The City of Boulder is asking residents for their input in designing — and naming — its newest park to be built on a nine-acre site adjacent to the Boulder Meadows neighborhood in North Boulder, the city’s largest manufactured home community.
The city’s Parks and Recreation Department is creating an engagement plan that aims to prioritize youth and families who live in Boulder Meadows as leaders during the design process, it said.
“It’s our job to make it such that the community loves it, enjoys it and takes care of it,” Deryn Wagner, the senior landscape architect and parks planner in charge of the project, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “Those early conversations will help us understand the community’s values and the types of activities that they want to do there.”
The project’s working title is Violet Park. That may change once the neighborhood agrees on a permanent name. The city is still in the beginning stages of the project, which is expected to be completed in 2026.
Part of the project planning is flood mitigation.
Along one side of the area lies North Boulder’s Fourmile Canyon Creek, an 11-mile-long waterway.
To achieve the city’s floodplain goals for the creek and help make the park effectively a sponge, green infrastructure will be included in the park design. The goal is to redirect and absorb stormwater to prevent flooding while avoiding hard infrastructure like gutters, pipes and tunnels.
“We’re trying to use nature as our guide in improving the floodplain there,” Wagner said, adding that the plan is to “minimize the amount of concrete or hard surfaces and we maximize the land’s ability to absorb water and direct it where it needs to go.”
Wagner said the city will incorporate green infrastructure into the design with elements like hills and stone steps. These features will serve a dual purpose — for recreation like climbing, and for soaking up rain, steering the flow of water and halting runoff.
Among Colorado municipalities, Boulder has the highest risk of flash flooding in the state.
In 2022, the U.S. The Department of Interior awarded $61 million in grants for outdoor access improvements across the country. As part of these grants, Violet Park will receive $750,000.
According to the award, Violet Park, “will serve neighborhoods with under-resourced and under-served populations in North Boulder. The Park will provide an interactive adventure playground pavilion and plaza area, climbing features, nature exploration, community garden with native and sustainable plant demonstrations, a small bike pump track, and areas of passive recreation with nature paths.”
Other funding sources and a budget for a project are still being worked out.
Going forward, the city is hosting multiple events to gather community input:
- Friday, August 11, 9-11 a.m. Neighborhood gathering for children ages 3 to 6 and their families and caregivers at Meadows Community Center.
- Saturday, August 19, 9-11 a.m. Park clean-up volunteer event. Meet at the Meadows Community Center.
- Saturday, August 26, 3-6 p.m. Block party and resource fair for the Boulder Meadows community (residents only).
- Sunday, September 10, 1-3:30 p.m. “What’s Up Boulder” event at Foothills Community Park.
Wagner is hoping to have a team of consultants assembled this August and a rough design worked out by next summer. During this process, Wagner plans to provide many community engagement opportunities along the way.
“In the end, when we’ve built this park, it really needs to reflect those who are going to use it most often,” Wagner said. “It needs to be enticing and inclusive and supportive for them.”
Boulder does not need another concrete play land. The park in NOBO should be as natural as can be. That would provide a peaceful place with little impact to the environment. There is a great cave like climbing structure in the park by Eisenhower School that would look great in the NOBO location. Peace and tranquility and love of nautical and our natural environs should be the goal of this open space park.
Please share a map of this proposed park so we can see where it will be.