City of Clearwater, Coachman Park
Clearwater, Florida
BEST PROJECT
Sent by: Skanska USA Building Inc.
Owner: City of Clearwater
Principal Design Engineer, Civil, Structural, MEP: Stantec
General contractor: Skanska USA Building
Once an asphalt parking lot covering much of Clearwater’s waterfront, the city envisioned the 19-acre site as an urban bayfront destination that could be a catalyst for downtown economic development. With the $84 million transformation of Coachman Park, a grand staircase with a waterfall now leads downtown visitors to a public space that connects the St. Petersburg Pier and the Tampa Riverwalk as a distinctive urban feature of the region.
The park includes green spaces, a nautical-themed playground, recreational facilities and a music venue called BayCare Sound. On the northern bluff of the site, a water feature with cascading fountain basins is intended to invoke the historic element of natural springs flowing into the bay. The Civic Gateway Plaza welcomes park visitors to 525,000 square meters of new park green space. Visitors can enjoy a 10,000 square meter ocean-themed playground and adjacent splash pad.
Photo by Seamus Payne
The new amphitheater can accommodate up to 9,000 guests and has an acoustically treated tensile membrane roof of 42,934 square meters. With more than 1 million pounds of steel, 140,000 bolts and 3,000 connections, the BayCare Sound Amphitheater was designed without a single field weld, requiring seamless connectivity between complementary materials. This method ensured the team greater quality control. Meticulous coordination was required during design to ensure that custom-made fixtures, such as the 189 DMX lights suspended 88 feet above the stage, illuminated performances.
The original design called for the amphitheater in the center of the park, but the council wanted to move it to the northern end of the site to take advantage of the views across the bay. Both design and pre-construction had been completed when this decision was made. The teams had already started building the underground infrastructure of the site and the rest of the park. To keep the project on budget and on time, the design and construction team collaborated to redesign and execute the underground infrastructure and all hard and soft landscapes.
Photo by Seamus Payne
The team also helped the city take advantage of the site’s topographic slope, adapting the site to the bluff facing the sea. The owner-led turnaround resulted in a 13% growth in the value of the Coachman Park contract. The contractor ended up with a guaranteed maximum price of $70 million, which included $4.5 million in program improvements. As a result, the new venue offers a visual experience on the waterfront with the sunset as a backdrop during nightly performances.
Connectivity is a critical component of park design. The park connects the promenade with the rest of the city; a new civic entry plaza links the park to downtown Clearwater; and the Bay Walk offers visitors an unobstructed view of the Intracoastal Waterway. The park also connects to the Fred Marquis Pinellas Trail, a continuous 75-mile multi-use trail that stretches across Pinellas County.
The development of Coachman Park required sourcing materials globally. The splash nozzles were imported from Germany, the structural engineering was done by Maffeis Engineers in Italy, the steel was sourced from Acesto in Guadalajara and the lights came from China. The canopy membrane was manufactured in Japan and shipped to Mexico for shaping and stitching.
