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Everglades Holiday Park’s $16 Million Upgrade Wins Grand Engineering Excellence Award
ACEC Florida 2023 Grand Engineering Excellence Award
The new layout of Everglades Holiday Park reroutes boat and trailer traffic to provide better access to the new boat ramps, solving previous issues of crowd congestion and allowing all visitors to more easily navigate the grounds. Photo source: Broward County
By Lindsey Ranayhossaini, Staff Writer
Known as the “Gateway to the Everglades,” Broward County’s Everglades Holiday Park is a 43-acre property that serves millions of visitors annually. The park caters to a wide audience, encompassing fishermen, air boaters, cyclists, hikers, school field trips, cruise ship excursions and environmentalists.
“Broward County Parks is pleased to offer residents of this county a great place to come to the sawgrass,” said Dan West, director of parks and recreation for Broward County, in a renovation video produced by Broward County Parks. “It’s something that you can’t imagine until you get here.”
The park and its airboat rides, alligator shows and animal encounters have been frequented by Floridians and tourists since it opened nearly 60 years ago. While remaining a popular South Florida destination throughout its lifespan, the park was in need of upgrades, including new boat ramps, flood prevention solutions, increased parking space and a variety of infrastructure updates.
In 2012, Broward County embarked on a mission to revamp the park’s facilities and incorporated public feedback to address the needs of its visitors. KEITH, a transdisciplinary engineering firm based in Pompano Beach, provided comprehensive design, permitting, bid and construction phase services to execute the desired improvements for the park, which totaled $16 million.
The phased capital improvement project began in 2016 and was completed in March 2022.
Design Challenges
KEITH engineers faced numerous challenges in the redesign and construction of Everglades Holiday Park, including negotiating the park’s location over a flood levee system managed by the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the South Florida Water Management District. The project team collaborated with both entities to develop a plan to cross a flood protection levee using a ramp to connect to the park’s boat launch ramps.
The park’s original main building was also constructed on a flood levee and did not meet current USACE levee criteria. The KEITH team designed and constructed a flood wall to take the place of the levee and maintain the existing structure.
Throughout the project, the park remained open to visitors, necessitating a construction approach that would allow normal operations to continue. The project team’s solution to this challenge was to complete the project in phases, with the first phase including the updated parking lot and new boat ramp. Dock locations were shifted throughout the project to maintain boating access.
An Award-Winning Outcome
The revamp of Everglades Holiday Park earned the 2023 Grand Engineering Excellence Award from ACEC Florida.
The finished product incorporates sustainability through the preservation of the park’s existing trees and the creation of green space that serves as additional grass parking during peak crowds. The new parking lot was designed with swales at low points to minimize drainage system failures and underground stormwater storage to address parking lot drainage concerns.
The original primary parking lot, home to large trees, was reimagined as a pedestrian experience area with a steel sculpture of an Everglades crane.
The new layout of the park reroutes boat and trailer traffic to provide better access to the new boat ramps, solving previous issues of crowd congestion and allowing all visitors to more easily navigate the grounds.
"This is a milestone for the park in its 58-year history and underscores our commitment to providing advanced facilities and recreation opportunities to enhance the wellbeing of our community and for future generations of parkgoers," West said.
