The once-empty space over 14 lanes of interstate highway traffic coursing through the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas is now an exceptional new development open to the public: Halperin Park. The $300 million freeway capping project includes a playground, splash pad, band shell, large lawn, and linear walkway that resurrects an erased section of a historic street.
Joining the widely celebrated freeway-capping Klyde Warren Park, which opened its first phase over a stretch of a recessed downtown freeway in 2012, Halperin Park is a community-centric model for addressing the divisions wrought by highway building.
[Photo: Bill Tatham/SWA]Reconnecting a neighborhood
Designed by architecture firm HKS and landscape architecture firm SWA, the cap park reconnects part of Oak Cliff, a South Dallas neighborhood cut up by the 1950s-era highway-building boom.
At the time I-35E was constructed, Oak Cliff was home to a thriving Black community. As in many other non-white neighborhoods in cities across the country, the community was shattered by highway construction and the decades of disinvestment that followed.
“While it’s a park to reconnect communities, it’s also a park that we wanted the communities to feel like they helped design; they helped influence the programming,” says Todd Strawn, managing principal for SWA’s Dallas studio and lead designer on the project.
During the planning process, a “community-first plan” was developed through extensive outreach, focusing the project on outcomes like improving access for schools in the surrounding area, increasing shade, and reducing the heat island effect in the neighborhood.
[Photo: David Lloyd/SWA]Balancing recreation and economic development
As it officially opens, the 2.8-acre park is forging a small but meaningful reconnection in the area. Its design honors the neighborhood’s history while also encouraging the economic development it needs.