The proposed work aims to design and develop a novel direct drive parallel stream counter-rotating Darrieus turbine system capable of producing power at low velocities (less than 2.0 m/s) for scientific and industrial applications along an intercoastal environment. This system consists of two Darrieus rotors arranged parallel and horizontally to the water stream and operate in counter-rotation due to the incoming flow. The parallel rotor design aims to work with one rotor directly driving an armature coil rotor and the other with a permanent magnet generator. The gearbox removal eliminates the mechanical losses due to friction; however, also reduces the rotational speed at which the generator spins. The parallel Darrieus rotor design is designed to rectify this by increasing the speed at which the generator effectively spins. A two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation study assessed the hydrokinetic performance of the design. A scaled experimental design prototype was developed with two solid 3D printed cylinders serving as a surrogate for the armature coil and the permanent magnet rotor. The prototype was deployed in a water channel for static (non-movement of the rotors with the fluid flow) particle image velocimetry (PIV) studies. The PIV studies validate and verify the accuracy of the CFD simulations. This paper outlines the prototype development, PIV experimental setup and results, computational simulation setup and results, and additional recommendations for future work that could improve the overall performance of the proposed design.