PACK SQUARE PARK

LOCATION Asheville, North Carolina

PROJECT TYPE Urban Park Revitalization

CLIENT The Pack Square Conservancy

TOTAL AREA 6.5 Acres

PROJECT BUDGET $16.7 Million

AWARDS/RECOGNITION 2003 PA/DE ASLA Merit Award; 2008 City Park Alliance - Featured Park; 2017 Park Programming and Use Update

The Pack Square Conservancy commissioned LBA to head a design team to revitalize the historic Pack Square and return it to the vibrant, pedestrian-friendly gathering space it once was. The final plan involved the restoration of the square, reestablishing the historic street grid, and creating a new park spanning two city blocks and totaling six and a half acres.

LBA designed Pack Square Park to attract residents and the everyday user to a comfortable setting. The park fulfills Asheville’s heritage as a festival city with various performance venues. The square also establishes an address for the infill of new residential and commercial development uses.

The design establishes an expansive green on the park's east end as a central feature of Asheville’s civic core. The festival stage provides a backdrop for an interactive fountain and is flanked by two auto courtyards that define the building entries of the City Hall and County Building. The central block provides an area for previously unaccommodated new user amenities, including an intimate theater setting, a visitors’ pavilion, a cascading waterway, and terraced lawns that serve as an extension of the civic green to the east. Pack Square, the historic center of downtown Asheville, includes new seating, a tree bosque, and an artist-designed fountain as a contemporary version of the 1930’s plan.

The park’s design was rooted in an extensive public process that evolved through many workshops with the client, the City, artists, and the design team. This collaborative experience resulted in a public landscape that Asheville now calls their own.