A dormant plan for expanding one of Dallas’ most popular parks has been reinvigorated thanks in part to money from a recently approved city bond package that allocated $1.25 billion for improvements to parks and other city infrastructure
Klyde Warren Park, located in the heart of downtown, initially was supposed to undergo expansions in 2020. After a four-year delay, the park’s leadership hopes to have rebid the project by mid-2025, and to complete the full renovations by December 2028.
The park opened in 2012 and has been a catalyst for growth in downtown ever since. Built on a deck over Woodall Rodgers Freeway, Klyde Warren Park is one of downtown’s most popular gathering spots. The park’s initial construction cost around $90 million, and its forthcoming expansion was delayed by spiraling construction costs in the face of the pandemic. Now that the park’s leadership says it can begin moving forward again, locals and visitors enthusiastically anticipate its changes.
Zach Berberich, a businessman who works downtown, said he frequents the park on his lunch break, sometimes grabbing a bite to eat from the food trucks there.
“I travel a good bit for work and I’m always disappointed when I go to the East Coast because they just have such better park structures, downtowns and walkways,” he said. “So to hear about the expansion is good news.”
Berberich also said his children love the park and will be well served by its expansion.
“Plus, economically, Dallas is doing good. Revenues are good. So might as well spend it on something we can use,” he said.
The $155 million expansion will be funded with $10 million in unspent funds from the 2017 city bond election, $6.5 million from the recent bond package, $43 million from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, $20 million from the federal government and $1.7 million from Dallas County, according to Jody Grant, chairman of the Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation.
For additional funding, the park is “at the mercy of individual and private donors,” said Kit Sawers, president and CEO of the park.
“We hope that Klyde Warren Park has certainly proved itself as being worthy of donations and support from the community,” Grant said.
Sawers explained that in order to grow the park, plans and a budget must be approved by the Texas Department of Transportation, which oversees the freeway that Klyde Warren Park sits atop. Then, the information is posted publicly and contractors bid on the job.
“We had to go back to the drawing board and engage in some value engineering and try to reduce the cost,” he said. “I’m quite hopeful that we will be able to develop a budget this time … that we can put out for bid and it will be acceptable. We have more money now than we ever had before.”
Klyde Warren Park is operated by a nonprofit organization that holds about 1,300 free events annually. The park draws about 1.3 million visitors a year. The expansion would increase the number of free events by around 30%, Grant said.
The park’s expansion is projected to add 1.7 acres to the existing 5.4 acres, a deck between Akard and St. Paul streets, and a new building to host indoor events. Grant is most excited about introducing a lawn with artificial turf on which to host festivals, and a seasonal ice-skating rink.
The constant activity around the park is a huge draw for many downtown residents. Leonie Waldon, who recently moved to Dallas from Portland, Ore., said she chose to live in the downtown area because of the park.
“I’ve always heard that there’s a lot to do around here and it felt safe,” she said. “The most important thing is that it’s family-oriented, so I think it’s great.”
Business owners who rely on the traffic generated by the park see its expansion as an opportunity for their growth and development, too.
Doug Dzina, a food truck operator who works at Bondi Bowls in the park, said he thinks the expansion will help businesses in the park and the surrounding area.
“It’ll bring more people into the park. And more people means more business for the food trucks,” he said. After setting up shop every day for the past three months, “we’re ready to grow and see where the expansion takes us.”
Sarai Sossa, a barista at the Salty Donut pop-up cafe, expressed a similar optimism. She said Klyde Warren Park has proven transformative in broadening her coffee shop’s outreach into the city.
“This is just a post. Our flagship is further south, so it helps more people be able to reach us and helps overall with consumers,” she said. The park “helps build the bridge between those who are north of Dallas, as we’re stationed in Bishop Arts.”
Sossa, like Dzina, believes that the expansion will “turn small businesses around” by drawing in more patrons and tourist traffic on a daily basis.
According to Dzina, “this park literally brought downtown Dallas back to life.”
Correction: 9:24 a.m., June 10, 2024: Kit Sawers is president of Klyde Warren Park. Her name was spelled incorrectly in an earlier version of this story.
