The city moved to designate about 65 acres of open space as new Denver parks May 2, protecting the land from being developed or sold.

The new park designations include 30 acres of Northfield Pond Park and six acres at the Southwest Recreation Center and were part of the city’s tenth round of designations over a five-year span.

Last year, the city designated approximately 283 acres in Denver parks land, of its more than 1,000 since 2013, including an addition of 98 acres at Red Rocks, making way for new trails around the park’s 9,000-seat music amphitheater. With the new designations, about 85 percent of space eligible to be designated has been labeled so.

Through a grant, Westwood Park and Weir Gulch Park were targeted for renovations, said Gordon Robertson, Denver Parks and Recreation director of park planning.

“That park hasn’t seen renovations in a long time,” Robertson said of Westwood Park, noting the key feature of the park improvements will be its nature playground. “It’s beyond a playground, it’s a whole makeover of the park.”

Weir Gulch park will include a nature playground and a slew of amenities through the My Outdoor Colorado program, including an outdoor classroom, gardening and after school programs, family workshops and youth stewardships.

The renovations are a part of Denver’s move toward more natural playgrounds in the city.

Scott Gilmore, deputy manager of the Denver Parks and Recreation Department, said a lot of the designations were acquisition of open space that had yet to be designated as a Denver park. Mayor Michael Hancock put together a task force to explore new park designations across the city, protecting what would otherwise be classified as open space.

Robertson said the city has approximately 6,000 acres of urban park space sprawled over about 250 parks, with more than $1.5 billion worth of assets in the park system. But much of Denver’s park land, approximately 14,000 acres, are in the mountains – most of which are largely unknown to residents.

“It’s a treasure for the citizens of Denver,” Robertson said.

Gilmore boasted that Denver has the highest elevation city park in the country at Summit Lake.

“We have some amazing, amazing amenities,” Gilmore said.

The city has been mapping out the future of parks, and asking residents to weigh in as part of the DenveRight initiative. Learning lessons from park planning in 2003, Robertson said metrics should be used to track progress on parks, focus should be placed equally on physical improvements and park programs and staff should ensure goals aren’t too lofty.

Robertson said his department largely served a caretaker role with the parks in the mountains for decades, but it has evolved into a “proactive programmer” of parks in the last five years.

“Over the next five to 10 years, I think you’re going to see a pretty big transition from places you drive by from places you can go experience,” Robertson said.

Councilman Rafael Espinoza said parks shouldn’t focus too heavily on programming, but there should be a balance.

“The uniquely Denver part of many of our parks is its views of downtown or its views of the mountains and in the mountain parks in particular, the sense of being in wilderness that close to an urban setting,” Espinoza said.

Robertson said with today’s youth, there’s a need for some park programs to get kids out into green space and active.

Gilmore added the idea is to have a park within 10-minute walking distance, no matter what part of the city residents live in.

“There is positive health effects for all people when they feel that earth and play in that dirt,” Espinoza said.

Councilman Albus Brooks said as part of a group working on planning for downtown Denver, he would like to look at possible park designations in the area.

There are great parks downtown, Gilmore said, but he wants to do something dramatically different like introducing restaurants and vendors to new parks in the city.

“We need to be able to do some different things in our parks in our downtown core,” he said. “We need to activate them.”

– adam@coloradostatesman.com