Originally published on SaportaReport.
By Hannah E. Jones, Park Pride’s Marketing & Communications Manager
Picture the entrance to your neighborhood park. What does it look like? How accessible is it? What message does it send?
Park entrances are often overlooked when considering how to improve a park, yet entrances inform how visitors arrive, what they experience and how they interact with the space. Great entrances are crucial for allowing access, building awareness, providing safety and instilling community pride.
Through Park Pride’s Park Design Workshop, our team paired seven Friends of the Park groups (referred to hereafter as Friends groups) with volunteer landscape architects to create plans to reimagine their park entryways. This opportunity was provided at no cost to the community.
The participating groups include the Friends of Adair Park II, Brookhaven Park, Coach Charles Rambo Park, Empire Park, Outdoor Activity Center, Tanyard Creek Park and Wade Walker Park.
After working together for eight weeks, the Friends groups and landscape architects gathered at the Lang-Carson Recreation Center to present their plans. The seven groups face similar hurdles – either their park lacks an official entrance or, if they do have one, it feels unwelcoming due to gates, overgrown plants and unclear pathways.
As one Friends group member put it, “Our entrances, for lack of a better word, suck.”
Great park entryways can vary in size and style but have some things in common – like clear signage, an inviting feel, a sense of safety, and an inclusive and accessible design.
The drafted plans include installing signs, creating dedicated pedestrian and cyclist entrances, building a plaza, adding bike racks, removing invasive plants and more to make these park entryways more visible, accessible and welcoming.
“A poorly designed entrance can give an unwelcoming feel to the space, and, in some cases, the lack of a defined entry makes it seem like there isn’t a park at all,” Park Pride’s Park Designer Nick Voravong said. “A good entrance not only defines the space but can give the park an identity within its community.”
He added: “The Park Design Workshop is a valuable opportunity for Friends groups to work with designers that they may not be able to connect with otherwise and speak with other Friends groups about common challenges.”
Now, these Friends groups can apply to Park Pride’s Grantmaking Program to help bring their plans to fruition. Last year, our Park Design Workshop focused on park inclusivity and based on their drafted plans, the Friends of Thomasville Park received a 2024 grant to install accessible play equipment.
Thank you to the landscape architects who helped make this possible – Breedlove Land Planning, Cooper Carry, DAVID RUBIN Land Collective, Gresham Smith, MKSK and Two Square Feet!
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” Park Pride’s Director of Park Visioning Andrew White said. “Park entryways need special attention as they contribute more to a visitor’s initial impression of a park than nearly anything else.”