Fall 2025 Newsletter

Our Fall 2025 newsletter is out! The Halletts Point Esplanade opens; Manhattan Greenway Harlem River enters construction; Coney Island Resilience study; and other projects that connect New Yorkers to the water.

Starr Whitehouse designed a vibrant outdoor space for the students, parents, faculty and staff of Packer Collegiate Institute, a thriving Pre-K through 12 campus nestled in Downtown Brooklyn. During Covid-19, the need for social distancing called for a reconsideration of daily campus operations. Starr Whitehouse was engaged to redesign the campus garden to create a high-performing and ecologically-beneficial area for gatherings, events and play. Pick-up and drop-off are reorientated to Livingston Street, allowing families to take advantage of the garden’s flexible outdoor space. The redesigned garden serves as a barrier-free crossroads connecting multiple buildings at different floor elevations. As it provides intuitive and accessible connections, the garden also accommodates small group gatherings and recreational events. Throughout the design, the garden’s sylvan character is retained with the use of native plants and rain gardens to enhance biodiversity. Many thanks to Packer Collegiate Institute and to our long-time collaborators at WXY for their partnership on this important project. Follow the link above to read the full article.

We are excited to see the Manhattan Greenway Harlem River project break ground. Completing a missing piece of the Manhattan Greenway, this seven-acre park will reconnect East Harlem to a stretch of Harlem River shoreline that has been inaccessible for decades. Tuesday’s groundbreaking is the result of a seven-year collaboration with NYC Economic Development Coordination, NYC Parks, Langan Engineering, Community Boards 10 and 11, the local arts and cultural community, and East Harlem residents to restore this important piece of the Harlem River waterfront.

Waterfront Alliance, in collaboration with Coney Island Beautification Project, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, and NYC Parks, has selected Starr Whitehouse to lead a technical planning study of Coney Island Creek, supported by global engineering firm WSP. The project will build on a legacy of planning initiatives dating to a landmark NYC Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) study in 2016 alongside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Harbors and Tributaries Study (HATS), an NYCEDC capital project upstream on the creek, and the previous community engagement effort. The study will seek to: assess all previous studies, scope further studies and design approaches to make progress on critical resilience and ecological goals, find common ground between community visions for Coney Island Creek and relevant government agencies, and assess the feasibility of hybrid and nature-based flood reduction solutions on the creek as alternatives to sea walls and levees. The Starr Whitehouse-WSP team was chosen due to both firms’ reputation for bringing nature-based solutions to climate challenges and their deep expertise working with agencies and neighborhoods across New York City. Read more in Waterfront Alliance’s WaterWire at the link above.

Atlanta-based Appen Media Group breaks down Starr Whitehouse and the City of Alpharetta’s vision to convert a 1980’s era shopping mall into a walkable, green, and vibrant urban district.

6SQFT’s Devin Gannon reports on the opening of Starr Whitehouse’s Arverne East Nature Preserve – New York City’s first net-zero community.

NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue and members of the community celebrated the opening of the new Arverne East Nature Preserve and welcome center on Wednesday, April 24. Arverne East will be the ecological centerpiece of New York City’s first net-zero community—a 35-acre “urban” nature preserve situated between the Atlantic Ocean and a dense residential neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula. Commissioner Sue Donoghue was joined by New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr., Queens Borough President Donovan Richards, New York State Assemblymember Khaleel Anderson, New York City Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers, Managing Director of L+M Development Partners LLC Sara Levenson.

We are thrilled that the New York Chapter of the ASLA has selected two Starr Whitehouse projects for 2024 Honor Awards, and two for 2024 Merit Awards.

Honor Awards:

• Battery Playscape, New York, NY – General Design
• East Shore Shoreline Parks Plan, Staten Island, New York – Analysis, Planning, Research and Communications

Merit Awards:

• Manhattan Greenway Harlem River, New York, NY – Un-Built Projects
• Marsha P Johnson State Park, Brooklyn, NY – General Design

AIA’s Oculus dives into the concept of the “Urban Forest,” and features Starr Whitehouse’s Daylighting of Tibbetts Brook project.

Read the full article here.

AIA’s Oculus takes readers on a journey through the new Arverne East urban nature preserve.

Read the full article here.