“We selected Hudson River Park for recognition because it exemplifies the power of public-private partnerships to create and maintain urban parks that build community and make our cities sustainable and vibrant,” said Catherine Nagel, Executive Director of City Parks Alliance.  “We hope that by shining the spotlight on this park that we can raise awareness about both the necessity and the promise of these kinds of partnerships to spur investment in our nation’s urban parks.”

“Hudson River Park is the realization of more than a decade of work to restore Manhattan’s waterfront into a true community resource and model for public projects,” said A.J. Pietrantone, Executive Director of Friends of Hudson River Park, “We are proud to be selected as a Frontline Park, a testament to the positive results that come from partnerships between citizens and city government.”

Pier 45 before renovation

Hudson River Park stretches the five miles from Battery Park City to 59th Street, making it the second largest waterfront park in the nation and the largest open space project in Manhattan since Central Park was completed. It is the first in a series of waterfront revitalization efforts in New York, and is currently one of the most visited urban parks in North America.

“It is an honor to receive recognition from the City Parks Alliance for innovation and leadership in this field,” said Madelyn Wils, President and CEO of Hudson River Park Trust. “As the first project of its kind, Hudson River Park provides an exciting glimpse at what the future holds for all of the City’s waterfront parks.”

The renovation of Hudson River Park has improved quality of life on Manhattan’s West Side, helped spur the boom of families living downtown, and served as a catalyst for economic development in surrounding neighborhoods. For instance, over the past decade, there has been $3 billion in new construction in the blocks surrounding the Park.

In total, more than 17 million residents and tourists take advantage of the bike path, walkway and  piers, enjoy a cruise, or attend a concert each year. More than 7,500 children a year participate in the Park’s free educational programming and almost 120 different organizations use its recreation fields.

“It’s hard to overstate the impact of Hudson River Park on the city’s waterfront and on the quality of life of the park’s neighbors,” said Hudson River Park Trust Chair Diana L. Taylor. “Once a dilapidated remnant of New York’s industrial past, the Hudson River waterfront is now a blue and green playground for the whole city to enjoy.”

Pier 45 after renovation

Hudson River Park is being featured on CPA’s website during the month of January.

The “Frontline Parks” program is made possible with generous support from DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

The typical organization sponsors 60 programs each year and provides park maintenance, volunteer recruitment, and other key functions. These parks are resourceful in securing funding, spending an average of $160,000 per acre managed, but real estate value capture remains a substantial, often untapped opportunity to support signature city parks.

To read the full report, click here: Signature Park Survey

2011 City Park Facts

Despite aggregate increases in acreage and facilities across the U.S., many city park departments are struggling with funding shortages. Operational spending shrank by 0.6 percent overall, with close to half of cities experiencing cuts.  Full-time employee counts fell by 3.9 percent, a loss of 935 jobs nationwide. The impact on seasonal jobs was particularly severe, with a decrease of 11.04 percent, or more than 8,000 jobs. Overall though, the rate of employment cuts has slowed since the previous year, which witnessed a 7 percent drop in employment.

The 22,493 city parks profiled in the report serve 62 million urban residents with a wide array of facilities, including 419 public golf courses, 569 dog parks, 9,633 ball diamonds, 11,678 playgrounds, and 14,415 basketball hoops.

Budgets grew slightly overall, but not enough to sustain jobs or overcome increasing – and often deferred – maintenance costs. Peter Harnik, director of the Center for City Park Excellence, noted that “cities are still saddled with a reported $5.8 billion in deferred repairs and improvements.” That figure is only slightly smaller than the total parks expenditure of the 92 cities that provided financial data for FY 2009, which equaled $6.1 billion.

The enthusiasm for great parks among city dwellers hasn’t suffered. Nearly half the primary park and recreation agencies reported more than 1 million visits during the year, and 14 boasted more than 10 million annual visits. Topping the list were New York (123 million visits), San Diego (72.3 million), and Chicago (50 million). Park directors welcome this popularity, though heavy usership can also be a burden, with 1,261 parks categorized as “overused.”

Madison, Wisconsin has the most parks per capita, with 12.7 per 10,000 residents, followed by Cincinnati, St. Petersburg, Anchorage, and Buffalo. Madison also has more playgrounds per capita than any other city, with seven for every 10,000 residents. The next five are Virginia Beach, Corpus Christi, Cincinnati, and Norfolk.

