Dallas welcomes its final downtown urban park, Harwood Park, converting parking lots into a green oasis complete with whimsical “Ghost Mammoth” slides for children, according to a Dallas Innovates article which reports,
“Dallas is getting its fourth and final downtown “urban neighborhood park” created by transforming parking lots into playful, green oases. And this one comes with something special—”Ghost Mammoth” slides whose long, curving trunks will snort out squealing kids for decades to come.
Harwood Park, located at 408 South Harwood Street, will get a blow-out grand opening this weekend, announced the Downtown Dallas Parks Conservancy (formerly known as Parks for Downtown Dallas) and the Dallas Park and Recreation Department.”
The 3.8-acre Harwood Park replaces parking lots in Dallas’s East Quarter, marking the final park project by Parks for Downtown Dallas, which has now evolved into the Downtown Dallas Parks Conservancy, according to a Dallas Morning News article. In it they say,
“The 3.8-acre, $20.3 million park takes the place of a patchwork of surface parking lots just blocks from the Farmers Market in what developers have christened the East Quarter. It is the fourth and final park created by Parks for Downtown Dallas, the nonprofit founded by DallasNews Corporation board member and former chief executive Robert Decherd, following Pacific Plaza (2019), West End Square (2021) and Carpenter Park (2022).
With the park’s opening, the organization is changing its name to the Downtown Dallas Parks Conservancy, with a mission to maintain the parks it has created. “The original notion that we would team up with the city, finish the parks and call it a day just doesn’t make sense,” Decherd says. “The advocacy for downtown parks has to be consistent and uninterrupted.””
Harwood Park’s mammoth-themed playground symbolizes the area’s history, transitioning from prehistoric times to a contemporary urban neighborhood, as explained by designer Christine Ten Eyck of Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc, according to a Candy’s Dirt article which says,
“The park is destined to be a focal point for the southeast side of downtown Dallas and it’s not just because of the trendy pickleball courts. The mammoth-themed playground will get plenty of miles, but it begs the question: Why style the kid-friendly feature after a long-extinct mammal?
“The design of Harwood Park tells a story that spans the last 100,000 years: from grazing ground of prehistoric Mammoths to the former tributary of the Trinity River; from a residential neighborhood, to automobile service and then film industry, to its present role as a contemporary mixed-use neighborhood for downtown living,” said Christine Ten Eyck, founding principal of Austin-based Ten Eyck Landscape Architects Inc., designer and project lead for Harwood Park.”
Peridot Residences sponsors a grand opening festival for Harwood Park, featuring live music, a VIP lounge, food trucks, pickleball, goat yoga, and more attractions on September 24th.
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