The project involves the $24 million (construction cost) reconstruction of the River Common, Wilkes-Barre’s 55-acre downtown riverfront park, by the Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The River Common, a strip of land between the Susquehanna River and Wilkes-Barre’s downtown commercial core, had previously been cut in two by flood control levees; the project has transformed those levees into a stunning riverfront promenade. In the process, it reclaimed lost ground, bringing the park back to the river’s edge. The result doubled the park’s usable acreage (returning the tract’s functional parkland to almost 45 acres), while reclaiming the riverfront as a stunning new front door for Downtown Wilkes-Barre and creating an opportunity to reintroduce the citizens of the Wyoming Valley to their river.

Larry Newman, Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, speaking about this project: