May 12, 2016, Masters of Urban Planning Students, Kelsey Blaho and Cayla Cothron presented their Ecological vision for City Park. This project was solicited by the City Park Alliance in an effort to improve and preserve the ecological services in City Park. This project is considered especially timely given the upcoming work to create design guidelines for City Park and update the current City Park Master Plan.
Ecologically-Based Master Plan Documents:
CU-Denver Masters in Urban Planning Students Kelsey Blaho and Cayla Cothron are creating a vision for City Park which maximizes the park’s potential ecological services.
2016 and 2017 will be important years for City Park. Historic Denver and Denver Parks and Recreation are proposing to update the City Park Master Plan and create historic guidelines for City Park. In addition, a proposal was recently accepted to re-develop the City Park golf course to include additional stormwater detention. These efforts could include significant changes in the way City Park functions and could prescribe policies and design principles which shape the future of City Park for the next generation.
City Park Alliance has been involved in supporting the re-development of the City Park master plan and the creation of design guidelines through both written and financial support. Knowing that there could be changes coming regarding the way Denver views new and existing assets at City Park, the City Park Alliance solicited students from the CU-Denver Master Planning Program to develop an Ecologically Based Master Plan for City Park. The purpose of this plan is to feed into the Master Planning efforts by recommending structural and programmatic improvements to the park to ensure that City Park can exist as a park which performs highly in terms of its ecological services.
Kelsey Blaho and Cayla Cathron accepted the challenge and are developing an Ecological Master Plan for City Park which will feed into future planning efforts from Denver Parks and Recreation. This master plan will be housed on the City Park Alliance web site and will be presented at several venues including the City Park Ice Cream Social and the CU-Denver Master Planning Program open house.