For the set of cities which provided data in both FY 2009 and FY 2010, the only major facility type to decrease in number was swimming pools, dropping from 1,337 to 1,227.

There are almost 20,000 community garden plots in the parks of the 100 largest cities. Despite being two of the coldest cities, St. Paul, Minnesota and Madison, Wisconsin were tops in the number of garden sites per 10,000 residents, with 35.6 and 32.9, respectively.

Spread-out cities such as Anchorage and Albuquerque usually offer the most park acreage per resident. Older, denser cities that still manage to offer residents large swaths of open space include Minneapolis (13.3 acres per 1,000 residents), Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. But operating quality parkland in dense cities does not come cheap – Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Seattle each spent $200 or more per resident, compared to a median of $84.

Read the entire 2011 City Park Facts report here.

Twelve parks – one each month – will be featured on CPA’s website home page in 2012.  Each “Frontline Park” story will show how parks and their stewards are on the forefront of creating healthier, more sustainable cities.  With each month’s feature, CPA will coordinate with each park partner a joint press release for local, national, and social media to announce their selection as a “Frontline Park.”  Featured parks will also be included in CPA’s quarterly e-newsletter Benchmarks distributed to hundreds of CPA members and on the City Parks blog.

We are looking for the best stories.  Is there a non-traditional leader who has helped to bring about change in your local park?  How has park programming helped to address pressing urban issues, such as public health, job creation or community revitalization?  Have you done something really fun and innovative to increase revenue, cultivate volunteers or educate young people?  How did a crisis create an opportunity to build a new partnership?  Stories should be related to one or more of the following topics:

• Community Capacity Building
• Design
• Economic Development
• Education
• Environment
• Funding
• Health
• Maintenance
• Programming
• Public/Private Partnerships
• Safety
• Transportation
• Workforce Development

For more information about application guidelines, please click here: Frontline Park Nominations

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When it comes to urban infill projects – and urban infill park systems – in the San Francisco Bay Area, the colossus is Mission Bay. Almost one out of every six acres of the brand new community is slated to become parkland.

Located in east-central San Francisco, along San Francisco Bay and not far from the Financial District, the 303-acre site was a former industrial area, port rail terminal and warehousing center that suffered through decades of decline. Finally, the pendulum swung back, the area’s intrinsic value was recognized, and in 1998 the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to establish the Mission Bay North and South Redevelopment Project Areas. It then turned the vast project over to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. The area is eventually scheduled to contain 6,000 residential units, 6 million square feet of commercial space, a hotel, a university campus, retail – and 49 acres of new parkland.

Mission Creek Sports Courts, the first of many new parks that will be built within Mission Bay. Credit: Ning Deng, Marta Fry Landscape Associates

The first of the new parks to come on line is 3-acre Mission Creek Sports Courts, a facility designed to specifically activate land and water spaces partially under a freeway. Its development cost was approximately $7.2 million, its gestation period was 10 years, and it officially opened to the public in mid-2008.  As is usually the case with redevelopment projects, the story of Mission Creek Sport Courts is complex.

By the 1990s most of the land of Mission Bay was owned either by the City of San Francisco or by Catellus, Inc., a land development company associated with the Southern Pacific Railroad. Under normal circumstances, since the area was uninhabited, the company would have had a relatively free hand to develop the large site more or less as it wished, which might have meant a modest amount of parkland. However, there was a small but historic and vociferous community living in houses that literally floated in Mission Creek itself, and that group pressed for parks.

“We weren’t going to let them move ahead without a significant commitment to parks and recreation in our area,” recalls Corinne Woods, a local resident who formerly worked for the Neighborhood Parks Council. Years earlier, ideas for the Mission Bay area had included a sterile collection of concrete water channels and high-rise towers that residents had rejected. This time was different, said Woods. “I’ve got to say that they really stepped up to the plate.”

A major reason that so much more was done at Mission Bay is because the developer wanted, and was dependent on, special financing from the Redevelopment Agency to fund public infrastructure. The city, the agency and the community therefore had considerable leverage to require that land be dedicated to public parks, affordable housing and other benefits.  Without public financial help, the entire project would not have been feasible.

Basketball courts in front of new residences. Courtesy Mission Bay Development Agency.

