Maria Nardi was recently named the new director for Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation and Open Space Department, replacing the retiring George Navarette.
Navarette agreed to succeed retiring parks director, Jack Kardys, until his own retirement next month.
Nardi, who previously served as Miami-Dade Parks’ assistant director of Planning and Design Excellence, started her new position on August 1.
She directed two of the department’s cornerstone projects: the Parks Open Space Master Plan to transform Miami into a more livable and sustainable community and the Recreation Program Plan.
For her leadership role, Nardi was awarded the coveted American Institute of Architects (AIA) Miami Leadership in Government award last year.
“We are very proud of Maria, this award is well-deserved,” Kardys said after she won the award. “Because of her work with the county’s Master Plan vision of ‘connecting people and parks for life,’ municipalities around the country look to our parks as a role model and this community is realizing that parks are essential to the health, well-being, and happiness of every resident.”
Nardi has more than 18 years of experience in the private and public sector in the fields of urban design, landscape architecture, park planning, architecture and preservation. Her work includes the role of parks/public spaces in shaping cities; the emerging evidence-based science of health and the built environment; the creation of equitable, resilient communities through parks and public spaces.
In addition, while at her former post as chief of Urban Design with the City of Miami, Nardi initiated Miami21; a rewrite of Miami’s land development regulations to transform the city into a walkable community, and has been a key figure in the county’s push to create the Underline, a 10-mile linear park” running under Miami-Dade’s elevated Metrorail system from Downtown Miami to Dadeland. Nardi earned a degree in Architecture from the University of Miami and a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.