Plans for Frisco’s expansive 1,000-acre park continue to gain momentum as a city council meeting outlines the next steps.
On June 30, Frisco council members were presented with the findings of a consultancy project conducted by the global design firm IDEO to help plan Grand Park.
As previously reported in The Dallas Express, IDEO was tasked with developing a concept for Grand Park based on feedback from the community and other stakeholders as part of a $394,000 professional services agreement.
After buying the land with residents’ approval in 2005, Frisco has been steadily but slowly moving toward converting the site of a former battery plant into a legacy park.
Residents got a first taste of what the land has to offer in late November when the city opened a 2.2-mile trailway known as Big Bluestem Trail to visitors, as previously reported in The Dallas Express.
Through meetings and workshops with community groups and a community survey, IDEO identified a vision and some guiding principles for Grand Park.
“With opportunities to immerse in nature, play, connect with the community, and discover something new with each visit, we will give the residents of Frisco a reason to keep coming back for generations to come,” a vision statement from IDEO read, according to the Frisco Enterprise (FE).
In the coming months, Frisco city staff will refine this vision and develop a business plan in collaboration with the city council, city manager’s office, and IDEO, explained Frisco’s Director of Parks and Recreation Shannon Coates, according to FE.
Yet much of this depends on the results of site characterization, which will involve exploring and assessing the plot’s topography, natural habitats, and more. This is no easy feat considering its massive size and the fact that it includes a floodplain and 7.8 miles of creek.
“So in order for us to get to those next steps, we’ve got to know everything, as much as we can, about the site itself,” Coates said, per FE.
Coates urged for patience from the community, saying that “it is a process, it is a large piece of property, there are many, many steps in actually the creation of any park. … We are working, we are in progress, there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes,” according to FE.
Located between Cotton Gun Road and Stonebrook Parkway west of the Dallas North Tollway, Grand Park stands to become the nation’s largest urban park.
“This park will actually be bigger than Central Park in New York,” Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said, according to CBS News Texas. “This park will have so much that you couldn’t expect to experience all of it in a single day or maybe even a single week.”
