Science Museum reveals designs for third phase of The Green public park

A mockup of the future East Green at the Science Museum. (Photos courtesy Marvel Designs)

The Science Museum of Virginia is onto the next phase of its ongoing project to create green spaces on its grounds. 

Representatives from the museum last month presented the preliminary design for phase three of its years-long effort to create more public community outdoors space at a meeting of the state’s Art and Architectural Review Board.

The latest portion of the project, called the East Green, spans a 5-acre parcel that runs along DMV Drive from Broad Street to a shared parking lot at the corner of Leigh Street, bordering the east side of the state-owned museum.

The parcel currently includes three surface parking lots and the former site of the Workers Compensation Building at 1000 DMV Drive, which the museum acquired in 2017 and later demolished. 

The museum plans to fill the East Green with an immersive public park, creating a mixture of water features, green spaces and native Virginia plants. Plans presented to the AARB in June break down the East Green into four zones, with a walkable path connecting public spaces, gardens, a water section and other areas within the East Green together. 

Tyler Silvestro of project design firm Marvel Designs told BizSense that the East Green is set to be an “intimate park setting” filled with different green spaces and places for the public to enjoy. 

“The idea of having a place you can really be immersed in and feel kind of small in is the idea. The Green on the Broad Street side is vast; it feels vast. Here, it’s going to be on a much different scale. When you step into the East Green, you’re going to step into a very intimate park setting,” Silvestro said. 

“Now, it’s going to be a whole new front door for the museum,” added Science Museum director Rich Conti. “The idea is to create a number of intimate public gathering spaces.” 

A mockup shows seating and slides at the East Green.

Project mockups show details throughout the site like stacked stone seating, slides for children, interactive art installations and signage explaining the East Green’s various plants, which Conti said will include Virginian flora. 

Plans also include a water feature called “The Spill” for small children to splash around in and a “vernal pool” at the low point of the site, which would be fed by storm and rainwater for guests to observe. 

“This would be a way of letting the land do what it wants to do, and at the same time create an interesting, most likely highly filtered but natural body of water,” Conti said. 

Two rows of around 45-year-old Willow Oak trees that were planted at the time the Workers Compensation Building was built and are now mature have been salvaged and will remain in the East Green.

“The park comes with something few parks typically come with, which is a layer of mature tree canopy,” Silvestro said. “We won’t be forced to plant very large trees. On day one we can plant with a much more responsible scale and caliber type of tree.” 

The East Green project comes after the completion of the first two phases of creating “The Green,” in 2023 and 2024, respectively. 

When the Virginia General Assembly funded the museum’s 400-space parking deck that opened in 2021, two to three acres of asphalt surface parking lots on the museum property opened up for new use.

Deciding to create The Green, the museum then pulled up the asphalt, replacing it with native vegetation, walking paths, outdoor seating and other elements like “Cosmic Perception,” a kaleidoscopic steel sculpture that spans 25 feet tall and 33 feet wide. 

A greater map of the Science Museum showing where the East Green is.

The first phase of the project was completed in 2023. A second phase, which also transformed the area in front of the museum building along Broad Street into more green space, was then completed in 2024. 

The Science Museum issued an RFP for the East Green project in April of last year, and Marvel signed on in September.  

Total project costs for the first two phases of the Green came out to around $7.5 million, which was privately funded. 

Conti said the museum is currently getting cost estimating done and is not yet sure of the price tag for the East Green. 

The museum said it has a budget for East Green of about $10 million and is actively raising private funds for the project. Half of the museum’s goal has been raised thus far.

“Hopefully we will be within that,” Conti said. “The first two phases was  seven point five million, and we spent exactly seven point five.” 

The four planned “zones” for the East Green.

Silvestro said Marvel is currently moving into design development for the five acres, noting that construction will likely be in two phases. The goal is to wrap up construction documents for the whole East Green by February of next year, and begin construction that spring, he added. 

Conti said construction could possibly take between nine and 12 months. 

Also on the project are civil engineer Balzer & Associates, horticultural designer Phyto Studio and cost estimator Ellana. 

Marvel, headquartered in New York City, has an office in Richmond at 300 E. Main St., with other outposts in San Juan and Barcelona, per the company website. 

Silvestro said that Marvel feels the project will be for Richmond what the interactive Taylor Farms Park is for Sandston, citing the mix of shade, water, signage about the plants and site biodiversity and other interactive features. 

“I believe this will be the park that all Richmonders go to. It will become a heavily used and friendly public space,” Silvestro said. 

The Science Museum’s board of trustees, appointed by the governor, oversees and provides policy guidance for the museum, while the Science Museum of Virginia Foundation raises funds to meet the museum’s capital needs.

The foundation operated with $3.74 million in revenue and $4.93 million in expenses in 2024, according to the organization’s most recent public financial reports issued to the IRS.

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