Designs have been unveiled revealing how an abandoned coal-burning power plant outside New York City will be transformed into a multi-story family attraction with a glass façade, swimming pools, water slides, restaurants and a semi-green roof.
The power plant, reimagined by renowned global architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (aka Big), will be the central attraction at a new 125-acre waterfront park on Manresa Island in southeast Connecticut called Manresa Wilds, set to open in 2030.
This landscape, once scarred by pollution and inaccessible to the public for 75 years, will become “a vibrant first-of-its-kind destination where nature, history and imagination meet”, according to Manresa Island Corporation, the nonprofit leading the creation of Manresa Wilds.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the former island — a causeway was built in 1860 connecting it to the mainland and South Norwalk — was home to a recreation destination called the Manresa Institute, with the coal-fired power plant arriving in the 1950s and subsequently much controversy.
A major fuel oil spill severely damaged the area’s tidal flats in 1969, while water contamination in the 70s, 80s, and 90s made the power plant, by then oil powered, the focus of protests by environmental groups.
Ironically, damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 enhanced the site’s natural environment — the power plant was decommissioned in 2013, a birch forest sprang up on disposed coal ash and the osprey population soared.
The new park has been designed by New York City-based landscape architects Scape, which wants the public to enjoy the island’s ecological richness, and a host of new features.
The firm said in a statement that these will include waterfront walking paths, a restored wetland, tree canopies to mitigate extreme heat and flooding, an “expansive” green lawn and meadow, a public beach with “sweeping views of the Long Island Sound and New York City” and pedestrian bridges “that will provide opportunities to observe wildlife”.
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