From outdoor classes and graduation to concerts and festivals to a place to gather, a new Wheat Ridge park promises many fun times.
Once completed next summer, the nearly two-acre Green at 38th Park will include a stage/outdoor classroom, civic greenspace, festival promenade for vendors, playground, two fire pits, a game grove, seating areas, significantly more trees and other landscaping, plus public art and a community art wall.
The Green at 38th is between Stevens Elementary School, 7101 W. 38th Ave., and West 38th Avenue, the city’s “Main Street.”
Parks and Recreation Director Karen O’Donnell noted no grand opening events for the new park are scheduled yet, but said, “We’ll have something fun for everyone, for sure.”
Kristina McCombie, a first-grade teacher at Stevens Elementary, is helping develop ideas and events to hold once the park opens. She’s excited about things like having an outdoor stage for the school’s continuation, or graduation, ceremonies.
“Right now our stage is in the cafeteria and it’s difficult to rearrange things all the time when we’re having events,” McCombie said. “Having continuation outside will really be beautiful. Our fifth graders are excited and they’ll get much more of a graduation feel.”
Planning started 15 years ago
A concept to create a community gathering space at the site was first considered in 2009 as part of an update to the city comprehensive plan, O’Donnell said.
The city started public discussion about the project in 2018. A stakeholder group helped with initial design concepts and included representation from Jefferson County Public Schools, Stevens Elementary, local businesses, the city and Localworks.
They created a vision statement: “Create a flexible and safe gathering space that can be used for community events, concerts and festivals while also providing a physical buffer and separation from the school space.”
Then the project, like almost everything, was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed in 2021.
The project design was completed in 2023 by The Architerra Group and ECI Site Construction Management was hired as the construction management firm in March.
Phase one work replaced and reconfigured the Stevens Elementary parking lot earlier this year. Phase two work on the park began in August.
More than $8M project
O’Donnell said the first phase cost about $1.4 million and the second phase, with a $6.3 million budget, is expected to wrap up next summer. In mid-November, work was focused mostly on earthwork, utilities and foundation, O’Donnell said.
The city was awarded over $1.6 million in grants to help build the park:
• Colorado Department of Local Affairs Energy/Mineral Impact Assistance Fund ($850,000);
• Great Outdoors Colorado Community Impact program ($500,000);
• Colorado Department of Transportation Revitalizing Main Streets program ($250,000);
• Gates Family Foundation Capital Projects program ($30,000); and
• Waste Management Charitable Contributions program ($3,000).
Money for the new park also comes from the city general fund and open space money from the state lottery’s conservation trust fund, O’Donnell added.
An intergovernmental agreement between the city and school district governs the shared use of the site. The district owns and maintains the parking lot; the city owns and maintains the park. The agreement also addresses parking lot and park use during school hours vs. non-school hours, property maintenance and other issues.
Gathering place at heart of design
“We designed the park to reflect the fact that Stevens Elementary dates back to the 1800s, long before Wheat Ridge became a city,” O’Donnell said. “Schools back then — just like today — were also community gathering places, so that’s an important part of the design.”
The Green at 38th musical performances will not replace those held at the much larger Anderson Park and elsewhere, she added. The entire new park site, including the parking lot, is close to three acres in size.
One proposed feature, a water spray park, was left out after some residents worried it would waste water during hot summer months, O’Donnell stated, along with maintenance concerns. Instead, a second fire pit was added to the final design.
“Some people have said they were really concerned about the number of trees we were removing, but almost all of them were sick and dying,” O’Donnell added. “And we’re going to be planting way more trees than we removed.”
School-related events will likely be held during the day and most city events will take place at night, she noted.
School events that attract neighbors and other community members are another idea, McCombie stated. For instance, the school hopes to connect with surrounding businesses, especially those geared toward the outdoors, she said.
Having the park as an outdoor classroom will be an important part of the school’s efforts to connect students with the outside world, McCombie added.
For instance, students study birds with help from the Denver Audubon Society. That has included visiting various locations.
“Now we’ll be able to do that right out our front door in a super nice space,” she said.
A winter bird feeder haven in the park is another idea McCombie said the school might undertake.
“I don’t think we can say the park will help increase our test scores but I know the interest by our students in the outdoors will be much more impactful,” she explained. “We’ve always focused on nurturing the whole child and this will help do that.”
And having the park available can likely make any presentations to classes more appealing to students, McCombie added.
“Having this space will be invaluable,” she stated. “There are some great things happening.”
