$68.1 million ‘stormwater park’ in Virginia Beach aims to reduce flooding, create rec space
The city of Virginia Beach has broken ground on a massive project set to reduce stormwater flooding — and bring new recreational opportunities — over the next several years.
The concept is called a “stormwater park,” which cities across the country have begun using as flood prevention infrastructure. But after several years and a hefty price tag, the idea has come to fruition.
After Hurricane Matthew dumped as much as 14 inches of rain on parts of Hampton Roads in 2016, Virginia Beach leaders began to work with engineers to find a solution for residents in the Windsor Woods neighborhood — which experienced major flooding during the storm. Planning, design and development administrator Chad Morris said engineers noticed there was no area to store water, so they began to investigate ways to pump water to prevent it from flowing into the neighborhoods.
Nearby is the former Bow Creek Golf Course site, originally a private country club in the 1960s. The city acquired the property in 1975, turning it into a public recreation center and municipal course. An outdoor pool was enclosed in 1991, but the center was rated “poor” in 2009. It shut down in August 2013 and was demolished at the end of that year. Now, a center twice the size of the old one stands in its place. The city-owned Bow Creek Golf Course closed for use in November 2022.
“So there’s a 120-acre piece of property that was a good fit, but we can do more with that besides just dig a big hole in the ground to capture stormwater,” Morris said. “There was collaboration between (the public works and parks and recreation departments) to make the stormwater containment areas and developing this into some type of park, or what we call a stormwater park. That’s kind of how that all came together. Can we provide more than just a hole in the ground and be able to create park-like amenities for the for the public, as well?”
According to the city, Bow Park is a 121-acre parcel of land that, by the end of the project, will be able to store 300 acre-feet of water. One acre-foot is the amount of water needed to cover an acre of land with one foot of water, or about 325,851 gallons.
Morris said the park is a win-win for Virginia Beach residents, and once completed, its usage could rival Mount Trashmore. Amenities at the finished site include nature trails, multi-use paths, pickleball courts, wildlife viewing shelters, canoe and kayak launches, mountain bike trails, restrooms, a pump track, sand volleyball courts and a playground. The old golf course clubhouse will be converted into a rentable event space.
In 2021, Virginia Beach residents voted to approve a half-billion dollar bond referendum to fund flood prevention, and the Bow Creek Stormwater Park is part of that measure.
The park’s construction is divided into two phases. In Phase One, the city will close off an area on the east side for construction, while an area on the west side will remain open to the public for use. Multi-use trails can still be accessed from the Bow Creek Recreation Center parking lot, and the first phase is scheduled to be completed by 2026 with a price tag of about $28.1 million. The second section, which is still in the design phase, is estimated to cost about $40 million.
For the near future, Morris said residents will see a lot of excavating to create stormwater storage. By the end of digging, the city estimates that 80,000 truckloads will remove over 1 million cubic yards of soil during this project.
Other cities across the country have already latched onto the concept. In North Miami, a former vacant lot was converted into the Florida Good Neighbor Stormwater Park with artistic structure and walking paths. The Historic Fourth Ward Park in Atlanta takes a similar approach, with stormwater flowing into the pond from its four sides. Globally, flood-prone countries such as China have used the stormwater park strategy to decrease flooding while creating more recreational space for citizens.
“It’s taken a little bit more of a nature-based solution, as well. We could have dug the hole and and created walls to create more volume, but we didn’t do that,” Morris said. “We created gradual slopes, made this more natural look and created lots of habitat zones and let some of the vegetation help with water quality, and it makes it more natural feeling versus creating a holding area full of concrete surfaces.”
Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com