“This is the value of public/private partnerships,” explained Kelley Kahn, project manager with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. “We bring powerful public financing tools to the table, the developer brings private land, and together with the community a plan with important public benefits is negotiated.”

Ultimately the redevelopment agency and the master developer (formerly Catellus, now a company called FOCIL-MB) agreed to create 0.45 acres of parkland for every 1.0 net acres of physical development (i.e., acreage not counting streets). This will translate into 41 acres of parks (plus 8 more acres promised within the new campus being built for the University of California at San Francisco). Moreover, under the agreement, the parkland has to be brought on line at a rate equivalent to the development of buildings — that is, park construction cannot be held back while residents are awaited.

Park funding in Mission Bay is provided by way of two sources: from a community facilities district (CFD, also known as a Mello-Roos District), and from tax increment financing – additional tax monies generated because of redevelopment in the area. A CFD is an area where a special property tax on real estate, in addition to the normal property tax, is imposed. The district then sells bonds to finance public improvements and services (which, in addition to parks, could pay for streets, water, sewage and drainage, electricity, schools or police protection.) The tax paid is used to reduce the principal and interest on the bonds.  Similarly, tax increment bonds are issued against future tax increment to pay for parks and other public infrastructure.

The CFD, which runs until the year 2043, and the tax increment financing – a key tool of redevelopment – make all the difference. If it weren’t for the district, Mission Bay (like San Francisco itself at the current time) would not be financially able to create any parks. Moreover, if Mission Creek had contained a large number of small landowners, it is unlikely that they would have voted to spend more of their money by way of a community facilities district. Since Catellus wanted it and was the primary owner, the company was able to make it happen.

Today the park contains courts for basketball, volleyball and tennis, a dog run, a small boat launch for human-powered vessels (kayaks and canoes), a walkway, a bikeway, and a multipurpose lawn. Maintaining and programming the Sports Courts costs about $400,000 per year. A separate community facilities district was formed to fund park maintenance and operations. The cost of this (and other parks) comes to $10,650 per acre for undeveloped land and just over $18,000 per acre for developed land (which is pro-rated by the number of units on each acre). For individual units, the fee generally came to between $150 and $200 in 2010.

Civic Center Park
Civic Center is the primary green space in the center of Denver, and as such, it serves as both regional and neighborhood park.  The urban park hosts the Rocky Mountain region’s largest public festivals, political rallies, and public celebrations.  The neo-classical architecture in the park provides the perfect backdrop to one of the city’s largest public art collections.  Surrounded by the City County Building, Colorado State Capitol, Greek Theater, Voorhies Memorial and the McNichols Building (formerly the Carnegie Library), its importance is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places and the Civic Center Historic District, a Denver Landmark District.  The experience is a draw for hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

Civic Center

In 2005, a comprehensive master plan was adopted for the park, which recommended the formation of a non-profit organization, the Civic Center Conservancy.  The public-private partnership has grown significantly through passionate volunteerism to restore, enhance and activate Denver’s historic Civic Center.  In 2007, the Better Denver Bond invested $9.5 million in the complete rehabilitation of the park’s historic structures.

Rotary Centennial Park
Long Beach’s Rotary Centennial Park has been called a “ribbon of green” due to the contrast of its colorful landscaping and art elements against the monotones of apartments that surround it. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rotary International in 2005, the Long Beach Rotary Club raised $100,000 to help design and construct a 1.2-acre park at Pacific Coast Highway and Junipero Avenue. This city-owned undeveloped land along the former Pacific Electric right-of-way is surrounded by a densely developed area with nearly 80 percent of the residents living in apartments with no backyards.

Before & After

Long Beach Rotary involved the public and stakeholders throughout the design process.  Community input was translated into plans that incorporated a solar system theme with art installations of planets, a sundial sculpture, benches, turf, trees, playground equipment, and a shade shelter. These creative elements have made Rotary Centennial Park one of the most unique and inviting parks in the city and a welcome addition to a park-poor neighborhood.  The Rotary’s involvement didn’t stop with the park’s creation.  Every month since the park opening, Long Beach Rotarians have held work parties to help clean, repair and maintain the park.

Frontline Parks is generously supported by DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

The letter notes the significant economic impact these venues have had on local economics:

“Outdoor recreation activities contribute $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy, supporting 6.5 million jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Foundation. New investments in parks could quickly create an added 100,000 to 200,000 positions—jobs based largely in communities and, thus, hard to outsource.”

