by internationally renowned public artist Studio Jeppe Hein and the Wishing Tree, a 26-foot-tall faux banyan with 100,000 illuminated programmable, multi-colored LED lights embedded in 10,000 leaves by Symmetry Labs. Both act as 'Instagram-worthy' art centerpieces to draw daytime and evening visitors, especially families. In addition, a drastic increase in shade-providing plant material was added to the plaza to offer shade to The Square's guests.
The combination of improved pedestrian enhancements, artistic elements, and innovative planning work together to intentionally transform and find the soul of this urban mixed-use development. As The Square matures and evolves, the re-imagined public spaces are poised to function as intended-flexible spaces to support programming, a new modern aesthetic to reinvigorate ongoing development, and the vegetative infrastructure that transformed a largely paved space to a radically lush and shaded area.
