About 100 people gathered at Cutler Plotkin Jewish Heritage Center Wednesday to view a concept design for Phoenix’s Margaret T. Hance Park that was described as innovative and inspiring by those in attendance.
The meeting was the second stage of a redesign process that began in September with a series of community workshops. On Wednesday, the park’s design team presented the greatest challenges facing its current design and revealed what it could look like in the future.
The designers presented a park that was grouped into three main areas. The west end, which currently houses the dog park and Japanese Friendship Garden, would be maintained as a neighborhood park with a playscape and smaller “parklettes” for more intimate groups. The central area by the Burton Barr Library would be an active space, lead designer Jerry van Eyck said, home to a large plaza with water features, a beer garden and a skate park. The eastern edge would be the site of a large events field and amphitheater.
“You can circulate through all of these elements. It’s very playful, but also a very sound park system,” van Eyck said.
Van Eyck is the founder of the New York-based design company !melk, and will head the design team as the lead designer. Scottsdale’s architecture studio Weddle Gilmore is acting as the prime consultant and Phoenix landscape architecture firm Floor Associates is the project’s landscape architect. A dozen other team members, including local stakeholders and national organizations, joined the designers.
The group has a contract with the city of Phoenix and began their work in July 2013. The Phoenix Parks and Preserve Initiative will fund the project.
Hance Park was first dedicated in 1992. In 2010, stakeholders and the city of Phoenix recognized that it was time to update the nearly two-decade-old design.
As one of the first steps in the redesign process, nine visioning workshops were held in September to gauge what residents envisioned for the park and to set design priorities. Earlier this month, the city of Phoenix released a report that compiled the results of those workshops.
From that report, the design team began drafting their vision.
One of the main concerns van Eyck voiced at Wednesday’s meeting was the lack of visibility for the current park. He proposed extending the boundaries of the actual lawn to give Hance Park more of a street presence and adding more prominent entrances all around the 32-acre park.
“Our mission is to work the edges,” van Eyck said. “We literally want to bring the park to the people.”
The team also wanted to create original parking structures. They suggested building a one and a half-story parking garage on the east end of the park and extending the lawn over the lot. The park would gently slope down to its original level and be the site for musical performances and festivals.
The designers emphasized that their plan is only conceptual. The final master plan is slated for March 2014.
Van Eyck said he intended to “give Phoenicians and the city a vision” at Wednesday’s presentation and trigger interest in the project.
It is a grand vision, but some residents are concerned about how that grandeur will translate into an actual park.
“I’m skeptical that it can be something like Central Park,” Phoenix resident Steve Valev said. “I’m curious how they will balance a grand vision with something that can be implemented on a small scale and rooted in the community.”
Philip Weddle, the main consultant for the project, stressed the importance of phasing once the plan is complete. Once the design is finalized, the team and the city will have to prioritize which changes happen first in a project that will take years and significant funding to complete.
“Phasing is going to be something we’ll have to struggle with,” Weddle said. “You need that first phase to have impact.”
Phoenix resident Steve Dreiseszun attended a community workshop in September and said he was hoping for a design that would make the park more visible and accessible. The design team delivered, he said.
“I think the concept is strong,” Dreiseszun said. “I feel like we just graduated to a bigger city … It’s about time.”
Dreiseszun has been in the city for decades and said he saw the park’s first master plan go into effect in the early 1990s.
“We’ve had great opportunities, great plans, but we haven’t executed them,” Dreiseszun said. “I feel like this is an opportunity to finally do it right.”
The team will be back to present an interim design in January 2014.
Contact the reporter at emregan1@asu.edu
