{"id":160626,"date":"2026-02-11T23:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160626\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T23:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T23:16:07","slug":"ford-park-in-allen-to-get-new-playground-following-750k-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/160626\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Park in Allen to get new playground following $750K grant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAllen\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/engage.allentx.gov\/en\/projects\/reimagine-ford-park\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ford Park<\/a> renovation project will now include an additional playground.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Parks and Wildlife awarded a $750,000 grant to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofallen.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Allen<\/a> Parks and Recreation Department, according to a Jan. 30 news<a href=\"https:\/\/tpwd.texas.gov\/newsmedia\/releases\/?req=20260129b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> release<\/a>. The city plans to use this money to add a playground to the north section of Ford Park, Director of Parks and Recreation Kate Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p>A closer look<\/p>\n<p>Voters approved <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofallen.org\/government\/engage_allen_2023_bond.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$17 million in bond funding<\/a> to improve Ford Park in 2023. The 50-acre park is one of Allen\u2019s oldest and is currently split into four segments, Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith this project, we&#8217;re going to be trying to bring all four components together in one unified park,\u201d Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p>The planned improvements include:<\/p>\n<p>Pickleball courtsUpdated sports fieldsExpanded trailsA youth activity zonePlaypodsCity staff wanted to add a park to the north section, but there was no room in the existing budget, Meacham said. The additional funding will also help with trail connectivity and a potential pavilion at the site.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;ll kind of become a mini neighborhood park within the larger community park,\u201d Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s next<\/p>\n<p>Construction is expected to begin early this fall, and city staff estimate the park will be closed for the majority of 2027, Meacham said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allen\u2019s Ford Park renovation project will now include an additional playground. Texas Parks and Wildlife awarded a $750,000&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[65914,1604,65910,65911,65913,65912,62332,160,162,161,2603,65915],"class_list":["post-160626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-allen-parks-and-recreation-department","tag-community-impact","tag-ford-park","tag-ford-park-allen","tag-ford-park-renovation","tag-parks-in-allen","tag-parks-near-allen","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news","tag-texas-parks-and-wildlife","tag-texas-parks-grant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}