Site, Infrastructure, and Structural Design

The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (NYS OPRHP) initiated a comprehensive planning process to identify capital rehabilitation and improvement projects that should be undertaken in Niagara Falls State Park, where 8 million people visit each year. 

Erdman Anthony was retained to provide schematic design, design development, and bidding/construction document services for two of the first projects envisioned under this ambitious program. 

This project involved an extensive rehabilitation to improve safety, aesthetics, natural habitats, and accessibility. Project highlights included:

• Tattered asphalt paths were replaced with slip-resistant stone pavers that increased the paths' width. 
• Massive concrete abutments on the pedestrian bridges were removed and replaced with a more transparent state-of-the-art railing system.
• Overgrown brush, bramble, dead trees, and patchy lawns were replaced with thousands of new plantings more appropriate to the surroundings. 
• Bent and misshapen railings were replaced by a one-of-a-kind railing system that improves visibility, increases safety, and better complements the historical nature of the park. The prototype railing became the standard installation for miles of new railing throughout the Niagara Reservation.
• Aging metal bus shelters were replaced with larger, safer, location-appropriate wooden structures featuring copper roofs, glass walls, lighting, and increased seating.
• People with disabilities now have full access to the entire Three Sisters Islands chain due to new parking areas, ramps, paths, and access features.

Maintaining the historic characteristics of the park’s original design also was an integral part of this project. A temporary pipe and stone bridge to access the Three Sisters Islands was created upstream to deliver materials and equipment to the project sites so that the existing historic stone structures would be avoided completely.

Awards

2014 Gold Award

American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of New York

2015 Project of the Year Award

American Public Works Association, Western New York