Which neighborhood parks in Houston will receive upgrades?

Twenty-five neighborhood parks across Houston will receive upgrades through a $60 million public-private partnership after City Council on Wednesday committed more than $11 million to the initiative. 

Called Let’s Play Houston, the initiative combines public and private dollars to renovate local parks. City officials and the Houston Parks Board selected the projects after evaluating more than 180 neighborhood parks for the area’s social vulnerability and the parks’ physical conditions, while also attempting to upgrade parks in all 11 council districts. 

Houston Parks Board President and CEO Justin Schultz said Let’s Play Houston represents the largest investment in neighborhood parks in recent city history and directs long-overdue resources to areas that often receive less attention than Houston’s marquee green spaces. 

“These are some of the most used parks in the city of Houston,” he said. “They are parks that people go to more frequently than the large destination parks because they’re embedded in each of the neighborhoods of Houston. The challenge is, because they don’t have the visibility of some of those larger parks, they are often forgotten when it comes to investment.”

Mayor John Whitmire praised the two-year long initiative at council Wednesday.

“We’re doing so much for our iconic parks,” Whitmire said. “We need to get into the neighborhoods.”

Schultz said the selection process began with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index, which combines socioeconomic indicators into a numerical score. That score was then paired with existing park conditions to determine which parks would receive upgrades.

The first phase of the initiative includes one park in each council district. Community engagement and design work on the remaining 14 parks is already underway, and officials expect all 25 projects to be completed by the end of 2028. 

The $11 million in city funding will be combined with at least $40 million the parks board will raise for the initiative. 

The city also secured an $8 million Texas Parks and Wildlife grant, Houston Parks Director Kenneth Allen said, bringing the initiative’s total investment to almost $60 million.