Charlestown State Park Master Plan gets landscape architecture award

The Charlestown State Park Master Plan recently won the honor award for unbuilt projects from the Indiana Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects (INASLA).

The honor award is the highest given by the Indiana chapter and qualifies the project to be submitted to the national awards program.

Rundell Earnstberger Associates (REA) prepared the final document that summarizes the resources available and outlines an orderly, sustainable, and environmentally sensitive development plan for the property. DNR staff worked closely with the REA staff to prepare the master plan in order to ensure that it would meet the Division of State Parks & Reservoirs planning goals and objectives-to protect and preserve the resources while providing high quality recreational and educational experiences to the property visitors.

While the master plan looks many years into the future, it is also a valuable tool for current-day budget planning and facility development.

The award was accepted by Mike List, natural resource manager of the DNR Division of State Parks and Reservoirs and Matt Pore, chief of project management, from the DNR Division of Engineering, as well as Carl Kincaid from REA.

This is the third recent award associated with Charlestown State Park. The two previous awards were the Kentuckiana Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors' Award of Excellence (for Charlestown Boat Ramp) and the Outstanding Projects-Large Access Award from the States Organization for Boating Access (SOBA), also for the ramp.

While many DNR employees contributed to the quality of the award-winning projects, List and Pore had significant input and oversight in both the boat-ramp project and master plan development.