As part of a $15-million flood-control effort, a former flood-prone brownfield on the 14-acre site of a razed shopping mall was remediated and turned into a park. Flooding was minimized by eliminating obstructions, restoring upstream wetlands and building a storage basin on the site.

When the mall was erected in 1970, its parking lot was built directly over portions a brook buried in an underground culvert that—along with other encroachments in the flood plain—led to significant flood damage.

Temporary grading and a hazardous waste cleanup followed the mall’s razing in 2007.  In 2014, after the groundbreaking for Meriden Green, crews uncovered more than 1,700 linear ft of the brook.

Besides restoring the brook to its natural, meandering channel through a new central park, a floodwater storage basin was created by removing old fill material and debris placed on the original floodplain over the years.

The flood-plain basin has an engineered cap that consists of up to 8 in. of topsoil over geotextile fabric with a 330-ton capacity. The basin can store approximately 60 acre-ft of water during a 100-year flood.

A new 300-ft-long pedestrian bridge over the flood plain improved accessibility to the downtown and a new intermodal transportation center.

The bridge was prefabricated in three sections. Delivered on seven individual trailers to the site, the bridge was placed in one week using an all-terrain crane.

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