Construction Begins on Southern Gateway Park, Set to Open in 2025
On November 9, The Southern Gateway Public Green Foundation officially kicked off construction on Southern Gateway Park. Slated to be completed in 2025, the park’s builders are aiming for it to be a catalyst for bridging the gap in Dallas that Interstate 35E created. The public/private partnership is expecting to attract an estimated 2 million visitors each year and generate more than $1 billion in economic impact in its first five years.
According to Southern Gateway’s President and CEO April Allen, the park’s first phase is 82 percent funded. “This generational project will lead to increased greenspace, significant economic development, and safer, healthier places to live and play,” she said. “But on a personal level, one reason this project is so important to me is that I want to show the people in this community—my community—that they matter, that they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars of investment. Every person, regardless of where they live, deserves to have beautiful amenities and public spaces where they feel welcome. That’s what motivates me every day to keep doing whatever it takes to make this vision a reality.”
Global design firm HKS and landscape architecture firm SWA are leading the park’s planning and design.
The parks amenities will be similar to Klyde Warren Park’s: water features, green spaces, places for children to play, a stage, and pavilions. The Southern Gateway Park will also have parking for food trucks, but those spots, along with space within the flex building reserved for small businesses, are part of the foundation’s plan to use the park to improve economic opportunities, opening up the potential for community members to become entrepreneurs.
“What I hope historians will say is that this moment in time turned out to be the turning point in how we viewed and treated the southern part of our city,” Mayor Johnson said. “This marks the moment we stopped talking about investing in Southern Dallas and actually did it—when we invested in real infrastructure to spur the growth and development not only of the geographic area, but more importantly, the people themselves.”