Newport Secures $2.3 Million Grant For King Park Improvements

NEWPORT, RI — Newport was awarded a $2.3 million grant from the RI Infrastructure Bank to make several improvements to King Park, city officials said Friday.

City officials said the grant will pay for an expansion of the beach and the replacement of the aging seawall with a more resilient coastal barrier.

"As a coastal community, we're feeling the impacts of increasingly severe weather, from coastal erosion to abnormally high tides, that combined with high winds and flooding are swamping Newport treasures like King Park," Newport Mayor Xay Khamsyvoravong said. "We need to aggressively pursue every available resource to help Newport make the investments it needs to weather these events. Using this $2.3 million grant from the Infrastructure Bank, we will make King Park more resilient by removing a portion of the existing seawall, expanding the beach area, and planting salt-tolerant plants. These investments will help mitigate the damage that can be caused by flooding events and ensure that King Park will be a beautiful recreational asset for Newport residents and visitors for decades to come."

With the vertical seawall on the eastern side of the park failing and in need of repairs, Newport's Planning and Public Services Departments, proposed a solution designed to help buffer the park from tidal intrusions and heavy wave action. Currently, higher tides and storm events have been overtopping the seawall, causing erosion behind the vertical wall and compromising the city's harbor walk.

On the western side of the park, erosion along the edge of the beach has also begun to threaten public access and jeopardize the integrity of the dinghy and kayak storage area, according to city officials. To remedy those problems, city officials said they will remove the easternmost section of the seawall to expand the beach and plant salt tolerant plants inland while regrading the bank to create a more dissipative slope and install rip rap wall.

For the western beach, the city plans to install coconut fiber coir logs along the eroding bank that will be covered with beach sand to stave off further erosion.

City officials said construction is expected to get underway later this year.

Newport's grant is part of a $12 million package awarded to 19 communities across Rhode Island. State officials said all Municipal Resilience Program (MRP) grants aim to implement projects intended to help mitigate the effects of climate change.

"Investing in Rhode Island's communities isn't just a prudent decision, but a crucial step in securing a resilient future," Gov. Dan McKee said. "The impacts of flooding and storms have been wide-ranging throughout our state, but with this funding from the voter-approved green bond, we can mitigate those risks, improve our response, and adapt to meet the climate change challenge."

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