The President’s proposed FY2012 budget recommends full funding for LWCF, including $200 million for matching grants to states and communities. The LWCF does not rely on taxpayer dollars, but rather on a very small percentage of fees paid by companies conducting offshore oil and gas production. Congress must appropriate the funds every year to parks. However, nearly every year since 1965—when the LWCF was created—lawmakers have largely diverted the funds to other, non-related purposes.

The mayors’ letter came just a week after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar identified many renowned urban parks as places to create and protect in the final 50-State America’s Great Outdoors Report—a compilation of public feedback and strategic conversations with the nation’s governors and diverse stakeholders about locally-driven conservation opportunities. City parks in Cleveland, Detroit, Hampton, Va., Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were among the projects highlighted in the report representing “a 21st Century approach to conservation that is designed by and accomplished in partnership with the American people.” Research shows that urban parks help to drive tourism, raise property values, and help communities to thrive. A new study of Chicago’s Millennium Park, for example, concludes that the cultural, environmental, educational and economic benefits to the city quadrupled the value of the public-private investment in the space.

“Cities are the engines that drive the nation’s economy,” said Catherine Nagel, executive director of the City Parks Alliance, an independent, nationwide organization dedicated to urban parks. “Parks and green space are critical to helping our cities become healthier and more vibrant places to live and work, and the leadership of the president and Congress is critical to keeping this engine running.”

For 45 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been a crucial source of support to conserve open space and water resources, while also funding new parks, trails, and recreational facilities in urban and rural communities.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund continues to be an essential tool to meet the increasing demand for livable communities in cities all across this country,” said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock. “In Denver, we value our great opens spaces and recreational facilities. These investments are as much economic investments for the city as they are quality of life investments for our residents. I applaud the President for his commitment and proudly sign the letter encouraging his continued support.”

President Obama acknowledged the importance of urban parks and open space and his support for the Fund when he released the America’s Great Outdoors report, saying:

“They help spur the economy. They create jobs by putting more Americans back to work in tourism and recreation. …They help Americans stay healthier by making it easier to spend time outside. And they’ll help carry forth our legacy as a people who don’t just make decisions based on short-term gains of any one group but on what’s best for the entire nation in the long run.”

The mayors, along with the City Parks Alliance, believe Congress should provide consistent funding for LWCF and not divert these funds for other purposes—a sentiment echoed by nine in 10 Americans, according to recent national polling.

You can read a copy of the mayors’ letter and a list of signees here.

Washington, DC has been blessed with two rivers. The Potomac, though it suffers from pollution issues of its own (the Potomac Conservancy gave the river a D+ rating, in part because of the growing population of genetically mutated fishes),  provides the backdrop to the capitol’s most famous monuments and the springtime explosion of cherry trees. It’s also a hub of recreational activity, lined with parks and trails – one of which, the C&O Canal Trail, follows the river northwards for 184 miles.

The Potomac River looking towards the city center. Photo credit: Flickr user ktylerconk

The banks of the Potomac gained even more greenery with the recent completion of Georgetown Waterfront Park. The 9.5-acre, $24 million project, designed by renowned landscape architecture firm Wallace, Roberts, and Todd, makes the most of its cramped location under an elevated highway with dramatic lighting, a labyrinth, and an interactive fountain. Situated between two rowing centers, Thompson Boat Center and the Potomac Boat Club, it also includes a pergola and river stairs built to accommodate spectators of rowing regattas.

The recently completed Georgetown Waterfront Park. Photo credit: Flickr user NCinDC.

But there’s momentum growing across town, too.

D.C.’s other river, the Anacostia, which forms the southern tip of the city where it flows into the Potomac, has long been an afterthought. Its banks, and the neighborhoods around it, have suffered (a 2008 report by the DC Office of Planning puts median income in the area at 47% below the city’s average, and unemployment continues to far exceed that of the city as a whole).

It is in many ways the opposite of the esteemed Potomac, as captured in this Washington Post description:

“To most Washingtonians, the Anacostia is a very remote presence — that dirty glop of water under the 11th Street Bridge, the Potomac’s ugly cousin, the barrier that sets off the city’s poorer sections from Capitol Hill.”

Once forty feet deep and clear, it is now so choked with sediment and pollution that it is shallow enough to walk across in places.

