*****WARNING LONG POST AHEAD*****
So I'm back from traveling the country (drove 5,496 miles) telling jokes and seeing lots of other cities in some ways saddened me, but being an optimist, gave me new ideas for Phoenix. Or really reinforced current ideas and thoughts I already had.
Primarily Im talking about Downtowns lack of park space, and Phoenix's generally underwhelming urban parks. Our Mountain Preserves are amazing and unparalleled in the country, but the design of our traditional parks is just awful for the most part.
For the most part I love the Civic Space and think its a big success. Like I thought when I looked at the plans for it the large hardscape on the NE corner rarely gets used and is a design flaw, but besides that its terrific. I would've much rather have seen a large splash pad there with unique features. The current splash pad that exists (and is only open for 4 hours on a Sunday) is a joke and embarrassing.
Here are a few of the great parks I saw that Phoenix needs to look at for inspiration:
Millenium Park in Chicago:
Obviously Millennium Park is very large, in the Downtown Core itself there would be no room to do something similar.
Millennium Parks water feature is awesome and the NE Corner of the Civic Space should've been something similar. It would've helped attract more of a diverse kids besides college kids and bring children and families to the park.
Millennium Park is about 25 acres, almost the exact same acreage as Hance Park. As I've said (probably ad nauseum) Hance park needs to be redesigned along the lines of Millennium Park. It would be hugely expensive and not possible right now, but there's no time like the present to start planning. Millennium Park has a lot of corporate sponsorship (and believe me it doesn't diminish the parks greatness one bit) and that could help make an enhanced Hance possible.
One major issue Hance faces is the surrounding area. Millennium Park is surrounded by huge structures, adjacent to an Art Museum and has active uses on all sides. Hance does have some positive things going for it, being adjacent to the Library, the Irish Cultural Center, the Puppet Theater, the Phx Center for the Arts & the Japanese Friendship Garden. However some of these uses (Japanese Garden, Irish Center) are fenced off and disconnected from the park, making them seem like separate unrelated attractions, that has to change.
With Channel 12 moving to the Az Republic building, hopefully their awful, anti urban building can be demolished and replaced with something better. I'd love to see a Natural History Museum there for instance as the only one in the Valley is the rather underwhelming one in Mesa. Something like that would attract thousands of school kids every year and fill the park with life.
Discovery Green in Houston:
Discovery Green is about 12 acres or so, so again its not directly analogous to anything we could do here. But many of its ideas and features could be used in a redone Hance Park.
They have 2 restaurants built into the park, one with a roof top deck. They have a pond and a place where you can rent remote control boats. They have a large splash pad as well as a unique "Mist Tree" sculpture. Its built over a parking garage and adjacent to their Convention Center on one side and the Downtown Core on the other. Just a bit to the North is Minute Maid Park (Astros) and a bit south is the Toyota Center (Rockets). It has band shells and a oak lined promenade thats simply gorgeous.
CityGarden in St Louis:
CityGarden is a redone 2 block section of the much longer "Gateway Mall" of parks connecting historic Union Station to the Courthouse (where the Dred Scott decision took place). Its only about 3 acres and thus is probably more the type of thing Phoenix should look at copying. Due to our desert climate and the way the city is laid out a huge grassy place like Central Park in NYC is never going to happen, but lots of smaller places like the Civic Space and CityGarden in a 'connected oasis' (lets hope that becomes a reality) could and should happen.
CityGarden like the other 2 parks had a large, unique splash pad. It also had a curving wall built of local limestone that had a water wall that could be played in and manipulated. There was about 20 large sculptures through out the park and
native plants (selected in association with the Mo Botanical Garden) through out the park.
Unsurprisingly all of these 3 parks were mentioned in
this article on the best new urban parks in the US.
I know Ive mentioned this parcel before and some (GymRat, maybe others) disagreed but being as its almost the exact acreage of CityGarden I really think it could be a successful urban park:
Its really the only place our City has the chance to build a park in the center of towers and active uses on most sides. It could be the Town Square that PSP tried but failed to be. It already has underground parking which is nice, and the entrance to the garage could be cleverly implemented into the park somehow. Now that its very clear that CityScapes central plaza is nothing like a park or great public space, we ought to work to have that replaced.
With the restaurants all along the North and East sides, CityScape to the West and the Arena to the South its really a perfect spot for an urban park. As much as we'd all love to see condos, and thus people downtown, those condo towers just aren't going to happen anytime soon. The City should look into a land swap with RED (like they did with Colliers to build Steele Indian School Park) and maybe they can build condos or something somewhere else down the line when there's actually a market for that.
There's enough space on that parcel for a bandshell (Id vote to put it on the NE corner) where lunchtime concerts could happen (like once happened at PSP) as well as maybe evening/night time concerts on the weekends to create a synergy with the clubs along Washington.
Additionally a large, unique, signature water feature(s) should be built, especially in our climate. Making 1st street close- able for large events (like when the Suns finally win the title) would make sense too and expand the park slightly.
The key element all the great parks I saw had was: 1. diversity of uses, 2. active edges. Civic Space succeeds to the degree it does because it has a diversity of uses (hills, flat grass, band shell, art gallery, coffee shop, large public art) and due to the active edge on the East side and the transit center to the South. Hance has a lot of challenges with activating its edges but certainly its diversity of uses can be expanded. The Downtown block I highlighted already would have very active edges and if planned properly could be incredible.
Anyway, Ive rambled on too long but my main point is this: Civic Space is great but could be a bit better. Hance Park is a toilet and needs to be totally redone. We need a small urban park/green town square in our city Center and the block bounded by Wash/Jeff and 1st/2nd is the perfect place for it.