The City of Miami has officially approved the final designs for Kirk Munroe Park and Fuller Street, the most significant investment in the Coconut Grove park in decades. The $5 million plan brings more than 100 new native trees, an ornamental pavilion, a great lawn, and refurbished tennis courts to the park, and rebuilds Fuller Street as a permanent curbless, pedestrian-first shared street. Construction is set to begin in January 2027, with completion expected in the first quarter of 2028, and the park will remain a publicly owned City of Miami park, open to residents and visitors.
The funding comes from both sides of a public-private partnership between the City of Miami and Allen Morris Co., the Coral Gables-based Southeast real estate development firm. Through District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo's initiative, the City has committed $3 million through its Capital Improvements Plan, while Allen Morris Co. has committed $2 million through public benefit contributions.
Allen Morris Co. will serve as the project's development manager, working with the City and overseeing design, permitting, and construction through completion. The design team is led by Portuondo Perotti Architects and Naturalficial Landscape Architecture. "Kirk Munroe Park has served generations of Coconut Grove residents, and we are proud to partner with the City of Miami to help preserve its character while creating a more welcoming, resilient, and enduring public space for generations to come," said W.A. Spencer Morris, President of Allen Morris Co.
It is the second public park Allen Morris Co. is remaking through a public-private partnership. In Coral Gables, the firm has teamed with the City of Coral Gables and Agave Holdings, owner of The Plaza Coral Gables, on a $10 million-plus redesign of Fred B. Hartnett Ponce Circle Park, tied to the firm's adjacent Ponce Park condominium. There, too, the landscape is in Naturalficial's hands, with de la Guardia Victoria Architects & Urbanists leading the design.
The park takes its name from Kirk Munroe, the author, adventurer, and conservation advocate who built the first tennis court in Miami-Dade County, and it has long been part of the Grove's civic and cultural identity. For generations, it has welcomed families, supported recreational tennis, and provided outdoor space for students from nearby Coconut Grove Elementary School. "I'm proud to be able to leverage our district's capital funds with private investment to offer an even better park that will serve our residents and visitors for generations to come," Pardo said.
The refurbished tennis courts will get two tennis shelters and a tennis hitting wall. Around them, the park will hold the ornamental pavilion, the great lawn, a playground, a fitness area, and seating areas cut from oolitic limestone, with new pathways, improved pedestrian circulation, upgraded crossings, enhanced lighting, and buried power lines running through the grounds. A flexible gathering space will accommodate cultural performances, educational activities, wellness classes, civic events, and community celebrations through the year, alongside everyday recreation. The infrastructure work beneath all of it is designed to improve accessibility and connectivity throughout the park.
Rafael Portuondo, President of Portuondo Perotti Architects, leads the architecture, and Andres Arcila, President of Naturalficial, leads the landscape, with more than 100 new native trees, native and adaptive landscaping, habitat creation, and native oolitic limestone carried through the key architectural elements. Naturalficial is developing the planting design with guidance from Dr. Chris Baraloto, Director of the International Center for Tropical Botany and leader of the Land and Biodiversity Division at Florida International University's Institute of Environment, who will also help develop an educational component on the park's vegetation, ecology, and environmental significance.
"Our vision is not to reinvent it, but to reveal and strengthen the qualities that already make it special," Portuondo said. "By preserving mature trees, expanding the canopy, incorporating native and adaptive plant species, and creating habitat for local wildlife, we are building a resilient public landscape that supports biodiversity while offering residents a beautiful place to gather, explore, and connect with nature," Arcila said.
Beneath Fuller Street's new paving, landscaping, seating, and lighting, a suspended paving system will protect the mature canopy and maximize tree health. The design has been developed in collaboration with the existing businesses on the block so that outdoor seating, storefront access, and day-to-day operations keep running.
Together, the park and the streetscape are planned as a more cohesive, walkable public realm, linking the nearby restaurants and shops, the surrounding residential neighborhoods, and the Coconut Grove waterfront. Allen Morris Co., a 67-year-old company with offices in Coral Gables, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Atlanta, is also building Ziggurat Coconut Grove, its new luxury condominium and office building in the Grove, alongside Ponce Park in Coral Gables.