Craving peace and quiet? Pembroke Pines park ranks high for escaping the noise
Peace and quiet are hard to come by in Broward County’s metropolises, but a Pembroke Pines park could make the perfect getaway, according to new research.
Memorial Park, located at 10601 SW City Center Blvd., just behind City Hall, has been dubbed a top 10 spot to “sit alone for a while and breathe,” according to a study by A Mission for Michael, a California-based mental health facility.
The report — published April 9 — ranked the southwest Broward park 10th nationally, adding it “offers a comfortable setting where someone can sit quietly and step away from the usual noise of the day.”
Its popularity was sourced from a 3,002-person survey conducted by AMFM in March, in which participants were asked about their city’s best spot for getting away from the noise.
Respondents for the online survey were selected from a “nationally representative panel of U.S. adults” to ensure factors such as gender, household income and geographic region were reflective of the broader population.
Results were then weighted where needed to line up with U.S. population benchmarks.
Higher up in the report was Coral Springs’ Cypress Park, which snagged the top spot in Florida and the fifth spot nationally for being “surprisingly refreshing.”
“People often talk about mental health in terms of big interventions, but this research is a reminder that small moments matter too,” AMFM’s executive director Anand Meta said.
“For many Americans, simply finding a place to sit alone for twenty or thirty minutes can be a genuine form of reset. These quiet pauses may look ordinary from the outside, but they can play a meaningful role in helping people feel calmer, more grounded and better able to cope with the demands of daily life.”
Opened in the early 2000s, Memorial Park doubles as a community recreational area and dedication to active and retired military service members.
On its grounds are two monuments, one to commemorate the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the other to honor local veterans.
The 9/11 Memorial, created by local sculptors Benoit Menasche and Felix Gonzalez, was unveiled in 2011 and features a salvaged steel girder from the World Trade Center Twin Towers solicited by then-Commissioner Angelo Castillo.
The Veterans Memorial, a 15-foot black granite obelisk bearing the seals of the U.S. military branches, was dedicated in 2011 and features commemorative bricks for local veterans on the walkway leading up to the monument.
Also unique to the City Hall park is an ADA-accessible, “special needs inclusive playground” part of an initiative to transform Pembroke Pines into an “Autism Friendly City.”
Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu took the top spot in the survey.
