City to build passive park on Riberia Pointe

Keep Riberia Pointe Green, a city-wide group of St Augustine citizens, informed Historic City News that, with broad support from the whole community, Resolution #2014-38, sponsored by City Commissioner Leanna Freeman, was passed unanimously by the City Commission on Monday, September 22.

The Resolution grants authorization for the City to create a passive green space park that preserves the existing scenic vistas and open wildlife habitat for the enjoyment of our citizens.

“Keep Riberia Pointe Green would like to thank our City Commission, City Staff and all who participated in advancing this passive park for the public,” said Cash McVay, a spokesman for the citizen initiative.

Riberia Pointe is located in Downtown St. Augustine at the south end of Riberia Street in the Lincolnville neighborhood. The roughly 10-acre property was once used as a landfill, but has been closed for decades and was officially capped with a layer of dirt several years ago. The land is surround by river grass and marsh where the San Sebastian River and Matanzas River intersects.

The Keep Riberia Pointe Green core group includes Thomas Dreisbach, John O’Brien Prager, Cash S. McVay, Rosamond Parrish, Pat Reilly, Judith Seraphin, Nancy Shaver and Blake Romeyn Souder.

McVay told local reporters, “We look forward to working with our fellow residents during the planned public workshops that will be part of the park design process.”

Historic City News readers can follow the progress of the park on the group’s facebook page.

© 2014 Walter Coker for Historic City News – used with permission