Black Bay Park already had the landscape. What it needed was a way for more people to reach and enjoy it. Civitas’s first phase of improvements, completed in July 2026, opens the Spokane River edge in Post Falls, Idaho, through new circulation, gathering places and access to the water.

The 60-acre park includes woodland, rocky ground and more than 100 feet of elevation change. Rather than flattening these conditions into a conventional recreation ground, the design works through a network of looping trails and boardwalks that follows the terrain and limits disturbance.

Accessibility shaped the brief from the beginning. Community conversations included a wheelchair user who wanted to experience the river with her child, rather than watch from a distance. That distinction turns access into a shared spatial experience, influencing how paths connect the park’s different levels and destinations.

New waterfront platforms and floating docks establish places to approach the river, while restoration addresses erosion along its banks. The project’s architectural presence is concentrated in the routes and edges that make the larger landscape usable.

The completed phase is documented on Civitas’s project page and in its Archinect gallery. The photographs selected here are credited to Miles Bergsma.