Parrish Park at Titusville

Parrish Park is a Brevard County river park on the Max Brewer Causeway, the stretch of SR-402 that runs east from Titusville across the Indian River.

The county places the park on the north side of SR-402 at the A. Max Brewer Causeway, stretching from the east end of the drawbridge to the security gates for Kennedy Space Center (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). Its street address is 1 A. Max Brewer Memorial Parkway. Brevard County owns and maintains it: the city parks page files Parrish Park under County Owned and Maintained, with the county park line (321) 264-5037 (City of Titusville parks list). Questions about the ramp, a shelter booking or a broken fixture therefore go to the county, not to Titusville City Hall.

The state birding trail describes the layout a little differently. It says the park straddles the Max Brewer Memorial Parkway, sits next to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and looks out over the Indian River Lagoon (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park). Both agencies give the same street address. One more county rule matters for anyone arriving by car: the east side of Parrish Park is open for pedestrian traffic only (Brevard County Parrish Park listing), so vehicles and trailers stay with the ramp and the paved lots.

Behind the park line, the county lists its North Area Operations office at (321) 264-5105 and the Board of County Commissioners offices at 2725 Judge Fran Jamieson Way in Viera (Brevard County Parrish Park listing).

The county lists Parrish Park at 36.6 acres and the state birding trail lists it at 40 acres; both list free parking or free entry, and the trail page gives the hours as dawn to dusk.

The 36.6 acre figure comes from the county listing (Brevard County Parrish Park listing), while the Great Florida Birding Trail site information gives a size of 40 acres (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park). Neither page explains the difference, so both numbers stand here as each agency printed them.

On hours, the county listing for this park gives none. The birding trail page gives two wordings on the same screen: operational hours of daily, dawn to dusk, and a second line reading sunrise to sunset (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park). On cost, the county tags the park with free parking (Brevard County Parrish Park listing) and the trail page says the site is free to enter (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park).

That free entry is the practical difference from the federal land across the road. At Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, a Refuge Pass is required to drive Black Point Wildlife Drive and Bio Lab Road and to launch a boat at the Bairs Cove, Beacon 42 and Bio Lab ramps, with passes sold at the refuge Visitor Center and on Recreation.gov. The county Parrish Park listing names no pass for its ramp (Brevard County Parrish Park listing).

Parrish Park has a 6 lane saltwater ramp for motorized boats that also takes canoes, with paved parking for 46 cars and 47 boat trailers.

Those counts come from the county description of the paved lots (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). The amenity list repeats the ramp as 6 lanes, saltwater, motorized, with canoes allowed. The birding trail page also marks a paddling launch among the site amenities and lists parking and accessible parking, though it marks the restroom as not accessible (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park).

Trailer parking is limited to the 47 listed spaces, and the county rules for this park say parking areas stay open to the public and cannot be reserved, even by a group that has rented a shelter (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). A boater who needs a pass based federal ramp instead is choosing a refuge ramp, where the Refuge Pass rule applies (Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge).

For scale, two other county maintained ramps in Titusville list fewer lanes: Marina Park, north of the Titusville Marina at 501 Marina Rd, lists a 3 lane motorized ramp and dock (Brevard County Marina Park listing), and Sand Point Park at 101 N. Washington Ave lists a 1 lane ramp (Brevard County Sand Point Park listing).

Anglers at Parrish Park can use a 100 foot fishing pier or 1,400 feet of shoreline, and a separate county maintained fishing pier sits on the Max Brewer Bridge next door.

Brevard County lists the 100 foot pier and 1,400 feet of shoreline fishing among the park amenities, and it describes the park as convenient access to the Indian River for fishing, water sports and sunbathing (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). The birding trail page adds that dolphins and manatees are often spotted from the ramp area (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park).

The bridge pier is its own entry on the city list: the Titusville Veterans Memorial Fishing Pier at 2 A. Max Brewer Bridge Memorial Parkway, owned by the city and maintained by Brevard County, with the phone (321) 264-5105 (City of Titusville parks list). That makes two county run places to cast a line within the same stretch of causeway, one off the park shore and one from the bridge.

Parrish Park has eight 12 by 12 foot pavilions named after birds, seven holding 25 people and one holding 10, and each one is reservable through the county.

The county amenity list counts these as 8 small picnic shelters (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). Each pavilion carries a Reserve link on the county page. The county rental note says additional fees may apply for water, electricity, serving areas and kitchens where a shelter has them, and it gives (321) 264-5037 for more information. None of the eight is listed above 25 people.

Parrish Park is a stop on the Great Florida Birding Trail, best in fall and winter for Bufflehead, Lesser Scaup, loons and grebes, with ospreys and bald eagles seen regularly.

The trail page names Bufflehead, Lesser Scaup, Dunlin, Common Loons and Horned Grebes as the fall and winter draw, with Reddish Egrets and Roseate Spoonbills sometimes present (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park). It suggests checking both sides of the road for loafing Royal Terns, Great Black-backed and Herring Gulls, Ruddy Turnstones and Black Skimmers, which sometimes rest in the parking lot in large flocks. Uncommon winter ducks such as Long-tailed Duck and Surf Scoter have also been recorded there.

The setting explains the list. The park borders Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says was established in 1963 for the protection of migratory birds, covers 140,000 acres of dunes, salt marsh, impoundments, scrub, flatwoods and hammock, and provides habitat for more than 1,500 species of plants and animals. Parrish Park is a free edge of that habitat reachable without a refuge pass (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park).

Brevard County tags Parrish Park as a launch view park, and the City of Titusville lists the Max Brewer Bridge beside it as one of seven local viewing spots.

The county listing says the park gives access to the Indian River for rocket launch viewing among other uses and carries a Launch View tag (Brevard County Parrish Park listing). The city rocket launch page lists Riverfront Park, the Max Brewer Bridge, the Municipal Marina, Rotary Riverfront Park, Sand Point Park, Space View Park and William J. Manzo Park (City of Titusville rocket launch page); Parrish Park is not named on that list, though the bridge sits at its west end.

The county Sand Point Park and Space View Park listings each say the park and restrooms stay open when a launch is scheduled after normal hours (Sand Point Park listing; Space View Park listing). The Parrish Park listing carries no such note (Brevard County Parrish Park listing), and the only hours found in these sources are the dawn to dusk hours on the birding trail page (Great Florida Birding Trail, Parrish Park). Neither the county nor the city page publishes launch dates or times. Sand Point Park and Space View Park each have their own Titusville parks guide on this site.

Last verified: October 21, 2026, by re-reading the Brevard County Parrish Park listing, the state birding trail entry, the Titusville parks list and launch page and the Merritt Island refuge home page, keeping the 36.6 and 40 acre figures and both hours wordings exactly as printed.