But if it’s a waterway on life support, the prognosis is good. The Washington Post reports that over the past decade, Congress has appropriated $130 million for Anacostia cleanup. It is also the beneficiary of the District’s 5-cent tax on plastic bags dubbed the “Anacostia River Cleanup Initiative”. The program began in 2010, and has been a major success, dramatically cutting plastic bag litter, and raising $2.5 million for building trash-blocking grates and supporting local cleanup efforts.

Unfortunately, not every attempt to resuscitate the area has been as immediately impactful. Several high-profile efforts to revive the riverfront with parks and mixed-use development emerged just as the recession was beginning, and have since sputtered to a halt. One notable exception, though, is the Capitol Riverfront, a city-created Business Improvement District at the base of the Anacostia that in a few years has become home to over 3,000 residents, 35,000 daytime employees, and seven parks. Two are on the waterfront, including The Yards Park, a new 5.5-acre space with a popular water feature, a pedestrian bridge, and a riverfront boardwalk.

Map of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail

Extending upwards from the Capitol Riverfront is a 16-mile system of trails on either side of the river in various stages of completion, dubbed the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. The Anacostia offers something to planners and developers that is increasingly rare, which is space. (The District’s population surged past 600,000 residents in 2010, during a growth spurt not seen since the end of World War II). Compared to the built-up areas along the Potomac (where it took 40 years from planning to construction to carve out less than 10 acres for the Georgetown Waterfront Park) the Anacostia offers a nearly blank slate for big, new ideas.

The Yards Park water feature. Photo credit: Flickr user Mr. T in DC

D.C. is not exactly starved of park acreage – 19% of its land is parks, the second highest among dense cities. The area to the east of the Anacostia is particularly park-dense, but the abundance of overall space masks some deficiencies that a well-connected system of riverfront parks could help address.

Most obvious is the demand for more trails and linear parks. The roads in Rock Creek Park are closed to cars on weekends, bringing huge numbers of walkers, runners, and cyclists into the park. West Potomac Park is bursting at the seams many weeknights, as packs of cyclists and runners wind their way around a 3-mile loop. And more important than the length of the Anacostia Riverwalk is the fact that its trails will link both sides of the river and be connected by a system of bridges (6 are planned or already have pedestrian access) which will allow users to create loops of various lengths.

Further, once completed, the Riverwalk could offer far more than the sum of its parts by leveraging the value of currently disjointed and underused parks along the river. The 446-acre National Arboretum, far from a Metro stop and difficult to reach by bike or foot, could greatly benefit from waterfront pedestrian access. And adding paths to Langston Golf course could better integrate it into the park system, as we discussed in a Landscape Architecture Magazine piece. Just to the south is Congressional Cemetery, through which paths currently run, a great example of integrating public use into a park-like space.

One of the more intriguing possibilities, to mirror the rowing-centric Potomac, is that the Anacostia could offer a place for exploring the city by kayak. Portions of the Potomac are already popular amongst white-water kayakers as well as those who prefer more placid waters, and numerous cities (see Milwaukee, Houston, and Detroit) have established water trail systems that are closely integrated with riverfront parks.

And for the boldest visionaries, there is RFK Stadium, which sits in the middle of the riverfront and is maybe the most conspicuously underused space in the area. A recent article in the Washington Post invited thinkers to discuss the future of the mostly-unused, fifty year-old stadium, and four of the five contributors pondered its potential as a park (often mixed with mixed-use development), offering active amenities like rock climbing or a velodrome to complement the mostly passive recreation areas alongside the riverbanks.

With development starting from scratch in many areas, there is a unique opportunity to create and improve parks in concert with development and transit improvements. The popular Circulator bus routes recently began operating in Anacostia, and the streetcar system that is set to start running through northeast DC along H Street, which is helping to drive the revitalization of the area, may one day cross into Anacostia on the 11^th Street Bridge.

Bike trails along the Anacostia. Photo credit: Flickr user TrailVoice.

