Construction crews are set to break ground this month on the next phase of upgrades at Kingston Point Park, a Hudson River waterfront space where the city plans to turn half a flood-prone parking lot into an official wetland while raising the other half to keep cars dry. The work also promises better access to the park's BMX facility and tighter connections to the Empire State Trail.
Phase 2 of the Kingston Point Park Infrastructure Improvements Project is expected to begin in October 2026, according to Mid Hudson News. The city's project page at EngageKingston pins construction to a mid-October start, with the work upgrading the existing parking lot on the south side of Delaware Avenue. Half of that lot will be designed and built to serve as an official wetland, per the same source, while the other half will be raised to prevent future flooding and stay in use for parking.
Wetland Plans Trace Back to a 2019 Site Survey
The push to carve out a wetland on the site isn't new. A wetland delineation of the property, conducted during project evaluation and design, shaped the current plan to preserve part of the Delaware Avenue lot as protected wetland habitat.
Phase 2 is also designed to improve access to the BMX bike facility and strengthen connections to the Empire State Trail with new crosswalks, sidewalks and pathways, according to the engagekingston.com project page. The existing parking lot already functions as a connection point to the trail, and officials say the coming upgrades will build on that role. Brinnier and Larios PC was selected as the engineering firm to advance the Phase 2 design, per the same city source.
Flood Protection Ties Into Citywide Resiliency Push
The project is part of the city's broader Weaving the Waterfront shoreline resiliency and climate adaptation effort, according to the engagekingston.com project page. That framing echoes concerns officials raised when the state grant for this phase was first announced: as the Daily Freeman reported in December 2021, officials identified sea-level rise and increasing flood risk as reasons to invest in the park's resilience.
Funding for the current phase comes from the New York State Department of State under Title 11 of the Environmental Protection Fund, per the engagekingston.com project page. The Department of State had awarded the city a Local Waterfront Revitalization Program grant in December 2021, and the Daily Freeman reported at the time that the award totaled $654,500, with the city covering the remaining $95,500 of an estimated $750,000 project cost.
Phase 1 Already Delivered a Soccer Field and Playground Work
Phase 1 of the project has already wrapped up, bringing parking lot improvements, a new youth soccer field, playground-related work, landscaping, tree planting and bioswales to the Delaware Avenue park. That earlier work followed years of staged construction; the Daily Freeman reported that work on the broader infrastructure project first began back in June 2020.
Pandemic-era demand helped drive interest in the park's upgrades. Kingston's recreation director told the Daily Freeman in 2021 that the city had seen a tremendous surge in the use of its parks, trails and outdoor facilities, underscoring why officials pressed forward with further investment at the waterfront site.
A Separate EV Charger Is Also Coming Downtown
Apart from the park work, Kingston is also moving ahead on its first city-owned fast electric vehicle charger, to be installed in a municipal waterfront parking lot adjacent to 20 Broadway. Construction on that charger station is anticipated to be completed by the end of December, Mid Hudson News reported, and the project was funded with a state grant of more than $268,000.
