Jungle Trail’s New Window on the Lagoon
- Vero Minute
- Mar 16
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 17
This Saturday afternoon on Jungle Trail, Indian River County cuts the ribbon on the Jones' Pier Conservation Area Interpretive Center, designed by R+C Architecture, a new facility that tells the story of one of the county's most intact Old Florida landscapes.
The namesake of the pier, the Jones family, shaped this stretch of the Indian River Lagoon for generations. In 1889, Seaborn Jones and his family homesteaded 160 acres on Orchid Island, tendering crops of beans and tomatoes while their citrus groves developed. By 1907, Jones had built a dock along the Indian River Lagoon to aid in commerce, which would eventually lend its name to 16 acres of conserved land the county purchased and restored.
Today the site includes a living shoreline, a four-acre salt marsh connected to the lagoon through an Archimedes screw that slowly cycles water for natural purification, and a gopher tortoise sanctuary.
The grand opening runs from 2 to 4 p.m. on March 21 at 7770 Jungle Trail, with guided tours of the new facility. Stick around after for Tunes at the Lagoon and commemorate the occasion with live music on the waterfront.
The firm behind the space is R + C Architecture, the Vero Beach studio founded by George Ritacco and Yook Chan, Cooper Union and NYIT graduates who spent two decades in New York before coming home to practice here.
For more information, contact Wendy Swindell at wswindell@indianriver.gov or (772) 269-4558.