Anacostia already has many acres of parkland, but amenity-rich, well-connected riverfront parks are a totally different creature in terms of development potential. There is no shortage of inspiring precedents for an overhaul of the Anacostia and its parks:

• In Minneapolis, a $55 million in investment in parks on the previously industrial riverbanks, along with $150 million in other public improvements, leveraged $1.2 billion in private investment and the creation of thousands of jobs and new residential units.
• Houston is putting its system of Bayou greenways (expected to cost $490 million) at the forefront of its efforts to attract a young, well-educated population, and a recent study led by John Crompton estimated an annual return of $117 million.
• Columbus turned a 160-acre brownfield along the banks of the Scioto River into an urban outdoors destination, featuring a climbing wall, an Audubon center, access for watercraft, and trails that lead to the Scioto Mile in the downtown core. Now the nearby Brewery District is witnessing a revival in residential development.
• Chattanooga, Tennessee was labeled as having the dirtiest air in the country in 1969, and during the 1980’s the city lost 10% of its population. Its dramatic turnaround (it was just celebrated in Outside magazine as the best city to live in, alongside the titans of outdoorsy urban meccas like Portland and Seattle) is in large part attributable to the park-centered $120 million redevelopment of its riverfront and downtown.

With a consortium of 19 agencies comprising the overarching Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, and the slowdown in real estate since the recession, it’s no surprise that development is occurring ploddingly. But as the river itself is cleaned and its channels deepen, there’s a growing sense that so too is the commitment of the city to making the Anacostia a springboard for livable urban development.

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The city of Oakland has an impressive amount of parkland. In fact, of the nation’s densely populated cities, it has the most parkland per resident. But the land is unequally distributed: the hills are green but the more populous portions of the city are lacking. This fact was the impetus for the formation of the Friends of the Rockridge-Temescal Greenbelt (FROG), which began an effort to build a community park in the Rockridge neighborhood in 1997.  The story of FROG Park is a paragon of community initiative and drive.

The first effort to create a park failed. When a Department of Motor Vehicles licensing facility underwent renovation, green space advocates suggested converting half its parking lot into a park to mitigate the development impact. Other neighbors, however, protested, fearing the loss of parking, and the FROG proposal was rejected. Though unsuccessful, the group remained determined to find a space for a park, and began researching other nearby sites. They soon discovered an area that combined an underused basketball court and dog park with fenced-off land owned by the Alameda County Flood Control District.

The FROG Park playground during construction by community volunteers. Photo credit: Theresa Nelson.

The site was complicated, both in shape – it is long and narrow, and passed over by a major highway – and in ownership. But it also offered tremendous potential, with a creek and an already-existing 120-foot-long mural under the highway. The idea for a park gained additional traction when two FROG volunteers came up with a master plan inspired by the idea of building playgrounds – one for toddlers and one for older kids – to serve as anchors on either end of a linear park.

To secure a lease on the site from the city, FROG was required first to deal with a number of liability issues, negotiating with CalTrans for permission to improve the site below California 24, and assuring unfettered passage for the Alameda County Flood Control District to service the creek and its utility area.

By early 2000, it became clear that FROG would be able to secure the cobbled-together park site, and fundraising began in earnest.  By working with Oakland Vice Mayor Jane Brunner, FROG positioned itself to legally receive funding from city bond measures. (Later, Brunner also provided her entire $125,000 annual discretionary allotment to the park as a challenge grant.) Oakland’s Measure DD (the Trust for Clean Water and Safe Parks) provided $140,000. California Proposition 12 (the Safe Neighborhood Parks, Clean Water, Clean Air and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2000) supplied $493,000. They also manage to snag $60,000 for a tot lot under Measure I (the Oakland General Obligation Bonds for Parks) — and then, with the help of Friends of Oakland Parks, an amazing additional $400,000 of interest money on unspent Measure I funds.

Private fundraising followed in 2000, consisting of a mail campaign, monthly articles in the local newspaper, direct solicitations of businesses, a reception and a silent auction, generating well over $200,000, along with a critical $350,000 worth of volunteer labor and tools.

The park was built in two phases (with a third and final phase still to come). Phase I consisted of improved access to Temescal Creek (most of which flows below in an underground pipe), the construction of two playgrounds, the restoration of the 1972 mural (by the original artist along with students from a local arts college) and Phase II, completed in 2006, yielded paths, basketball hoops, swings and a water fountain, and the public art element: a series of obelisks equipped with small telescopes aimed at brass castings of animals that inhabit the landscape. (There is also a reproduction of the castings on a table so that the visually impaired can feel the sculptures.). The final addition will be a solar-powered restroom, as the park has only a porta-potty for 10 years, funded by FROG.

