Case Study

City Park Reimagined: Portsmouth Master Plan

Client

City of Portsmouth

Consultant

Kimley-Horn

Location

Portsmouth, Virginia

The Challenge

An underused golf course occupying most of City Park prompted Portsmouth to rethink how its 90-acre waterfront space could better serve the community.

City Park in Portsmouth, Virginia, is an urban waterfront park spanning more than 90 acres. While certain features, like the picnic areas and playground, habitually engage community members, the golf course wasn’t used as much and didn’t reflect the recreational needs of the Portsmouth community. Since the golf course takes up a majority of City Park’s blueprint, the City of Portsmouth wanted to reimagine the park through a master planning process to better serve its 100,000 residents and transform the space into a more inclusive community asset.

Our Solution

PublicCoordinate empowered Portsmouth to gather interactive, location-specific community input and share design alternatives for the future of City Park.

To support the City’s vision, PublicCoordinate was used in the early phases of the project to gather community input. The community engagement platform allowed residents to virtually interact with aerial map imagery and leave location-specific feedback, which was especially valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic. During a later phase, the team integrated concept drawings into the platform, allowing the City to present project alternatives to the public and give them a voice in the future of City Park.

The Impact

Community-driven insights reshaped City Park’s future, replacing the unused golf course with vibrant spaces that better reflect local needs and bring residents together.

PublicCoordinate played a key role in shaping the new vision of City Park by enabling accessible and interactive community input. Instead of the golf course, the public identified park concepts with the greatest potential for their community, like spaces for families to gather, eat, and play—prioritizing outcomes that promoted group activities that brought the community together.The insights that were gathered during this process not only informed the park design and construction outcomes for the City, but it gave the community a say in what the future of their park would look like—creating a more meaningful space that directly addresses community needs.