Park Hill Park
Park Hill Park is situated in the Northeast Park Hill Neighborhood of Denver. It will soon stand as the city’s fourthlargest open space, providing a vital new resource in an area long underserved by parks and greenways. This will be the largest addition to Denver’s park system in over a century!
Regional Parks
Opportunities & Gaps
A Denver regional park is generally an urban park that is 80 acres or larger in size and provides areas for large-scale features, large amounts of flexible or passive open space, picnic facilities, playgrounds, athletic fields, and restrooms. These large, destination parks have a major impact on the character of the City, breaking the grid system pattern, enhancing the environment with visual and physical relief, and reducing noise and pollution. There are ten regional parks in Denver. Park Hill Park will be the 11th!
What Key Amenities and Recreational Programs are Missing?
Landscape Typologies
Native Habitat in Parks
Most of Denver’s regional parks feature man-made landscapes, including lawns, playgrounds, and decorative elements designed for recreation and visual appeal. However, a few special parks—like Parkfield Lake Park, Bear Creek Park, and Central Park— have preserved large areas of native landscape. These natural spaces not only provide a glimpse of Colorado’s original environment, but also support local wildlife and offer a more peaceful, nature-rich experience for visitors.
DiD You Know?
Park Edges
Site Understanding
Park Hill Park has a wide variety of edge conditions. From residential (along East 35th Ave) to industrial (along Dahlia St), to the busy Colorado Blvd. The north edge of the site is bordered by A-Line lightrail tracks.
Regional Ecology
Ecological Stepping Stone
Park Hill Park is located at the convergence of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, in one of the world’s few Steppe eco-regions. The site’s unique positioning presents the opportunity to be an ecological stepping stone between the larger natural areas and parks in the front range to the prairies to the east and north of Denver, particularly for avian species that migrate through Colorado on the Central Flyway.
Each year, over 400 speices of birds use the Central Flyway, with one hundred million birds using the route to migrate.
parK hill is an ecological stepping stone!
is a Steppe Ecoregion? A steppe ecoregion refers to a semi-arid grassland with hardy, drought-resistant plants. One of the few true steppe ecoregions is the Shortgrass Prairie found in places like eastern Colorado, where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. This transition zone creates a unique blend of ecological features— making it rare globally.
History
A Layered Past
The land on which the Park Hill Neighborhood resides can be traced back to the tribal lands of the Hinono’eiteen (Arapaho), Nuuchu (Ute), and Tsistsistas (Cheyenne). As Denver grew, the site transitioned from a pastoral grassland used for cattle and dairy farms to Colorado’s first commercial airport, and eventually, to the rolling landscape of the now-closed golf course.
DiD You Know?
In the past hundred years, the site has been a dairy farm, an airport, and a golf course!
parK hill has a complex anD laYereD historY
Tell Us Your Stories!
Our understanding of the site and neighborhood is evolving. The adjacent timeline is a work-in-progress, based on publicly-sourced data.
We need your help to fill in the history. Please add your stories and memories to this board so we can capture a more robust and nuanced narrative.