Pressley Associates starts final phase at Point State Park's fountain plaza

According to Pressley Associates, a landscape architecture and urban design firm based in Cambridge, Mass., Point State Park's fountain plaza broke ground in late November 2011. This is the final phase of the 37-acre park's rehabilitation to make it 100% universally accessible and more convenient to Pittsburgh's urban center while respecting the historic integrity of this national historic site. Pressley, which began work on the park more than 10 years ago, will be rehabilitating the signature fountain's central plaza, which acts as a welcoming public gathering space paved in 30,000 s/f of bluestone and reclaimed limestone cobbles. The fountain, with a central jet reaching up to 200 ft., will be made less susceptible to flood damage and more operational at fuller capacity. Located at Pittsburgh's tip, where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers join to form the Ohio River, Point State Park marks the foundations of Fort Pitt (1784) and Fort Duquesne (1754), the site of a pivotal battle in the French and Indian War.