Summary

Because of their knowledge and contributions to projects in progress or already completed along the river, Abel City’s co-founder’s Frank Rotnofsky and Viviana Frank were invited to the Jacobs/Carter Burgess design team. They were the lead on site analysis and design interventions along the river. This master plan serves as a long-term guide for two-and-a-half miles of the Rio Grande riverfront.

The plan identifies the establishment of an interconnected system of parks, greenways, and nature trails along the Rio Grande, and it is deliberate in its attention to the river’s corresponding creeks and watersheds. The plan recommends a series of projects that promote recreation, economic development, ecotourism, and downtown revitalization — all in relationship to ecological conservation of the river, where the river is not a resource to be exploited but a relationship to be maintained. The outcome of this plan is intended as  a virtuous cycle that flows the natural features of the Rio Grande River into the fabric of the community, in a way that centers the symbiotic relationship between the residents of Laredo and the river they live by.