Coasts & Waterfronts

At Kimley-Horn, we design coastal and waterfront places with history and culture in mind—and with the future clearly in focus. Our Coasts & Waterfronts practice brings together coastal engineering, applied science, and integrated multidisciplinary design to create places that drive broad community, environmental, and economic benefits while standing the test of time. We design waterfronts to withstand the future, and our work is a key contributor in how communities will successfully live with water over time.

Our teams design places and systems that move goods and people, support tourism and trade, restore natural systems, and remain relevant and resilient as conditions evolve. We design places where infrastructure does its job quietly and create opportunities for the waterfront to be owned by communities once again. We know that waterfronts that endure are those that were executed through thoughtful planning and collaboration, smart strategies around funding and permitting, and designed with the future in mind.

From early planning and visioning through permitting, final design, and construction support, our industry-leading coastal and waterfront professionals deliver—bringing one integrated team from dry land to open water.

Core Coasts & Waterfronts Capabilities

We deliver coastal and waterfront work as integrated efforts—linking upland development, transportation systems, shoreline protection, natural systems, marinas and in-water structures, and funding strategies from early planning through construction.

Planning & Feasibility Analysis

Alternatives development and feasibility studies
Master and strategic plan development
Market studies and financial evaluation
Grant funding research and application support
Business planning and cost-benefit analysis
Due diligence and facility Evaluation
Operations analysis
Resiliency, sustainability, and adaptation assessments

Environmental and Permitting

Environmental documentation and compliance support
Permitting strategy and agency coordination
Habitat and shoreline restoration assessments
Stakeholder engagement and public outreach

Engineering Design

Coastal flooding and resiliency
Coastal modeling and instrumentation deployment
Mooring and berthing analysis
Navigation studies
Waterfront structural, coastal, civil, marina, and dredging design
Utility engineering design
Cost estimating
Bid and construction document preparation

Engineering Support During Bid and Construction

Contractor pre-qualification
Bid support services
Construction administration and observation support
Design-build engineering support
Facilities operation and maintenance guidelines

One Team, From Dry Land to Open Water

Our coastal engineers work side-by-side with Kimley-Horn’s ports, transportation, civil, environmental, structural, landscape architecture, and development teams to deliver projects that include:

Seawalls, bulkheads, piers, docks, and marinas
Ports, ferry terminals, and water taxi facilities
Beach nourishment and sediment management programs
Wetland, estuary, and living shoreline restoration
River and lakefront stabilization and access improvements
Breakwaters, wave attenuation, groins, and harbor creation
Cruise terminals and private destination islands
Waterfront parks, promenades, and public spaces

Waterfronts As Integrated Systems

As systems moving people and goods, waterfronts support ports, ferries, marinas, cruise terminals, and working waterfronts. They buffer communities from storms and tides. They include beaches, wetlands, estuaries, rivers, lakes, and nearshore waters that don’t fit neatly into project boundaries or agency jurisdictions. Designing in these environments means understanding how waves, sediment, water levels, vessels, infrastructure, ecosystems, funding requirements, and public use interact—often in ways that aren’t obvious.

At Kimley-Horn, we approach waterfronts and water systems as connected places, not isolated features, where upland and in-water conditions are planned together and infrastructure and natural systems are designed to work with each other.

Science-Driven Coastal Resilience

Water doesn’t respect property lines, permitting silos, or capital improvement schedules. It responds to physics. Our understanding of how coastal and riverine systems behave—waves, currents, sediment movement, flooding patterns, and long-term change—allows us to help clients address real problems: nuisance flooding, eroding shorelines, disrupted ferry routes, vulnerable port facilities, and aging infrastructure.

Resilience changes how waterfronts function, how infrastructure is used, and how natural and built systems respond to evolving conditions. Some projects are about holding the line, yet the best ones quietly prepare for what comes next, even if that next step is decades away. In some places, adaptation will eventually require transformation—rethinking land uses, restoring natural systems, relocating or reconfiguring infrastructure, and redefining how communities live with water.

Our teams help clients think across that entire arc. We design waterfront projects that:

Protect people, communities, and critical infrastructure
Keep ports, ferries, and marine transportation operating when conditions deteriorate
Stabilize shorelines through nourishment, structures, or hybrid approaches
Restore wetlands, estuaries, and natural shorelines
Improve water quality and ecological function
Expand public access without increasing risk
Align with available funding and grant requirements