Total costs for Phases I and II totaled only $2.87 million, partly because FROG mobilized the entire community to help — 1,300 volunteers showed up over 10 days to construct the playgrounds under the direction of Leathers & Associates of Ithaca, New York. (FROG volunteers also prepared three meals a day for the volunteer workers and offered free child care during the entire period.)

The design of FROG Park incorporates land owned by the Alameda Couny Flood Control District. Photo credit: Theresa Nelson.

FROG now works to sustain community involvement, which remains the backbone of the park. All maintenance besides grass cutting and trash removal (done by the city), such as creek cleaning and refinishing the wooden play structures, is done by neighbors on semiannual work days. A local high school sends its entire freshman class each year to work on replanting the native garden.

The park is a seven-minute walk from the nearest BART station, and park co-founder Theresa Nelson reports that many park visitors arrive on public transit. The weekend farmer’s market, held in the DMV parking lot, brings in “probably a thousand people, from kids splashing in the creek and sailing boats to older couples walking to the market,” according to Nelson. FROG has also worked with the developers of two adjacent infill developments to extend the park into their properties. Realtors have begun to pitch the park in advertisements, and surrounding properties seem to have benefited: while Rockridge property values have generally remained stable since the park was constructed, Nelson estimates an average home near the park has increased in value by about $150,000.

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Windsor, a town of 27,000 almost 30 miles north of San Pablo Bay, is the site of one of the newest central parks in the Bay Area. Interestingly, the Windsor Town Green grew not from the needs of a park-starved citizenry, but from a community’s desire to reclaim a largely abandoned downtown, provide a public gathering place – and, not least, compete with nearby towns for Sonoma County wine country tourists.

Even before Windsor incorporated in 1992, there was momentum behind the idea of transforming the underutilized downtown area into a public plaza. That vision, first articulated by Sonoma County in 1986, remained in place after incorporation and served as the foundation for turning the downtown, once a wine processing and railroad hub, into a true walkable civic center anchored by shops and residences.

A crowd gathers on a summer night in Windsor's Town Green. Photo courtesy Windsor Department of Parks and Recreation.

Windsor decided to develop the Town Green, as well as its new municipal center, on the grounds of a vacant junior high school campus, thus fortunately eliminating any opposition from neighbors.  Owned by the Sonoma County Office of Education, the 21-acre site was broken into two parts and sold — 7.5 acres of buildings to the town (for a new town hall), and 13.5 acres to a private developer, subject to a town planning process.

In 1999, after the exact location of the Town Green had been selected, the Windsor Redevelopment Agency purchased the 4.84-acre park site for $1,142,670, which included more than $450,000 in matching grants from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation Open Space District. The remaining funds came from the agency’s capital fund, which is replenished by the collection of the tax increment in the growing area. Two years earlier, the Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District had acquired another small part of the property to protect a stand of historic oaks. The remainder of the land has been (or is in the process of being) redeveloped for housing and retail around the park.

Finding a private developer willing to gamble on a unique project in an area of traditional subdivisions was not easy, even with the redevelopment agency spending $2,900,000 to build the park, widen sidewalks, bury utilities, and improve the surrounding streets.

“The town had been promoting the concept of mixed use for a long time,” says Senior Planner Rick Jones, “but no one was willing to take the risk” on a new urbanist development. Finally, in 2001, a developer named Orrin Thiessen took the plunge. In addition to the park, Windsor provided Thiessen with some other incentives. He was given the right to develop his three properties at higher densities than code allowed, and also to encroach on sidewalks for restaurants and commercial use. He was also given an expedited planning review process and reduced parking requirements. By now, almost 14 acres of colorful three-story townhomes with commercial space below have been built.

The Town Green itself features a stage, covered pavilions, a playground, a plum tree orchard, a fountain, reflecting pools, and a historical time-line walk. (The historic oak grove is directly adjacent.) The park, as well as the adjacent restaurants and businesses, are supplied with a Wi-Fi network. In 2008, a community member offered to help underwrite the expansion of the stage, which is now outfitted with a sound system, used for the numerous programs held on the green. Programming is varied and popular, and all events are free. The Summer Nights on the Green concert series is expected to attract 40,000 attendees in 2011. Other regular summer events include the Farmers Market, Tuesday Night Kid Movies and the outdoor Shakespeare Theater on the Green.